Philosophy of Science

The replication crisis has spawned discussions on the meaning of replication. In fact, in order to determine whether an experiment fails to replicate, it is necessary to establish what replication is. This is, however, a difficult task, as it is possible to attribute different meanings to it. This paper offers a solution to this problem of ambiguity by engineering a concept of replication that, if compared to other proposals, stands out for being not only broadly applicable but also sufficiently specific. It features a minimal level of operationalism, which would otherwise limit its applicability, while it heavily relies on replication’s specific epistemic functions, which are inter-disciplinary. Another merit is its context sensitivity, which enables it to differentiate instances of replication from non-instances of replication in every scientific discipline according to the discipline’s own standards.

Replicability is usually considered to be one of the cornerstones of science; however, the growing recognition of nonreplicable experiments and studies in scientific journals—a phenomenon that has been called ‘replicability crisis’—has spurred a debate on the meaning, function, and significance of replicability in science. Amid this discussion, it has become clear that replicability is not a monolithic concept; what is still controversial is exactly how the distinction between different kinds of replicability should be laid out terminologically and conceptually, and to what extent it bears on the more general debate on the centrality of replicability in science. This paper’s goals are to clarify the different uses of the terms related to replicability and, more importantly, to conceptually specify the kinds of replicability and their respective epistemic functions.

Edouard Machery’s article “What is Replication?” deserves particular critical attention. For if it is correct, his Resampling Account of Replication has the power to reshape the current debate on replication in psychology. Indeed, with his new proposal, philosopher Machery claims to replace the “vague characterization of replication in psychology” (Machery, 2020, p. 559) with an account that deflates one of the central debates on replication—the debate which contraposes direct and conceptual replications and asks which one is preferable. In this commentary, I argue that there are deep-rooted reasons for why the distinction is meaningful, and that the Resampling Account of Replication just offers a misleading “semantic shift.” (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)