On Finding: From Epistemic Acts to Accepted Facts

Scientific discoveries are often discussed in terms of their outcomes: new facts, new theories, new bodies of knowledge. Much less attention has been paid to the process that leads from not-yet-knowing to accepted knowledge -- and in particular to the epistemic act of finding itself.

The workshop starts from the idea that finding is neither mere perception nor invention, neither pure luck nor the mere application of method. Rather, it is a distinctive epistemic practice that combines activity and receptivity, background knowledge and imagination, disciplined search and openness to what presents itself. Acts of finding are often tentative, fallible, and fragmentary, and their epistemic significance is not yet fixed at the point at which they emerge.

A focus of the workshop is the transition from such individual epistemic acts to publicly accepted facts. How are tentative findings assessed, challenged, and refined under conditions of uncertainty? How do epistemic norms, background assumptions, and forms of collective scrutiny shape what counts as a promising or trustworthy finding in the first place? The workshop also examines the roles of curiosity, chance, and creativity in these processes. Against this background, it investigates how linguistic acts, reporting practices, naming, and classification articulate findings, stabilize them within a community, and turn something found into something accepted -- and eventually into shared knowledge.

Bringing together perspectives from epistemology, philosophy of science, and philosophy of language, the workshop is conceived as a small, focused workshop, with an emphasis on work in progress and conceptual exploration.