The protean idea of useful knowledge, or the rise of the capitalist orders of knowledge.

Abstract

This essay treats the idea of useful knowledge as a historical concept, attempting to apprehend its evolutionary process from a long-term perspective. Focusing on two leaders, early modern Britain and the post-World War II United States, the essay explores some undercurrents left unexplored in the existing literature and in particular the changing purpose and motive of scientific research. Firstly, it deals with the emergent idea of useful knowledge in a broad context and tracks down how early modern Britons attempted to promote mechanical arts into sciences, arguing that by the late eighteenth century that idea was bifurcated into abstract and practical science. Secondly, the essay deals with how the post-World War II US developed the bifurcated idea into basic and applied research, focusing on university scientists, who endeavoured to adapt themselves with the rise of applied research and of academic entrepreneurship during the first four post-war decades; they were especially concerned about the motive of personal profit and their social standing as well. The essay concludes that the conventional orders of knowledge have been inverted in the contemporary US, a development closely interwoven with capitalism, thus dissenting from the prevailing interpretation that underlines continuities rather than changes.