Search

Rumford’s experiments on the heat generated during the boring of cannons, from which he argued for the “inexhaustible” creation of heat by friction, were cited and used by James Prescott Joule many years later to calculate roughly a mechanical equivalent of heat.2 I shall suggest in what follows that the fact that this work was so cited and used by a later work that itself provided the reference point for even later research is a key factor in the growth of science.

In a book and a series of articles (1977a, 1977b, 1977c, 1978) Harold I. Brown has presented “the new theory of science”, which he characterizes as a “modest historicism”. I propose to examine Brown's contribution to the current debate on scientific method, and to show the inadequacy of his proposals. In particular, I want to concentrate on a fundamental concern of Brown's, namely, rationality.