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Between Science and Technology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Joseph Agassi
Joseph Agassi*
Affiliation:
Boston University and Tel-Aviv University
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Abstract

Basic research or fundamental research is distinct from both pure and applied research, in that it is pure research with expected useful results. The existence of basic or fundamental research is problematic, at least for both inductivists and instrumentalists, but also for Popper. Assuming scientific research to be the search for explanatory conjectures and for refutations, and assuming technology to be the search of conjectures and some corroborations, we can easily place basic or fundamental research between science and technology as a part of their overlap. As a bonus, the present view of basic or fundamental research as an overlap explains the specific hardship basic research workers encounter.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , March 1980 , pp. 82 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1980

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Footnotes

†

A short version of this paper was read at the Lansing Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association (1972). The audience in the meeting has kindly favored me with a friendly and stimulating critical discussion. I have tried to make use of that discussion by expanding this paper, by adding points triggered by Professor Noretta Koertge's comment, and by valuable points made by Professor J. O. Wisdom and by other commentators. The manuscript was carefully corrected by James Hullett, by I. C. Jarvie, and by Noretta Koertge. My gratitude to them all.

The final version was prepared while I was a guest of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld, on an Alexander von Humboldt senior fellowship.

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