180068 SE Material culture and artifactuality (2021S)

Aims and contents:

This is an advanced philosophy seminar on material culture and artifactuality, focusing especially on scientific practice. The course is a follow-up of the seminar “Artefacts and Scientific Reasoning” WS2020, but does not require any prior knowledge of the topic. We will be particularly interested in the question of how material culture is epistemically relevant in science. The course begins with a brief recapitulation of how different notions of function, intentionality, production and reproduction have been used to define artifacts and material culture in philosophical discussion. Next, we will discuss different perspectives on the material culture in science. We will begin with some science and technology studies literature on the role of artifacts in scientific practice. Then we proceed to examine empirical evidence from cognitive psychology showing that different modalities (e.g.: pen and paper vs. word processors) influence the performance of users. Finally, we address mathematical practice, and study how scientists exploit different media in their modeling endeavors (e.g. mathematical equations, biological preparations, computer simulations, synthetic systems).

Methods:

- short introductions by the instructor
- close reading and critical discussion of the literature (concepts, themes, arguments)
- online discussion of the weekly readings in the Moodle platform, each student has to contribute at least two inputs to the weekly Moodle discussion (by making a new question and/or commenting the questions of the other students)
- chairing or co-chairing the group discussion on the basis of the Moodle discussion
- a learning diary, to be submitted weekly; the final diary compiled from the weekly reflections will be graded.