On the Historiography of Epistemic Objects: An Evolutionary Approach

The term “epistemic object” has been recently used by some scholars in the history and philosophy of science to refer to the peculiar history of objects of inquiry such as RNA, genes, electrons, or phlogiston. Despite the relative success of this neologism as an analytical tool, a comprehensive analysis of its many versions is still lacking. In this article, an attempt has been made to sketch such an analysis first by comparing three main versions of this idea: epistemic things, epistemic objects, and representations of theoretical entities. Second, these conceptions are compared with the notion of scientific concept, arguing that, although similar, they are not the same thing. However, a proposal suggested from the history of concepts program, Klaus Hentschel's semantic layered methodology, could be usefully adapted for epistemic things. Third, accomplishing such adaptation by drawing from the tradition of evolutionary epistemology is recommended, analyzing the potential fit between historical epistemology and the Evolutionary Epistemology of Theories programme.