**Epistemic goals** An epistemic goal is often described as a goal that pertains to generating knowledge (Brigandt 2012, 78; Steinle 2012, 107; MacLeod 2012, 68). This build on the use of 'epistemic' as an adjective for something involved in the process of acquiring knowledge. Epistemic goals can be considered those that pertain to knowledge whether they are specific to a discipline (such as the goal of explaining cell-cell interaction in cell-biology) or to the collection of phenomena investigated (such as the goal of finding the regularity of of bipolarity for predicting the behaviour of electrically charged objects). When it comes to investigating phenomena, the knowledge sought is often intended to ‘make sense of’ the phenomena within a given domain of knowledge in some way (such as the [classification](https://osf.io/j2ut5/wiki/home/), quantification, or explanation of the phenomena in relation to that domain). Within the philosophy of scientific practices, describing something as epistemic – as in ‘epistemic agent’ or ‘epistemic tool’ – typically indicates the relevance of that unit of analysis to knowledge-generating practices *Reference list* - Brigandt, Ingo. 2012. ‘The Dynamics of Scientific Concepts’. In Scientific Concepts and Investigative Practice, edited by Uljana Feest and Friedrich Steinle, 75–103. Berlin Studies in Knowledge Research, volume 3. Berlin: De Gruyter. - MacLeod, Miles. 2012. ‘Rethinking Scientific Concepts for Research Contexts: The Case of the Classical Gene’. In Scientific Concepts and Investigative Practice, edited by Uljana Feest and Friedrich Steinle, 47–74. Berlin Studies in Knowledge Research, volume 3. Berlin: De Gruyter. - Steinle, Friedrich. 2012. ‘Goals and Fates of Concepts: The Case of Magnetic Poles’. In Scientific Concepts and Investigative Practice, edited by Uljana Feest and Friedrich Steinle, 105–26. Berlin Studies in Knowledge Research, volume 3. Berlin: De Gruyter.