Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-669899f699-tzmfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-06T07:14:27.582Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 22 - Conclusion

Discovering New Knowledge – An Integrative Synthesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2025

By
Jonathan Jansen
Edited by
Jonathan Jansen
Jonathan Jansen
Affiliation:
Stellenbosch University
Get access

Summary

This chapter begins by acknowledging the value of the classical model of scientific discovery with its commitment to isolating variables and cancelling out noise to give us a sense of significance in the numerical results produced. But the 20 chapters in this book amply demonstrate that in the real world of discovery things are messy, unpredictable, and highly differentiated within and across disciplines. Such enduring principles of discovery, emerging from the work of scientists and scholars, are identified not only for their intellectual value but also for their practical guidance for those engaged in advanced research.

Keywords

principles of differentiabilitypositionalityserendipitycertaintynon-linearityindeterminacytechnicitymarginalityfoundationalitypragmatismideologies of sciencemodalities of discoverydiscovery-based research
Type
Chapter
Information
On Discovery
How Knowledge is Produced across the Disciplines
 , pp. 265 - 289
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Catanzaro, M. (2024). Citation cartels help some mathematicians – and their universities – climb the rankings. ScienceInsider, 30 January 2024. Available at: www.science.org/content/article/citation-cartels-help-some-mathematicians-and-their-universities-climb-rankings.Google Scholar
Chapman, S. (2014). What are Cochrane reviews? Evidently Cochrane: Sharing health evidence you can trust. Cochrane UK. Available at: www.evidentlycochrane.net/what-are-cochrane-reviews.Google Scholar
Duerr, P.M. & Holmes, A. (2023). The discovery of the expanding universe: Philosophical and historical dimensions, PhilSci Archive. Available at: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/22837/Google Scholar
Feynman, R. P. (2005). The pleasure of finding things out. Helix Books.Google Scholar
Gibbons, M. et al. (1994). The new production of knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies. SAGE publications.Google Scholar
Gigerenzer, G. (2023). The intelligence of intuition. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haufe, C. (2023). Do the humanities create knowledge? Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jansen, J. D. (2025). Beyond the orthodoxies of decolonial standpoints: Medicine, biography, and African agency. Comparative Education 61(3), forthcoming. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2025.2463804Google Scholar
Jansen, J. D., & Walters, C. A. (2022). The decolonization of knowledge. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jansen, J. D. & Walters, C. A. (2023). The thinking doctorate and the factory model of production: a cautionary tale from the south. In Nerad, M. et al. (eds), Towards a core value system in doctoral education. UCL Press, pp 1–17.Google Scholar
Kuhn, T. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Nerad, M. et al. (eds). (2023). Towards a core value system in doctoral education. UCL Press.Google Scholar
Stuart, M. T. (2019). The role of imagination in social scientific discovery: Why machine discoveries will need imagination algorithms. In Addis, M. et al. (eds) Scientific discovery in the social sciences. Springer Synthese Library, pp 49–66. Available at: https://michaeltstuart.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Stuart-M-The-Role-of-Imagination-in-Social-Scientific-Discovery-Why-Machine-Discoverers-Will-Need-Imagination-Algorithms.pdf.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wylie, A. (2003). Why standpoint matters. In Figueroa, R. & Harding, S. (eds), Science and other cultures: Issues in philosophy of science and technology. Routledge, pp 26–48.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×