Technological Development and Science in the Industrial Age: New Perspectives on the Science-Technology Relationship (Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, 144)

Historians and philosophers of technology are searching for new approaches to the study of the interaction between science and technology. New conceptual frameworks are necessary since the idea that technology is simply applied science is nothing short of a myth. The papers contained in this volume deal primarily with cognitive and social aspects of the science-technology issue. One of the most salient features of these papers is that they show a major methodological shift in studying the interaction between science and technology. Discussions of the science-technology issue have long been dominated by the demarcartion problem and related semantic issues about the notions `science' and `technology', and the `technology is applied science' thesis. Instead of general `global' interpretation schemes and models of the interaction between science and technology, detailed empirical case studies of cognitive and institutional connections between `science' and `technology' constitute the hard core of this book. The book will be of interest to philosophers of science, historians and philosophers of technology and science and sociologists of science. Front Matter....Pages i-vii Introduction: Technological Development and Science....Pages 1-15 Engineering Knowledge, Type of Design, and Level of Hierarchy: Further Thoughts About What Engineers Know .......Pages 17-34 Escape from the Jail of Shape; Dimensionality and Engineering Science....Pages 35-68 On the Role of Design in Engineering Theories; Pambour’s Theory of the Steam Engine....Pages 69-98 The Piecemeal Rationality of Application-Oriented Research....Pages 99-131 Life in the Slow Lane: Research and Electrical Engineering in Britain, France, and Italy, CA. 1900....Pages 133-153 Mechanical Engineering in the Netherlands in the Nineteenth Century: Technology without a Professional Community....Pages 155-176 Hybrid Careers and the Interaction of Science and Technology....Pages 177-204 Science and Technology: Who Gets a Say?....Pages 205-230 Science and Technology as Dancing Partners....Pages 231-270 Back Matter....Pages 271-280