Feest, Uljana and Devezer, Berna (2025) Toward a More Accurate Notion of Exploratory Research (And Why it Matters). [Preprint]

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Abstract

The paper analyzes the notion of exploration that can be found in the distinction between exploratory and confirmatory research, which is sometimes appealed to in the metascience literature. We argue that this notion (a) differs in important respects from previous works in exploratory data analysis and (b) contains some counterintuitive assumptions about the nature of exploration. Engaging with works in the history and philosophy of experimentation and modeling, we develop and defend a more comprehensive and accurate notion of exploration and argue that it is better suited for a normative analysis of exploratory research.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Feest, Uljana feest@philos.uni-hannover.de 0000-0001-5004-9679 Devezer, Berna bdevezer@uidaho.edu 0000-0002-5979-2781
Keywords:	exploratory research, exploratory modeling, exploratory experimentation, confirmatory/exploratory distinction
Subjects:	General Issues > Computer Simulation General Issues > Experimentation General Issues > Models and Idealization Specific Sciences > Psychology
Depositing User:	Dr. Uljana Feest
Date Deposited:	07 Jan 2025 13:33
Last Modified:	07 Jan 2025 13:33
Item ID:	24482
Subjects:	General Issues > Computer Simulation General Issues > Experimentation General Issues > Models and Idealization Specific Sciences > Psychology
Date:	January 2025
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/24482

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