Scientific Concepts and Investigative Practice

European and North American philosophers of science show how scientific concepts can make productive contributions to the investigative practices of scientists. Taking concepts rather than theories as their primary units of analysis, they explore not their meaning or reference, but their roles in scientific activities such as reasoning, experimenting, modeling, and explaining. Among the topics are concept as vessel and concept as use, the relevance of epistemic aims and values, mathematical concepts and investigative practice, experimentation and the meaning of scientific concepts, the virus as a case of early concepts in investigative practice, and an ethnographic study of a neural engineering research laboratory. Only names are indexed. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Uljana Feest and Friedrich Steinle, Technische Universitat Berlin, Germany.