Dr. phil. Dawid Kasprowicz 

What is a scientific experience? This question seems trivial on first sight since scientists need to make experiences of their research objects to gain knowledge about them. But a closer look reveals that this concept has not been studied thoroughly. Scholars from science studies focused on theories, models and explanations in science, but the perception of research objects has often been subsumed as the process of an observation, undertaken by a neutral and almost disembodied agent. I argue in

my project “The Scientist as a Situated Agent: On an Enactive Reflection of Epistemic Possibilities” that in times of data-generated research objects and an ongoing digitalization of scientific practices, we need to examine the function and implications of scientists’ experiences in knowledge production. To do so, I show how predictions in science are based on the interactions the scientists have with their models and modelling instruments. Far from science relativism, I highlight the

embodied, participatory and skillful part of scientific practice that also constitutes representations about our possible futures. A case study from ecological modelling shows the challenges to reunite the experience of embodied, skillful agents with the expectation of robustness in the model’s predictions.