Experimental Systems - continued

It needs to be justified if one picks up an actor’s category, withdraws it from its laboratory use, and dignifies it as a central epistemological category for the characterization of the dynamics of the empirical research process in general and the life sciences in particular. Such a justification cannot be derived from analytically oriented philosophies of science. It suggests itself rather, in the first instance, as a concept for ordering historical and contemporary empirical materials pertinent to the material culture of the sciences. Neither does the term carry systems theoretical connotations along with it. In a first approximation, “system” means here simply a kind of loose coherence both synchronically with respect to the technical and organic elements that enter into an experimental system and diachronically with respect to its persistence over time. The advantage of the concept lies rather in its capacity to tie together essential aspects of scientific research processes such as instruments and measuring devices, contrivances of various sorts, and the necessary skills to enact them in useful ways. It refuses to describe science as a system of concepts. Rather, it describes research as a process of the coming into being of scientific knowledge or, to speak with Bruno Latour, of science in action (Latour 1987).

How can experimental systems be characterized with respect to their more general features? Experimental systems exhibit epistemic and technical as well as social and institutional aspects. The social and institutional aspect is tied to the fact that experimental systems can be described as locally situated research connections that grant coherence to the activities of a single researcher or of a whole group of researchers. At the same time, they make for a sufficient distinction with respect to other such units, that is, they convey identity and individuality to the work of that individual researcher or group of researchers.