On Scientific Discovery

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vii

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Mirko Drazen Grmek, Robert S. Cohen, Guido Cimino

      Pages 1-6

3. General Problems

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 7-7

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   2. A Plea for Freeing the History of Scientific Discoveries from Myth

      • Mirko D. Grmek

      Pages 9-42

   3. Progress and Rationality in Research (Science from the Viewpoint of Popperian Methodology)

      • Gerard Radnitzky

      Pages 43-102

   4. The Problems of Scientific Validation

      • Joseph Agassi

      Pages 103-114

   5. Science and Analogy

      • John D. North

      Pages 115-140

   6. Inductive Method and Scientific Discovery

      • Marcello Pera

      Pages 141-165

   7. Scientific Discovery from the Viewpoint of Evolutionary Epistemology

      • Vittorio Somenzi

      Pages 167-177

   8. The Analytical (Quantitative) Theory of Science and its Implications for the Nature of Scientific Discovery

      • Derek De Solla Price

      Pages 179-189

   9. Difficulties Inherent in a Pedagogy of Discovery in the Teaching of the Sciences

      • Gabriel Gohau

      Pages 191-210

   10. Discovery and Vocation

       • Vincenzo Cappelletti

       Pages 211-226

4. Case Studies

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 227-227

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   2. Two Scientific Discoveries: Their Genesis and Destiny

      • Jacques Roger

      Pages 229-237

   3. Logical and Psychological Aspects of the Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood

      • Richard Toellner

      Pages 239-259

   4. The Discovery of Duodenal Ancylostoma and of its Pathogenic Power

      • Luigi Belloni

      Pages 261-279

   5. Weber and Maxwell on the Discovery of the Velocity of Light in Nineteenth Century Electrodynamics

      • Salvo D’Agostino

      Pages 281-293

   6. Cognitive Psychology, Scientific Creativity, and the Case Study Method

      • Howard E. Gruber

      Pages 295-322

5. Back Matter

   Pages 323-336

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The 1977 lectures of the International School for the History of Science at Erice in Sicily were devoted to that vexing but inexorable problem, the nature of scientific discovery. With all that has been written, by scientists themselves, by historians and philosophers and social theorists, by psycholo­ gists and psychiatrists, by logicians and novelists, the problem remains elusive. Happily we are able to bring the penetrating lectures from Erice that summer to a wider audience in this volume of theoretical investigations and detailed case studies. The ancient and lovely town of Erice in Northwest Sicily, 750 m above the sea, was famous throughout the Mediterranean for its temple of the goddess of nature, Venus Erycina, said to have been built by Daedalus. As philosophers and historians of the natural sciences, we hope that the stimulating atmo­ sphere of Erice will to some extent be transmitted by these pages. We are especially grateful to that generous and humane physician and historian of science, Dr. Vincenzo Cappelletti, himself a creative scientist, for his collaboration in bringing this work to completion. We admire his intelligent devotion to fostering creative interaction between scientists and historians of science as Director of the School of History of Science within the great Ettore Majorana Centre for Scientific Culture at Erice, as well as for his imaginative leadership of the Istituto della Encic10pedia Italiana.

• Karl R. Popper
• historian of science
• history of science
• science
• scientific discovery
• theory of science

• Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne, France

  Mirko Drazen Grmek

• Boston University, USA

  Robert S. Cohen

• Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome, Italy

  Guido Cimino

Policies and ethics