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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
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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

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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

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