Abstract
The distinction between pure and applied science seems too trivial to draw, since applied science, as the name implies, aims at practical ends, whereas pure science does not. There is an overlap, to be sure, which is known as fundamental research and which is pure science in the short run but applied in the long run; that is to say, fundamental research is the search for certain laws of nature with an eye to using these laws. Still, this overlap shows that though the distinction is not exclusive it is clear enough. The distinction between applied science and technology is a different matter altogether. All philosophers of science equate them, whereas it is clear that technology includes, at the very least, applied science, invention, implementation of the results of both applied science and invention, and the maintenance of the existing apparatus, especially in the face of unexpected changes, disasters, and so forth. The distinction between applied science and invention, to my knowledge, was made by only one writer, the most important writer on technology, perhaps; I am referring to H. S. Hatfield and his The Inventor and His World. Hatfield does not draw the distinction explicitly, but he uses it clearly and systematically enough. Applied science, according to his view, is an exercise in deduction, whereas invention is finding a needle in a haystack.
First published in Technology and Culture 7 (1966), 348–366.
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Notes
K. R. Popper, ‘Three Views Concerning Human Knowledge’, Contemporary British Philosophy (ed. by H. D. Lewis), London, 1956, pp. 355–88; and Conjectures and Refutations, London and New York, 1962, pp. 97–119. See also my ‘Duhem versus Galileo’, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science VIII (1957), 237–48.
Matthew Josephson, Edison (paperbound ed.), New York, 1959, pp. ix-xi.
Pierre Simon, Marquis de Laplace, ‘Application of the Calculus of Probabilities to Moral Philosophy’, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities ( paperbound ed.), New York, 1951, Chap. X.
Josephson, Edison, p. 198.
Rudolf Carnap, Logical Foundations of Probability (2d ed.), Chicago, 1962, p. 193.
‘A General Estimation Function’, in Rudolf Carnap, Logical Foundations of Probability (2d ed.), Chicago, 1962, p. 193, Sec. 99 ff. See also his ‘On Inductive Logic’, Philosophy of Science XII (1945), Sec. 10 (reprinted in Probability Confirmation, and Simplicity (ed. by M. H. Foster and M. L. Martin), New York, 1966). Cf. Popper, ‘On Carnap’s Version of Laplace’s Rule of Succession’, Mind LXXI CI962) 69–73; and my ‘Analogies as Generalizations’, Philosophy of Science XXXI (1964), 351–56.
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Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, New York, 1959, Chap, x and New Appendix, IX.
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Helmut Gernsheim, in collaboration with Alison Gernsheim, The History of Photography from the Earliest Use of the Camera Obscura in the Eleventh Century up to 1914, Oxford, 1955.
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Ruth Mitchell, My Brother Bill: The Life of General ‘Billy’ Mitchell, with an Introduction by Gerald W. Johnson, New York, 1953, pp. 12–13: “There was a moment when he seemed to be entirely right. But events in Korea, where our separate airforce has accomplished nothing… prove…. But even if he had been wholly wrong….”
Noam Chomsky, ‘Explanatory Models in Linguistics’, in Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science (ed. by E. Nagel, P. Suppes and A. Tarski), Proceedings of the 1960 International Congress, Stanford, Calif., 1962, pp. 528–50.
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Agassi, J. (1966). The Confusion between Science and Technology in the Standard Philosophies of Science. In: Rapp, F. (eds) Contributions to a Philosophy of Technology. Theory and Decision Library, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2182-1_3
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