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Between Science and TechnologyAuthor(s): Joseph Agassi

Reviewed work(s):Source: Philosophy of Science, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Mar., 1980), pp. 82-99Published by: The University of Chicago Presson behalf of the Philosophy of Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/187144.

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BETWEEN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY*JOSEPH AGASSIt

Boston University and Tel-Aviv UniversityBasic research or fundamental research is distinct from both pure and appliedresearch, in that it is pure research with expected useful results. The existenceof basic or fundamental research is problematic, at least for both inductivistsand instrumentalists, but also for Popper. Assuming scientific research tobe the search for explanatory conjectures and for refutations, and assumingtechnology to be the search of conjectures and some corroborations, wecan easily place basic or fundamental research between science and technologyas a part of their overlap. As a bonus, the present view of basic or fundamentalresearch as an overlap explains the specific hardship basic research workersencounter.

1. Philosophical Introduction. The following discussion, concerninga kind of research technically known in many languages as fundamentalresearch or as basic research. These two labels will be used hereas synonyms and explained at length. To my surprise I have meta few philosophers of science, knowledgeable about science, who havenot met this term. I say to my surprise, because it is a very widespreadterm, at least in all Western European languages, and designates avery special kind of research, namely, the research performed byengineers and technologists and applied scientists, which is rathertheoretically oriented. Indeed, one might suggest that the term isnothing but the engineer's synonym of what in the university is knownas pure science. Indeed, it seems that the term is heard in industry,hardly ever in the university. Whereas in university circles researchis divided into pure and applied, in industry it is usually dividedinto basic or fundamental and the rest, the rest being characterizedvariously as bread-and-butter, or technical, or useful research, at times

*Received July 1978; revised May 1979.tA short version of this paper was read at the Lansing Meeting of the Philosophyof Science Association (1972). The audience in the meeting has kindly favored mewith a friendly and stimulating critical discussion. I have tried to make use of thatdiscussion by expanding this paper, by adding points triggered by Professor NorettaKoertge's comment, and by valuable points made by Professor J. 0. Wisdom andby other commentators. The manuscript was carefully corrected by James Hullett,by I. C. Jarvie, and by Noretta Koertge. My gratitude to them all.The final version was prepared while I was a guest of the Center for InterdisciplinaryResearch, Bielefeld, on an Alexander von Humboldt senior fellowship.Philosophyof Science,47 (1980)pp. 82-99.Copyright? 1980by the Philosophyof Science Association.

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even as applied research. There are, of course, other divisions, suchas the division of research into theoretical and experimental in theexact science, or into library and field work in the social sciences.But I will not discuss other divisions except to say that basic orfundamental research is almost always experimental, hardly evertheoretical.

Now, there is a current orthodox view according to which basicor fundamental research is nothing but pure scientific research, thattechnology is applied science, and that technological research is anexercise in applied science. Let me call this view the orthodox viewfor short. Its prevalence, I have explained elsewhere, explains whythere is so little discussion of the philosophy of technology: it makesthe philosophy of technology part and parcel of the philosophy ofscience.' It is therefore mistaken. It also makes basic research identicalwith pure science. This very identification will here be empiricallyrefuted.The major traditional problem of the philosophy of science is theproblem of induction, which is the problem of the empirical validationof theories: how does experience tell us that certain theories arereliable? As, clearly, applied science is (allegedly) reliable on accountof its application of (allegedly) reliable theories. The situation isreversed for most philosophers who gave up the problem of inductionas a bad job. For, the majority of such philosophers are convention-alists, pragmatists, relativists, instrumentalists, and so on, who viewedscience as essentially applied science. Whereas inductivists viewtechnology as essentially valid knowledge, instrumentalists view allknowledge as know-how, as essentially a tool for application. Theexistence of pure science and of technology refutes both the inductivistand the pragmatist view by making the problem of validation foreach so very different. Basic or fundamental research being a border-line case only sharpens the difficulty for both, since it requires bothkinds of validation-the one typical of pure science and the onetypical for technology.My major concern, however, is not critical but constructive. I haveto stress the critical side of my view since, to my regret, so manyreaders of earlier drafts of this essay failed to comprehend theconstructive part since they stuck to the traditional frame within whichit makes no sense. The constructive part of this study covers a

'The orthodoxview is well presentedin Layton (1971), pp. 562-3; note that theterm "basic research"is used as synonymouswith "pureresearch"in his examplethere. Layton's view, that science and technology differ because their ends differ(see his beautifulexampleon p. 577), agreeswith my view (1966).Yet, on the whole,I considerhis view nearer o the traditionalhan to mine.

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completely different aspect of the situation: it is an attempt to explainthe plight of the person engaged in some basic research. The plightis well-known, but all too often it is technically explained away: theperson engaged in basic research is constrained by his employers:he is given only a part of his work week or limited period of timefor his project. This constraint, however, has also been explained.It is, doubtless, quite a handicap, but a deeper seated handicap-aswill be clearly seen at the end of this paper-lies in the very natureof basic research. I will show that basic research is not only a border-linecase but also an overlap: the demands from basic research are thatit should be successful both by the standards of pure science-i.e.,offer testable satisfactory explanations-and by the standards oftechnology, i.e., offer corroborations to potentially useful theories.The fact that basic or fundamental research is within the overlapof science and technology is thus very important, since we can useit in order to explain some given fact. If this is true, then the samefact is also of some use for those who wish to improve their ownperformance as basic researchers.To conclude this general introductory part, I wish to say a wordabout demarcation. The problem of demarcation of science seemsto me to be a problem in distributing medals: who deserves a medaland why? For example, when Popper demarcates psychoanalysis asnon-science and relativity as science, he simply says that Einsteinis a good guy but not Freud. For, he rejects and replaces an olderand better problem, namely, which theory is reliable and why?Regrettably, however, the sense of reliability philosophers had usuallyin mind is that of credibility or of a rational substitute for faith.Fortunately, this makes the problem insoluable. A better sense ofthe problem is, which theory is applicable? This is the problem ofdemarcation of technology, and it could only be confused with theproblem, which theory is credible? on the refuted hypothesis thatwe apply what we believe in. I will not here list the refutations ofthis hypothesis again.The situation merits generalization: a problem of demarcation maygain significance or not, depending on the use of the demarcation.Now what is simpler than to demarcate an artifact by its use andan activity by its purpose? This way the rationality of science becomespart and parcel of a broader theory of rationality, namely, that ofrational action. Research, as an activity, is goal-directed, and canso be studied. This too, has been elaborated elsewhere, and I willnot expand on it.2 I was forced to stress it here, again, on account

2See my (1977), p. 88, note 70 and references there to papers by Jarvie and myself.

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BETWEEN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGYof my failure to communicate, a failure rooted in another popularprejudice, or two, namely a traditional philosophical predilection fora formal, logical or linguistic characterization and another traditionof construing aims psychologically rather than sociologically. I muststress this because, all too obviously, the chief difference betweenscientific and technological research is a matter of objectives: scientificresearch aims at increased understanding and technological researchat increased usefulness. Whatever else we say, this must stand untilcriticized, as a matter of plain observation. And basic research, torepeat, aims at both enlightenment and usefulness.

2. Historical Introduction. When St. Robert Cardinal Bellarmino, andhis colleagues the Jesuit astronomers of the Roman College, declaredCopernicanism-the heliocentric hypothesis-false, and cited religiousgrounds, they were morally corrupt. Since Galileo hinted3 that Bellar-mino was motivated not by the love of truth but by political considera-tions I will not discuss his motives. Yet one must only praise Bellarminoand his colleagues for their express statement that Copernicanismas a theory was not faithful to the facts of the matter: they werenot so corrupt as to declare it false on religious grounds but trueon scientific ones, as some of their followers do today. It is of coursea weak position for a religious leader to declare frankly on religiousand social grounds, that a doctrine concerning the starry heavensis scientifically objectionable-to use our idiom, "philosophicallyfalse", to use theirs-but holding honestly a weak position is superiorto muddling matters by making truth relative so as to cover up forone's weakness. Bellarmino admitted from the start that Copernicanismwas technologically quite acceptable and indeed a great boon, whenconsidered as mere sleight-of-hand, when not taken as a physicaltheory at all,4 but as a mere mathematical device. This raised the

3See my (1977), p. 156.4The exact words of Bellarmino are very important, and for diverse reasons; theymerit quotation in full. "First, I say it seems to me that your Reverence and SignorGalileo act prudently when you content yourselves with speaking hypothetically andnot absolutely, as I have always understood Copernicus spoke. For to say that theassumption that the Earth moves and the Sun stands still saves all the celestialappearances better than do eccentries and epicycles is to speak with excellent goodsense and to run no risk whatever. Such a manner of speaking suffices for amathematician. But to want to affirm that the Sun, in very truth, is the center ofthe Universe and only rotates on its axis without travelling from east to west, andthat the Earth is situated in the third sphere and revolves very swiftly around theSun, is a very dangerous attitude and one calculated not only to arouse all Scholasticphilosophers and theologians but also to injure our holy faith by contradicting theScripture." See Bellarmino's famous letter to Foscarini, quoted in full in James Brodrick(1928), pp. 358-360; also quoted in part in Giorgio de Santillana (1955), pp. 86-87(see also p. 103 and p. 131 there) and in Arthur Koestler (1959), pp. 454-455. Koestler

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question, is technology, whose chief end is pragmatical, totally devoidof theoretical concern? In other words, has technology no interest,however subordinate, in questions of the truth and falsity of theories?Can we not inquire into the question, at least, why do some mathemati-cal devices work better than others?

Technology is considered mere sleight-of-hand in two traditions,a reactionary philosophical one, and a dumb technological one. Inphilosophy, until recently the tradition was, much in reaction toBellarmino, militantly realistic: scientific theories are true. And so,the success of their application was to be expected. As to the technologynot based on scientific theory, it is traditionally called by variousnames, such as "a mere hypothesis," or even "a mere workinghypothesis," or "a fictitious hypothesis" or "an as if" or "a mereinstrument" or "a computational device," etc. In the technologicaltradition-which is more recent, of course-technology is quite oftencalled a "black box." It is very important to notice that, historically,the idea that some theories, though not true, may be useful, is quitetraditional: the consolation price for a theory, so to speak, was theview of it as a useful device-namely a black box. When the crisisof physics in the turn of the century raised doubts as to the truthof allegedly established scientific truths, such as atomism and Newto-nian mechanics, the whole of science was often declared a mere setof working hypothesis or huge black box.A black box operates upon instructions fed into it by unknownmechanisms; its innards cannot be studied. In particular, it cannotbe opened, perhaps because of an explosive which miraculously igniteswhenever we open it, no matter in which way and under whatconditions.5 To be more specific, the idea one wishes to convey is,rather, that nobody wants to open it-perhaps out of sheer lack ofcuriosity, and perhaps out of the despair of the realization that curiositytakes us nowhere. The black box operates and that is the most importantfact about it; why it operates we do not know, perhaps we cannotever know, perhaps we may even know some day but this is totallybeside the point.The question is, I propose, what is the point. Since Bellarmino,the point had radically altered, as Popper has stressed.6 And Bellarmino,to add, both served religion and held as true some physical theory.

says (p. 443) ". . . there had never been any question of condemning the Copernicansystem as a working hypothesis. The biblical objections were only raised against theclaim that it was more than a hypothesis, that it was rigorously proven ..."5See Bunge (1964).6See Popper, (1963).

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BETWEEN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGYBut the claim that all science is a black box often comes from secularcircles, often circles of technologists who simply have contempt forany intellectual curiosity to begin with, whether religious or scientific.Their point, then, is anti-intellectualism as such, or rather anti-intellec-tualism as a corollary for some unreasonable claims for actionphilosophy in its present technocratic garb.7 The universal black boxis thus not really a box, but a half-witty overgrown metaphor, servingan anti-intellectualist purpose. That anti-intellectualism is unfortunatelypresent in technological circles is not particularly surprising sinceit is present in almost all circles, of course. Indeed, it is presenteven in scientific circles; much to the surprise of those who stillfollow the classical tradition and take science seriously as an intellectualactivity par excellence. No doubt, the tradition is still alive and oftenenough scientists pride themselves on having higher aims than thatof technology and they even tend (erroneously, perhaps) to deprecatethe aims of technology. At times men of science insist that pursuingthe aims of science is the best way of achieving the aims of technology.Even scientists who, under the pressure of criticism, tend to declarescience a hand-maid of technology, still are moved by curiosity; seldomdoes one find scientists who are proud to be technologists, thoughthey may claim to be superior ones. This last claim is instrumentalismproper, or black-boxism. It confuses the aims of science with theaims of technology, these general aims with personal aims of individualscientists and technologists, overlooking the point that one personoften attempts and sometimes succeeds in different personal ventureswhich incidentally further quite different aims and at times morepublic ones. Nevertheless, a small idea may be salvaged from allthis confusion and critically examined.The question concerning basic or fundamental research is why pureand applied science, or science and technology, go hand in hand?Is science the same as technology? If not, do they largely overlap?If so, why and how? If not, how is it that they go hand in hand?I wish to stress this question. In the popular mind science andtechnology fuse. In the more careful studies the claim was simple:science unearths truth and so is a better tool for technology thanmere guess-work and rules of thumb. This claim was made by SirFrancis Bacon and was the philosophical foundation for all technologythat may claim rational status. It is a historical fact that when rationalitywas bullish technology was deemed scientific and when rationality

7See my (1977), p. 222, note 34, and references there. Layton (1971) demarcatesscience from technology by reference to their different institutionalized aims as reflectedin their different social control mechanisms.

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was bearish, whether in the hands of Bishop Berkeley or during thecrisis of physics in the turn of the century, science was deemedtechnological. One way or the other, science and technology weretaken as one. Only recently has this been questioned, and by historiansof science who noticed that until the age of electronics and radiation,science contributed precious little to the growth of technology, thatthe industrial revolution owes much less to scientific theorizing thanto the little boy who was in charge of opening and closing a valveof a steam engine and who, wanting to join his friends in a game,tied the rope he was supposed to pull when the piston was downto the piston's axle, thus inventing the automatic valve.

Two conclusions may be drawn from the story. One, that scienceand technology have shared in the classical period more an ethosthan a common fund of knowledge. Second, that there is a fundamentaldifference between theories, such as Copernicus's or Newton's, andrules of thumb. The instrumentalist view of science as mere rulesof thumb, whether Bellarmino's, Berkeley's, or of the new instrumen-talist school, is false and ought to be rejected on the basis of obviousfacts. Even if we view theories as mathematical devices, they shouldnot be confused with other devices: even when viewed as devices,their broad range of application puts them way apart: technology,technical devices, computational devices, etc., all these are commonin all societies, scientific ideas like Euclidean geometry or Newtonianmechanics are not.Let us return, then, to the question, why do science and technologygo hand in hand? To make the discussion interesting, let us evenignore all cases of rules of thumb, shots in the dark, pure trial anderror, both in science and in technology. Let us, then, concentrateon the role of theory or of theorizing-in both science and technology:is all scientific and all technological theory mere sleight-of-hand? Oris all theory in both, either true or false? Or is science concernedwith truth but not utility and technology with utility but not withtruth? This narrowing down to exclude non-theoretical parts of scienceand of technology may render our discussion of science and technologyincorrect, but perhaps easier at an opening stage.3. The Observed Kinds of Research. We may remember that alreadyat the dawn of modern science Sir Francis Bacon suggested thatblack-box technology-technology based on no theory whatsoever,or on (possibly) defective, limited, false theories-is not objectionable,but rather inferior to the use of scientific, true, unlimited, perfect

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theories;8 the best technology, to put Bacon's idea in another idiom,is scientific technology, namely, applied science proper.Bacon's idea sounds very convincing-so much so that one tendsto forget that he was in an opposition. His major idea was his theoryof cautious induction, as opposed to the method of hypothesis. Whatwas wrong with hypotheses, he said, is that they begin as tentativesuggestions and end as dogmas: when they are refuted they oughtto be rejected, but instead they are rescued from the refuting evidenceby ad hoc adjustments. Now, one of the arguments in favor ofrescuing hypotheses is that they are useful. And, Bacon argued,usefulness must be sacrificed on the altar of truth, though be it only

temporarily: it must be renounced in order to be regained with everincreased potency.Not much has changed in these matters over the centuries: refutedtheories repeatedly were retained on the ground of their usefulness.Finally, the instrumentalist philosophers made a virtue of this necessityand declared all scientific theories, even prior to their possiblerefutations, not hypotheses, not putative truths, but mere conventions.According to this doctrine, conventionalism, all applied science isblack-box technology, and all science is applied science. They arguedthis way because, having lost hope of ever finding any perfect theory,they wished to leave room for the modification of scientific theory.This is particularly so with Pierre Duhem, who considered all theoryas likely to be defective, and who therefore preferred to treat allscientific theory as Bellarmino treated Copernicanism.9 Duhem wasan ultra-Catholic and, siding with Bellarmino, he actually went muchfurther in his instrumentalism in the direction that I consider nothingshort of anti-intellectualism. To Bellarmino, Copernicanism was def-initely defective, not probably defective, and so he was justified inhis own attempt to view its successful application as black-boxy,as mere mathematical device, no more than a sleight-of-hand.Moreover, he said he was open to persuasion and would declareCopernicanism true upon being offered a cogent proof.10 By contrast,Duhem was not open to persuasion, and held all scientific theoryto be sleight-of-hand, once and for all. In particular, he saw nopossibility of ever finding anything like cogent proof of any scientific

8Sir Francis Bacon (1620), Preface to Great Instauration.9Duhem, (1954) argues that physical laws are approximate and provisional (ChapterV section 3), and that crucial experiments can never establish a theory (Chapter VI,section 3).'OSeereferences in note 4.

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theory. He therefore denied that any scientific theory was ever apicture of the world. For his own picture of the world he chosea picture that he frankly put as quite independent of science-Aristote-lianism. " It was allegedly the same picture which Bellarmino hadthree centuries earlier, yet Duhem differed from Bellarmino, bothin detail-which is to be expected-and in the utter finality of hiscommitment, as opposed to Bellarmino's readiness to hear any proofthat Galileo might offer. This difference could be deemed negligible,but for the fact that whereas to the reactionary Bellarmino therewas still the possibility (however remote) of distinguishing betweenscience and technology, and thereby allowing that Copernicanism wassomething more than mere sleight-of-hand, perhaps even the truth,the arch-reactionary Duhem gave up all possibility of ever makingsuch a distinction and hence of ever changing his views. And thisdifference is rather significant, at least to Bellarmino and Duhem.When Popper criticized Duhem's pragmatist or instrumentalist viewson the aim of science, in his by now famous "Three Views ConcerningHuman Knowledge," he rejected the black-box view of science, butnot the black-box view of technology. He did not endorse it either,but he lumped together, as far as technology is concerned, theories,black-boxes and sheer rule of thumb. He claimed that Duhem wasin error when viewing pure science as part and parcel of appliedscience, for black boxes and rules of thumb have their places intechnology, but not in science.12 This may be adequate enough forPopper, as his sole concern is pure science, but for those who findtechnology of some interest in itself, Popper's views may well beimproved upon. But I think Popper's view ought to be criticizedanyway, even for those who share the same limited concern thathe shows in that essay. For, I think, a broader view may be ofsome use: it may be easier to criticize Duhem by arguing not onlythat not all science is black-boxy technology, but further that notall technology is black-boxy. Indeed, this further argument may turnout to be the easier one: as a matter of fact theoretical researchin technology does exist, and has a recognized name-basic orfundamental research. Not only pure scientific research, but eventechnological basic or fundamental research is more rational, less

'Duhem expressed his hope that the final stage of physics-whether to be achievedor to serve as a regulative idea-will confirm his faith in Aristotelian metaphysics.It is not clear whether he said this in order to vindicate his faith in Aristotle orhis love for science or both. In any case, as Louis de Broglie has noted in his introductoryessay to the English translation of Duhem (1954), this idea of Duhem is an afterthought,and one that conflicts with Duhem's whole outlook. See also my (1957).12Karl R. Popper, (1963), Chapter 2; see especially pp. 112-113.

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BETWEEN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGYof a device or of a sleight-of-hand, than Duhem will allow. Duhem'sview makes it impossible to make sense of the broadly accepteddistinction between pure science, basic research, and technologicalresearch. A follower of Duhem may well admit that seemingly theseactivities differ, yet see no difficulty here: he may claim that allof these seemingly distinct activities-pure science, basic research,and technological research-are not really distinct, but only lookdifferent. Perhaps he is right: yet the fact remains that at least onthe surface, as mere observed facts, most scientists and technologistsdistinguish the three: pure and basic research look identical yet arerepeatedly differentiated by scientists, technologists, and technologicaladministrators. And for a reason that Duhem must reject a priori,no less. Let me explain. As soon as I notice that at least those whoinsist on their endorsement of pragmatism or instrumentalism, must,for the sake of consistency, give up the distinction they hold betweenthe three activities, the following clarification of this distinction andthe following advocacy of it notwithstanding.Consider a historical example: photography. First stage: the cameraobscura-origins unknown-and photochemistry, perhaps also originsunknown, but it came to the fore with the discovery of oxygen andphotosynthesis by Joseph Priestly. The two phenomena were puttogether by a number of experimentors just before the turn of thenineteenth century. The result was visible but temporary pictureson screens covered with photosensitive chemicals. Second stage: thediscovery of the fixative, namely the chemical that stops the photo-chemical process so that the picture is not destroyed when exposedto light. This was done by trial and error, by Daguerre'3 and byFox Talbot.14 The major leap was Daguerre's suspicion that he couldget a latent image, an image not visible before the use of a fixativewhich both reveals and fixes the picture.Photography was put to an important use even before the discoveryof the fixative-by Thomas Young, who also showed that photosen-sitivity depends on the wavelength of the incidential light.15 Youngmade this discovery when he tried to show that radiant heat, namelyultra-violet and infra-red light, are light waves: he created interferencepatterns with these kinds of light which were momentarily visibleon the photo-plates. The fading of the photos did not trouble him

'3See W. Jerome Harrison, (1887), pp. 24-25, J. M. Eder (1905), pp. 195-207, andBeaumont Newhall (1967), p. 46.'4See Eder (1905), pp. 239-44, Beaumont Newhall (1964), pp. 31-32, and Newhall(1967), 55-6.15Eder (1905), pp. 1089; and Beaumont Newhall (1967), p. 33.

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JOSEPH AGASSIin the least, since the momentarily visible interference patterns weresufficient for his purpose.Unlike the invention of the fixative, which was both intentional,and arrived at largely by a shot in the dark, the invention of colorphotography-by James Clerk Maxwell-was the unintended resultof a theory. 16 It was well known by then, we remember, that differentchemicals may be sensitive to different wavelengths. Maxwell's owninterest, however, was not at all in color photography, not in anyother photography, but rather in color vision. And he endorsed anddeveloped Young's theory of vision according to which the humaneye is sensitive to three and only three colors, from the combinationof which the brain synthesizes all the various shades normally seen.Indeed, the eye analyzes light, he agreed, into the three componentsit sees, and then the brain synthesizes the three colors so as to obtainthe original varied picture on its rich spectrum of colors. He arrivedthen at the corollary that a superposition of three monochromaticphotographs may thus result in color photography proper, since inthat case the analysis is already made by the photographer and sothe eye will not distinguish the trichromatic picture composed fromthe three superimposed pictures from the original picture on its variedand rich spectrum of colors. Tricolor photography, in short, is anoptical illusionSo much for my historical example. I wish to use it, let me repeat,as an illustration of the fact, assuming that it is a fact, that withoutmuch philosophical analysis we easily distinguish different kinds ofactivity, pure research, basic research, and technological research.And, of course, when we keep philosophical analysis at arm's lengthat least (but also otherwise, in my view), the purpose of an activitymay be a major factor in our view of it. Indeed, in the story justtold, the purposes of the diverse activities are the first things thatcolor our views of them: we see here three cases of experimentalactivities or experimental designs or experimental designs plus theirperformance. In Young's case, his aim was to design an experimentto test a scientific theory, and he made a discovery that he coulduse in that design. In the case of Daguerre and Fox Talbot, therewas a clear technological task and attempts by trial-and-error to executeit satisfactorily. In the case of Maxwell there was the finding, asan after-thought, of a new application for a theory; Maxwell's inventionof (the design of) color photography was, as we call such things,a by-product of pure research. None of these examples is what is

'6See Eder (1905), pp. 132, 428; also Beaumont Newhall (1964), p. 192. Also Helmutand Alison Gernsheim, (1955), p. 52.

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BETWEEN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGYcalled basic or fundamental research-research which is pure science,but with an eye on its technological by-products. Basic or fundamentalresearch is conducted by quite a few private and public industrialorganizations devoted to technological concerns, including photo-graphy. The basic or fundamental research in the photographic industryis devoted these days to photo-chemistry, to theories of vision, toelectronics, to mechanics of speed photography, to thermodynamicsand to colloid chemistry, indeed to diverse fields of science. Thediscoveries resulting from such research must be judged as scientificdiscoveries whether judged by common-sense or by any knowncriterion of scientific discovery. Nonetheless, the intellectual ortheoretical value or interest of these discoveries is often, but certainlynot always, rather narrow and is much smaller than their technologicalinterest or usefulness.4. Theories of Demarcation. Let us now turn from facts to theorizing,from the observed different research activities to the philosopher'sattempt at distinguishing between them. We come, thus, to the problemof the demarcation between science and technology; we shall tryto extend it to demarcate each from basic or fundamental research.To begin with the demarcation between science and technology.Usually science is demarcated as a set of statements. But for ourend we need demarcate research activities. Following the traditionwe may easily view the difference between scientific and technologicalresearch as the difference in aim which leads to the difference inthe results of the activity, or rather in the expected result of theactivity: science but not technology is viewed as aiming at findingthe truth about the nature of things. This view renders basic orfundamental research a part of pure scientific research. Usually thedifference between these two is taken to be merely a difference infinal aim: the application of the fruits of pure science is a by-product,whereas the application of the fruits of basic or fundamental researchis the prime purpose. Hence there is, in this case, no differencein the day to day research conduct between those engaged in basicor fundamental research and those engaged in proper scientific orpure research; the immediate aims of both activities are identical;the difference is long term-pure research can go on indefinitelywhether with or without visible applicability-not so basic or funda-mental research. And so the difference is not entirely a matter ofwho is the theoretician, a university professor or an industrial re-searcher. Such distinctions are unhelpful anyhow, in our day andage, when pure research has invaded industry and industrial researchthe universities. The difference depends primarily upon the distinction

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JOSEPH AGASSIbetween the long-term and short-term interests: knowledge gainedthrough basic or fundamental research is seldom interesting apartfrom its usefulness; in the short-run, then, fundamental research isscientific, but in the long-run it is technological.Now, this is how I think things stand these days; this reasoningstrikes me as the one in use and correct as far as it goes, but neverthelesshighly unsatisfactory. The results of basic or fundamental researchmay in the long run be of high scientific interest; perhaps this isnot often the case, but it happens often enough to raise afresh theproblem of demarcation between research in pure science and basicfundamental research. Moreover, it seems rather unsatisfactory todemarcate science from technology on the basis of a distinction betweeninterest and usefulness, because apart from its usefulness, technologyis itself highly interesting and often fascinating. To deny that basicor fundamental research and its fruits are of interest because, oftenenough, they bear little interest for pure science, is erroneous, orat least parochial. The fascination of basic or fundamental researchas of technology in general usually cannot be divorced from itspracticalness: like functional architecture it fascinates us in its veryusefulness, in constituting ingenious and dextrous solutions to problemswhich happen to be practical, but also challenging. Therefore, a littlemore ought to be said on the difference between pure research inpure science and in fundamental research.17Science is often characterized by its verifiability or confirmability;this renders science and technology in principle identical, and thisin its turn does not enable us to go beyond the rather superficialsolution I have outlined above. To go further, one needs Popper'sdemarcation of science. According to Popper's philosophy-at leastin the way I usually present it-scientific theories are refutableexplanations of empirical facts, and learning from experience is thesame as finding some empirical refutations of some hitherto unrefutedscientific theories. All this holds for science, not for technology,where applicability is based on corroboration, not on refutation. Letme elaborate.5. Successin Scienceand in Technology. Traditionally, scientific theorywas judged successful when a new prediction based on it agreed

17Hereis also the place to speak of that bothersome quality, elegance. That betterinelegant argument or proof than none is as obvious as that better an elegant onethan not. So much is universally agreed, yet the topic has gained only passingobservations, and usually ones which express annoyance. Evidently, elegance addsto our understanding by clarifying what factors play what role in an argument. Butwhat sort of understanding is this? Why is it always easier to increase elegance withthe aid of advanced knowledge than without it?

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BETWEEN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGYwith experience and failed otherwise; and a man of science was deemedsuccessful if his theory was successful. On a second thought, initialsuccess was the ability to solve a problem with the aid of a theory;often, when a task was difficult enough, even initial success madean originator of a theory successful. Thus we find, in classical examplesfrom the theory of celestical mechanics, Kepler, Newton, and Einstein,feeling that they had great success even prior to any new test.What if initial success leads to a refutation rather than agreement?Back to the drawing board, of course. But does this mean that theinitial success is cancelled? Traditionally the answer was, yes. Someof the effort may be salvaged, no doubt, if it can be reused; butthis is a technicality, no different from the fact that Kepler improvedhis research abilities while encountering repeated failure.Opposed to the traditional theory of science, there is Popper's theoryof science as a Socratic dialogue;18 we learn from experience, hesays, in the act of refuting our conjectures by empirical means. Thefailure of a theory that had initial success is what counts. Now,how shall we judge the success of a theory, or the positive resultof a test in which prediction is born out by the fact? This, I shouldsay, makes the initial success of the theory all the more impressive,and so the challenge to refute it both harder and more promising.But, to stress a point, if after initial success a refutation comes atonce, there is a gain from it, not a loss.This is my own reading of Popper's theory. His own reading isdifferent: he says, after the initial success of solving a problem, atheory should also pass some tests before it fails.'9 I fail to seethe merit of this point and see no merit in it at all. This is not tosay that I do not appreciate the need of theories to pass some testssuccessfully. But a completely different merit, and one that requiresa deviation from Popper's theory of the successful outcome of atest, usually known as accord with experience or as confirmation,and which he prefers to call corroboration.

Popper's theory of corroboration is very simple: corroboratingevidence or positive evidence is the empirical result of an experimentwhich, though set to refute a theory, has failed to refute it.20 Popperis not at all clear about the role of corroboration in science. In mypresentation of his view, as repeated above, corroboration merely

18I have in mind Socrates's claim in Plato's Gorgias, that the loser in a debateis the true winner. [Added in proof: The view of Popper's philosophy as the inclusionof science in the field of Socratic dialogues is developed in his latest publication,the introduction to his Die Beide Grundprobleme of 1979.]'9Popper (1963) pp. 217, 242.20Popper (1959), Chapter 10 and Appendix ix.

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JOSEPH AGASSIincreases the explanatory power of a theory and so enhances it asa good scientific explantion.2' In technology, however, corroborationis an important precondition for the license to apply a new invention,often specified by law.Basic or fundamental research, I contend, is in between scienceand technology, in the sense that it operates not only with explanationsand refutations; it also must operate with corroborations. Let megive an example. Plasma physics belongs largely to theoretical physicsand largely also to basic or fundamental research. Hence, the twocharacterizations richly overlap in this field.It is not hard to separate the concerns in this area of research.The purely theoretical side of plasma physics is the general interestin properties of elementary particles, or the special aspect of thisinterest which is in the way fast elementary particles interact withstrong electromagnetic fields. The technical difficulties besetting theempirical side of this research resemble the technical difficulties ofthe technological side of the research. The technological interest inplasma is the concern not in just any elementary particle, and hardlyin plasma at all, but in the various hydrogen nuclei which, whenfast (hot) enough may fuse into helium and thus release nuclear energy;plasma physics enters merely as the hoped for means of achievingcontrolled nuclear fusion. The basic or fundamental research intothe nature of plasma, then, concerns the laws regulating the interactionbetween fast particles and electro-magnetic fields only because thehope that the knowledge of these laws will enable us to control thefast particles with the aid of strong fields. The basic or fundamentalresearcher may study different interactions between strong fields anddifferent hot particles, but his central concern will again and againreturn to the interactions which may help him fuse hydrogen nucleiinto helium nuclei. He will therefore not be content with mererefutations of his theories: sooner or later we will hope to see positiveresults which may be the beginnings of technological application,namely the fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium nuclei. When hedespairs of these he will declare the basic or fundamental researcha failure. But it will be as basic or fundamental research that thework will fail; it may, indeed, proceed as "purely" theoretical fromthen on. Moreover, even though plasma research has, in fact, notsucceeded as basic or fundamental research, it still proceeds withever increasing ingenuity and unflagging hopes. Also, even thoughunsuccessful, it did encourage, as a by-product, another technologicalavenue of research, that of attempting to convert heat into electricity

2'See my (1961) and (1968).

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straightforward matter. Similarly, the role of shots in the dark andof rules of thumb in science, in technology, and in their interplay,has hardly been studied. In particular, I do not mean to suggest thatthe whole field of research is covered by pure, applied, basic, andtechnological studies.Let me mention one other area of the interplay between scienceand technology, and one point within it, that of working hypotheseswhose job is to work, namely they have to be corroborated in orderto succeed, yet they are as often ancillary to scientific research asto technological ones. Indeed, one can say, the technology createdfor the purpose of enabling pure scientific research to proceed isat times exciting-the bubble chamber may be a good example, thoughI find the tiny cloud chamber equally fascinating. I will say no morehere of working hypotheses, as I have discussed them elsewhere.22All I wish to say now is that all research that requires confirmationor corroboration for its success gambles much more than one thatdoes not. And so, a humble researcher that takes a minor problemin basic research or devises a working hypothesis to aid basic orpure research often does so out of timidity and fear of risk-taking,but in fact he takes a bigger risk than a pure researcher. Many adoctoral student has paid for such an error by the loss of his chancesfor an academic career. Much of the tensions and travails of thebasic or fundamental research that goes on in industry may likewisebe viewed as an unnoticed large risk-taking, that creates much anxietyand creates unduly large pressure on researchers to succeed whensuccess is often due to more luck than design. In all such casesa research project may be better designed by the attention to possiblefailure paid in advance. Especially because basic or fundamentalresearch is conducted under unfavorable conditions and in a senseof frustration of people placed in industry instead of in pure researchinstitutes, it is quite important to try and see things objectively andreduce hardship whenever possible.

REFERENCESAgassi, J. (1957), "Duhem versus Galileo" in The British Journal for the Philosophyof Science 8 pp. 237-48.(1961), "The Role of Corroboration in Popper's Methodology" in AustralarionJournal of Philosophy 39, pp. 82-91; reprinted in Agassi (1975), pp. 40-50.(1966), "The Confusion Between Science and Technology in Standard Philosophiesof Science," Technology and Culture 7, pp. 348-66; reprinted in Agassi (1975),pp. 282-303.(1968), "Science in Flux, Footnote to Popper," in Robert S. Cohen and MarxW. Wartofsky (eds.), Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 3, pp. 293-323.

22See my (1976), Chapter 8.

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Reprinted in Agassi (1975), pp. 9-50.(1971), "On Explaining the Trial of Galileo" in Organon 8, pp. 137-166.(1975), Science in Flux, Boston Studies (Vol. 28), Dordrecht and Boston: Reidel.(1976), "The Future of Berkeley's Instrumentalism," in International Studiesin Philosophy 7 (1975) pp. 167-178.(1977), Towards Rational Philosophical Anthropology, The Hague: Nijhoff.Bacon, Sir Francis (1920), Novum Organum.Broderick, James (1928), The Life and Work of Blessed Robert, Cardinal Bellarmino,S.J. 1541-1621, Vol. II, London.Bunge, Mario (1964), "Phenomenological Theories," The Critical Approach to Scienceand Philosophy (edited by M. Bunge), London: The Free Press of Gencoe, pp.234-254.Duhem, Pierre (1954), Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, (translated by P. P.Wiener), Princeton: Princeton University Press.Eder, Josef Maria (1905), Geschichte der Photographie, Wilhelm Krapp, Halle a.S.

Gernsheim, Helmut and Alison (1965), A Concise History of Photography, New York:Grosset & Dunlap.Harrison, W. Jerome F.G.S. (1887), A History of Photography, New York: ScovillManufacturing Company.Layton, Edwin (1971), "Mirror Image Twins: The Communities of Science andTechnology in 19thCentury America," in Technology and Culture 19, pp. 562-580.Koestler, Arthur (1959), The Sleepwalkers, Penguin (1964) first published Hutchinson,London.Newhall, Beaumont (1964), The History of Photography from 1839 to the presentday. Revised and enlarged edition, New York: The Museum of Modern Art.(1967), Latent Image, New York: George Eastman House.Popper, Karl R. (1959), The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Hutchinson of London.(1963), Conjectures and Refutations, London: Routledge and Kegal Paul Ltd.,and New York: Basic Books.Santillana, Giorgio (1955), The Crime of Galileo, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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