Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T07:25:23.733Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Problem-solving, Research Traditions, and the Development of Scientific Fields

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Henry Frankel
Henry Frankel*
Affiliation:
University of Missouri, Kansas City
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

If science is essentially a problem-solving activity, it stands to reason that a good part of the rationale behind the development and growth of new scientific fields (or subfields) is the generation of problem-solutions. I should like to argue that the origin and, especially, the development of new scientific fields is primarily a research procedure for solving existing unsolved problems and generating and solving new unsolved problems. By a scientific field I have in mind the following:

A scientific field (F) has the following characteristics: (a) a given subject matter and (b) a data base about the subject matter, at least some of which is puzzling or problematic, (c) a set of problems arising from the puzzling subject matter (internal problems), (d) a set of problems arising from data in another field (applied or external problems), but thought solvable through appeal to the data base of F, (e) a set of techniques for expanding the data base, and (f) a set of theories or solutions to the internal problems.

Type
Part I. Scientific Problems and Research Traditions
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1980 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1980 , 1980 , pp. 29 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © 1980 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

This is based on research supported by the National Science Foundation's History and Philosophy of Science Program. I should also like to thank Rachel Laudan and Nanette Biersmith for their aid. An earlier version of this paper was read at the 1980 Joint Atlantic Seminar in the History of the Physical Sciences

References

Blackett, P.M.S. (1952). “A Negative Experiment Relating to Magnetism and the Earth's Rotation.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A245: 309–370.Google Scholar
Blackett, P.M.S. (1956). Lectures on Rock Magnetism. Jerusalem: The Weizmann Science Press of Israel.Google Scholar
Blackett, P.M.S. (1961). “Comparison of Ancient Climates with the Ancient Latitudes Deduced from Rock Magnetic Measurements.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A263: 1–30.Google Scholar
Bullard, E.C. (1949). “The Magnetic Field within the Earth.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A197: 433–455.Google Scholar
Bullard, E.C. (1955). “The Stability of a Homopolar Dynamo.” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 51: 744–760.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bullard, E.C. (1968). “The Barderian Lecture, 1967: Reversals of the Earth's Magnetic Field.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A263: 481–524.Google Scholar
Clegg, J.A., Almond, M. and Stubbs, P.H.S. (1954). “The Remanent Magnetism of Some Sedimentary Rocks in Britain.” Philosophical Magazine 45: 583–598.Google Scholar
Collinson, D.W., Creer, K.M. and Runcorn, S.K. (eds.). (1967). Methods in Paleomagnetism. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Darden, Lindley. (1978). “Discoveries and the Emergence of New Fields in Science.” In PSA 1978, Volume One. Edited by Asquith, P.D. and Hacking, I.. East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association. Pages 149–160.Google Scholar
Elsasser, W.M. (1946). “Induction Effects in Terrestrial Magnetism: Part I. Theory.” Physics Review: 69: 106–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elsasser, W.M. (1955). “Hydromagnetism I & II: A Review.” American Journal of Physics 23 & 24: 590–609 and 85-110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankel, H. (1979). “The Career of Continental Drift Theory: An Application of Imre Lakatos's Analysis of Scientific Growth to the Rise of Drift Theory.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 10: 21–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, J.W. (1949). “The Stability and Significance of Magnetism in Sedimentary Rocks.” Journal of Geophysical Research 59: 131–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Irving, E. (1964). Paleomaenetism and Its Application to Geological and Geophysical Problems. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Jeffreys, H. (1959). The Earth (4th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Laudan, Larry. (1977). Progress and Its Problems. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Meyerhoff, A.A. and Meyerhoff, H.A. (1972). “The New Global Tectonics: Major Inconsistencies.” Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists 56: 269–336.Google Scholar
Nagata, T. (1953). Rock Magnetism. Tokyo: Maruzen.Google Scholar
Néel, L. (1951). “L'inversion de l'aimantation permanente des roches.” Annales de Geophysique 7: 90–102.Google Scholar
Runcorn, S.K. (1948). “The Radial Variation of the Earth's Magnetic Field.” Proceedings of the Physical Society of London 61: 373–381.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Runcorn, S.K. (1955). “Rock Magnetism — Geophysical Aspects.” Advances in Physics 4: 244–291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Runcorn, S.K. (1956). “Paleomagnetic Comparisons Between Europe and North America.” Proceedings of the Geological Association of Canada 8: 301–316.Google Scholar
Runcorn, S.K., Benson, A.C., Moore, A.F. and Griffiths, D.H. (1951). “Measurements with Depth of the Main Geomagnetic Field.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A244: 113–151.Google Scholar