Mizrahi, Moti and Buckwalter, Wesley (2013) The Role of Justification in the Ordinary Concept of Scientific Progress. [Preprint]

Preview

PDF Progress_AC.pdf - Accepted Version Download (503kB)

Abstract

Alexander Bird and Darrell Rowbottom have argued for two competing accounts of the concept of scientific progress. For Bird, progress consists in the accumulation of scientific knowledge. For Rowbottom, progress consists in the accumulation of true scientific beliefs. Both appeal to intuitions elicited by thought experiments in support of their views, and it seems fair to say that the debate has reached an impasse. In an attempt to avoid this stalemate, we conduct a systematic study of the factors that underlie judgments about scientific progress. Our results suggest that (internal) justification plays an important role in intuitive judgments about progress, questioning the intuitive support for the claim that the concept of scientific progress is best explained in terms of the accumulation of true scientific belief.

---

Export/Citation:

EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL

Social Networking:

Share |

---

Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Mizrahi, Moti motimizra@gmail.com Buckwalter, Wesley WesleyBuckwalter@gmail.com
Keywords:	concept of progress; aim of science; justification; scientific knowledge; scientific progress; true belief
Subjects:	General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism General Issues > Theory Change
Depositing User:	Dr. Moti Mizrahi
Date Deposited:	19 Dec 2013 16:45
Last Modified:	19 Dec 2013 16:45
Item ID:	10148
Subjects:	General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism General Issues > Theory Change
Date:	2013
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/10148

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item