The Logic of Invention

The question is not new. It was fashionable in the first half of the twentieth century when a small group of American writers—William Fielding Ogburn, Abbott Payson Usher, and Waldemar Kaempffert, among others—produced theories of invention. But in more recent decades the idea of such theories has fallen out of fashion. One reason is that the early theories were far from satisfactory (“riven by contradictions,” says McGee; “wrong,” says Constant), and yielded little that could be built upon. A more significant one is that modern research shows that the actual process of invention varies greatly from historical case to historical case, so that universalities appear not to exist. Some novel technologies issue from an individual working alone, others from several groups working with independent ideas. Some derive from huge programmatic investment, others from private shoestring effort. Some emerge from years of trial and are marked by a sequence of intermediate versions that don’t quite fulfill the goal, others appear whole cloth as if from nothing. “Attempts thus far to present a general interpretation of all technology change have foundered on the great diversity and complexity of that change,” says Constant. As a consequence, no modern theory of invention exists, and the idea of “invention” has assumed a status like that of “consciousness” or “mind,” something we can speak of but not quite articulate. Textbooks hurry past it without explaining what it is.