Abstract
The value of a metascientific model is to be judged not so much on a priori epistemological grounds but rather by trying to apply it to concrete pieces of its purported object, viz. science. And the more examples of application we get, the better. Here I intend to add one more case study to those already existing in the literature which make use of the idea of research programmes. The case I propose to investigate, and for which I can only provide a rough and brief picture today, belongs to a physical discipline which, in broad terms, we could call the “study of heat” or also “thermodynamics”. For different reasons, none of these labels is really adequate, but I have no better proposal at hand. The discipline as such was born in the late 18th century with the systematic study of heat phenomena by Lavoisier, Black, and others, and in the course of its historical existence, it has given rise to several research programmes (R.P.s) in Lakatos’ sense.
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Moulines, C.U. (1989). The Emergence of a Research Programme in Classical Thermodynamics. In: Gavroglu, K., Goudaroulis, Y., Nicolacopoulos, P. (eds) Imre Lakatos and Theories of Scientific Change. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 111. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3025-4_9
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