Marion Clara Vorms

This paper is intended to sketch the definition of a methodological tool -- the notion of a format of representation -- for the study of scientific theorising. One of its main assumption is that a philosophical study of theorising needs to pay attention to other types of units of analysis than the traditional ones, namely, theories and models approached in a logical and structural way, since scientific reasoning is always led on concrete representational devices and depends upon their specific properties. The notion of a format is intended to characterise the differences between various types of representational devices, in terms of the inferences they enable cognitive agents to draw.

In this paper, I wish to challenge theory-biased approaches to scientific knowledge, by arguing for a study of theorizing, as a cognitive activity, rather than of theories, as abstract structures independent from the agents’ understanding of them. Such a study implies taking into account scientists’ reasoning processes, and their representational practices. Here, I analyze the representational practices of geneticists in the 1910s, as a means of shedding light on the content of classical genetics. Most philosophical accounts of classical genetics fail to distinguish between the purely genetic, or Mendelian level, and the cytological one. I distinguish between them by characterizing them in terms of their respective associated representational practices. I then present how the two levels were articulated within Morgan’s theory of crossing-over, and I describe the representational technique of linkage mapping, which embodies the “merging” of the Mendelian and cytological levels. I propose an analysis of the mapping scheme, as a means of enlightening the conceptual articulation of Mendelian and cytological hypotheses within classical genetics. Finally, I present the respective views of three opponents to Morgan in the 1910s, who had a different understanding of the articulation of cytology and Mendelism, and entertained different views concerning the role and proper interpretation of maps. I propose to consider these diverging perspectives as instantiating what I call different “versions” of classical genetics

The book edited by Roman Frigg and Matthew C. Hunter is a great example of interdisciplinary collaborative work, bringing together contributions by scholars of science and of art, around the topic of representation. The collection consists of eleven essays, seven of which were presented in early form at a conference organized by the two editors at the London School of Economics and the Courtauld Institute of Art in June 2006; the other four have been added subsequently. The result is a high-standard, remarkably edited book