Subject: Philosophy Book Title: Inventing Temperature
Inventing Temperature
Measurement and Scientific Progress
Chang, Hasok
Lecturer in the Department of Science and Technology Studies, University College London
Print publication date: 2004
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2005
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-517127-3
doi:10.1093/0195171276.001.0001
Abstract:
This book presents the concept of “complementary science” which contributes to scientific knowledge through historical and philosophical investigations. It emphasizes the fact that many simple items of knowledge that we take for granted were actually spectacular achievements obtained only after a great deal of innovative thinking, painstaking experiments, bold conjectures, and serious controversies. Each chapter in the book consists of two parts: a narrative part that states the philosophical puzzle and gives a problem-centred narrative on the historical attempts to solve the puzzle; and the analysis part which provides in-depth analyses of certain scientific, historical, and philosophical aspects of the story.