Scientific Theories and Their Domains

Abstract

If we examine some relatively sophisticated area of science at a particular stage of its development, we find that a certain body of information is, at that stage, taken to be an object for investigation. On a general level, one need only think of the subject matters called “electricity,” “magnetism,” “light,” or “chemistry”; but both within and outside such standard fields, there are more specific examples, such as what are taken to be subfields of the preceding subjects. Further, those general subjects themselves are, in many cases, considered to be related in certain ways. I will refer to such bodies of related items as domains, though we will find that, in the sense in which this concept will prove helpful in understanding science, and in particular in understanding the concept of a scientific “theory,” more is involved than the mere relatedness of certain items.