The Role of Parepistemes in Materials Science

A striking example of the importance of narrowing the focus in research, which is what the concept of the parepisteme really implies, is the episode (retailed in Chapter 3, Section 3.1.1) of Eilhard Mitscherlich s research, in 1818, on the crystal forms of potassium phosphate and potassium arsenate, which led him, quite unexpectedly, to the discovery of isomorphism in crystal species and that, in turn, provided heavyweight evidence in favour of the then disputed atomic hypothesis. As so often happens, the general insight comes from the highly specific observation. 

Some parepistemes are pursued by small worldwide groups whose members all know each other, others involve vast communities which, to preserve their sanity, need to sub-classify themselves into numerous subsets. They all seem to share the feature, however, that they are not disciplines in the sense that I have analysed these 

A good way of demonstrating the importance of parepistemes, or in other terms, the virtues of subsidiarity, is to pick and analyse just a few examples, out of the many hundreds which could be chosen in the broad field of materials science and engineering. 

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