Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-2c8nx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-24T03:54:39.377Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Interfield Theories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Lindley Darden  and
Nancy Maull
Lindley Darden
Affiliation:
University of Maryland and Yale University
Nancy Maull
Affiliation:
University of Maryland and Yale University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper analyzes the generation and function of hitherto ignored or misrepresented interfield theories, theories which bridge two fields of science. Interfield theories are likely to be generated when two fields share an interest in explaining different aspects of the same phenomenon and when background knowledge already exists relating the two fields. The interfield theory functions to provide a solution to a characteristic type of theoretical problem: how are the relations between fields to be explained? In solving this problem, the interfield theory may provide answers to questions which arise in one field but cannot be answered within it alone, may focus attention on domain items not previously considered important, and may predict new domain items for one or both fields. Implications of this analysis for the problems of reduction and the unity and progress of science are mentioned.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 43 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © 1977 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

†

Lindley Darden gratefully acknowledges the support of a faculty research award from the General Research Board of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland.

References

REFERENCES

Bourgeois, S., Cohen, M., and Orgel, L. “Suppression of and Complementation among Mutants of the Regulatory Gene of the Lactose Operon of Escherichia coli.” Journal of Molecular Biology 14 (1965): 300–302.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boveri, T. “On Multipolar Mitosis as a Means of Analysis of the Cell Nucleus.” In Foundations of Experimental Embryology. Edited by Willier, B. H. and Oppenheimer, J. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964, Pages 75–97.Google Scholar
Boveri, T. Ergebnisse über die Konstitution der chromatischen Substanz des Zellkerns. Jena: G. Fischer, 1904.Google Scholar
Bridges, C. B. “Non-disjunction as Proof of the Chromosome Theory of Heredity.” Genetics 1 (1916): 1–52, 107–163.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carothers, E. E. “The Mendelian Ratio in Relation to Certain Orthopteran Chromosomes.” The Journal of Morphology 24 (1913): 487–509.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coleman, W. “Cell, Nucleus, and Inheritance: A Historical Study.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 109 (1965): 124–158.Google Scholar
Coleman, W. “William Bateson and Conservative Thought in Science.” Centaurus 15 (1970): 228–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darden, L. “Reasoning in Scientific Change: The Field of Genetics at Its Beginnings.” Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Chicago, 1974.Google Scholar
Dienert, F. “Sur la Fermentation du Galactose et sur l'Accoutamance des levures à ce Sucre.” Annales de l'Institute Pasteur 14 (1900): 138–189.Google Scholar
Dunn, L. C. A Short History of Genetics. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965.Google Scholar
Fischer, E. “Einfluss der Konfiguration auf die Wirkung der Enzyme.” Berichte der deutschen chemische Gesellschaft 27 (1894): 2985–2993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fruton, J. S. Molecules and Life: Historical Essays on the Interplay of Chemistry and Biology. New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1972.Google Scholar
Gilbert, W. and Müller-Hill, B. “Isolation of the Lac Repressor.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. 56 (1966): 1891–1898.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilbert, W. and Müller-Hill, B. “The Lac Operator is DNA.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. 58 (1967): 2415–2421.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hughes, Arthur. A History of Cytology. New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1959.Google Scholar
Jacob, F., and Monod, J. “Genetic Regulatory Mechanisms in the Synthesis of Proteins.” Journal of Molecular Biology 3 (1961): 318–356.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koshland, D. E. “Protein Shape and Biological Control.” Scientific American 229 (1973): 52–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, T. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.Google Scholar
Lakatos, I. “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes.” In Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Edited by Lakatos, I. and Musgrave, Alan. Cambridge, England: University Press, 1970, pages 91–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maull Roth, N. “Progress in Modern Biology: An Alternative to Reduction.” Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Chicago, 1974.Google Scholar
Maull, N. “Unifying Science without Reduction.” Forthcoming in Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science.Google Scholar
Monod, J., Changeux, J. -P., and Jacob, F. “Allosteric Proteins and Cellular Control Systems.” Journal of Molecular Biology 6 (1963): 306–329.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Monod, J., Wyman, J., and Changeux, J.-P., “On the Nature of Allosteric Transitions: A Plausible Model,” Journal of Molecular Biology 12 (1965): 88–118.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morgan, T. H. “An Attempt to Analyze the Constitution of the Chromosomes on the Basis of Sex-Limited Inheritance in Drosophila.” Journal of Experimental Zoology 11 (1911): 365–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, T. H. The Theory of the Gene. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1926.Google Scholar
Morgan, T. H., Sturtevant, A. H., Muller, H. J., and Bridges, C. B. The Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1915.Google Scholar
Nagel, E. The Structure of Science. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1961.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oppenheim, P. and Putnam, H. “Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis.” In Concepts, Theories and the Mind-Body Problem. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Vol. II., Edited by Feigl, H., Scriven, M., and Maxwell, G. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1958. Pages 3–36.Google Scholar
Pardee, A., Jacob, F., and Monod, J. “The Genetic Control and Cytoplasmic Expression of ‘Inducibility’ in the Synthesis of β galactosidase by E. coli.” Journal of Molecular Biology 1 (1959): 165–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffner, K. “Logic of Discovery and Justification in Regulatory Genetics.” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 4 (1974): 349–385.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schaffner, K. “The Peripherality of Reduction in the Development of Molecular Biology.” Journal of the History of Biology 7 (1974): 111–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffner, K. “The Unity of Science and Theory Construction in Molecular Biology.” In AAAS 1969: Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Vol. XI. Edited by Cohen, R. S. and Seeger, R. J. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing, 1974.Google Scholar
Shapere, D. “Scientific Theories and Their Domains.”In The Structure of Scientific Theories. Edited by Suppe, F. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1974. Pages 518–565.Google Scholar
Shapere, D. Unpublished MS. Presented at IUHPS-LMPS Conference on Relations Between History and Philosophy of Science. Jyväskylä, Finland, 1973.Google Scholar
Stent, G. “The Operon: On Its Third Anniversary.” Science 144 (1964): 816–820.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Suppe, F. The Structure of Scientific Theories. Urbana: University of Illionis Press, 1974.Google Scholar
Sutton, W. “The Chromosomes in Heredity.” Biological Bulletin 4 (1903): 231–251. Reprinted in Classic Papers in Genetics. Edited by J. A. Peters. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1959. Pages 27–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toulmin, S. Human Understanding. Vol. I. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972.Google Scholar
Weismann, A. The Germ-Plasm, A Theory of Heredity. Translated by Parker, W. N. and Röonfeldt, H. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1892.Google Scholar
Wilson, E. The Cell in Development and Inheritance. (2nd ed.). New York: Macmillan, 1900.Google Scholar