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Accepted manuscript

Are there experimental virtues?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2025

Peter Mättig
Affiliation:
Physics Department, University of Bonn, Nussallee 12, 53115 Bonn, Germany; Email: maettig@physik.uni-bonn.de
Michael Stöltzner*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA
*
Corresponding author: Email: stoeltzn@sc.edu.
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Abstract

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Philosophers have long discussed the virtues of scientific theory and the role they play in pursuing, preferring, or finally accepting a theory on the basis of internal criteria and experimental evidence. Based on two case studies from elementary particle physics, we propose a list of experimental virtues and discuss how they influence experimental strategies and whether a measurement is deemed conclusive – independently of its relation to theory.

Information

Type
Contributed Paper
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Philosophy of Science Association