Abstract
The traditional distinction between basic (“pure”) and applied science has been much criticized in recent decades. The criticism is based on a combination of historical and systematic epistemic argument. The present paper is mostly concerned with the historical aspect. I argue that the critics impose an understanding at odds with the way the distinction was understood by its supporters in debates on science education and science policy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. And I show how a distinction that refers to difference on several epistemic and social dimensions makes good sense of representative historical cases. If this argument is tenable it suggests more continuity in the epistemology and politics of science than has been claimed by a new paradigm of science studies and politics during recent decades.
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Notes
“Focus: Applied Science.” Isis 103 (2012), pp. 515–563.
Emphasis in original.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) was founded in 1961 to promote international coordination of technological and economic development.
Douglas (2009, 2014) and Kitcher (2001, 2004) do not discuss the OECD R&D classification. Other publications like Gibbons et al. (1994), Guston (2000), Nowotny et al. (2001), Nordmann et al. (2011) likewise gives little if any attention. Stokes (1997) and Niiniluoto (2013), however, explicitly discuss it.
According to the 1981 edition of the Frascati Manual: “Experimental development is systematic work, drawing on existing knowledge gained from research and/or practical experience that is directed to producing new materials, products or devices, to installing new processes, systems and services, or to improving substantially those already produced or installed” (OECD 1981, p. 25).
The classical locus for this distinction is philosopher Wilhelm Windelband’s inauguration speech as rector of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Universität Strassburg, 1. May 1894.
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Roll-Hansen, N. A Historical Perspective on the Distinction Between Basic and Applied Science. J Gen Philos Sci 48, 535–551 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-017-9362-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-017-9362-3