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Aesthetics and Agency in Experiments

Murphy, Alice and Currie, Adrian and Walsh, Kirsten (2024) Aesthetics and Agency in Experiments. [Preprint]

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Abstract

We place agency front-and-centre in the aesthetics of science via an analysis of experimental design and performance. This first involves developing an account of scientific agency relevant to experiment. We do this via an analogy between experiments and games (as understood by Suits and Nguyen): both involve artificial practical environments designed to enable participants to exercise particular forms of agency. Second, we consider how this account of agency might underwrite an aesthetics of experiment. Experiments are well-designed not only when they generate clear, elegant results, but also when they actively confront the experimenter with experimental phenomena, afford the exercise of agency throughout experimental runs and in iterative design and tweaking, and underlie stable, intersubjective experiences across agents. We apply the account to Newton’s optical work, and contrast this with contemporary experimental practices, where significantly more ‘experimental distance’ holds between the experimenter and the result. Taking the agency of experimental practice seriously enables a richer account of the role of aesthetic values, sensibilities, and judgments in science.

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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Murphy, Alicealicemlmurphy@gmail.com0000-0002-3707-6872
Currie, Adrian
Walsh, Kirsten
Keywords: Aesthetics in Science; Agency; Experiments; Newton's Optical Experiments
Subjects: General Issues > Experimentation
General Issues > Values In Science
Depositing User: Dr Alice Murphy
Date Deposited: 02 Oct 2024 11:53
Last Modified: 02 Oct 2024 11:53
Item ID: 23988
Subjects: General Issues > Experimentation
General Issues > Values In Science
Date: August 2024
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/23988

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