Dellsén, Finnur (2022) Scientific Progress Without Justification. [Preprint]

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Abstract

According to some prominent accounts of scientific progress, e.g. Bird’s epistemic account, accepting new theories is progressive only if the theories are justified in the sense required for knowledge. This paper argues that epistemic justification requirements of this sort should be rejected because they misclassify many paradigmatic instances of scientific progress as non-progressive. In particular, scientific progress would be implausibly rare in cases where (a) scientists are aware that most or all previous theories in some domain have turned out to be false, (b) the new theory was a result of subsuming and/or logically strengthening previous theories, or (c) scientists are aware of significant peer disagreement about which theory is correct.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Dellsén, Finnur finnurd@gmail.com 0000-0003-4989-4204
Additional Information:	To appear in K. Khalifa, I. Lawler, and E. Shech, Scientific (eds.), Scientific Understanding and Representation: Modeling in the Physical Sciences (Routledge)
Keywords:	scientific progress; epistemic justification; pessimistic induction; unification; peer disagreement
Subjects:	General Issues > Evidence General Issues > Theory Change
Depositing User:	Dr. Finnur Dellsén
Date Deposited:	10 Nov 2021 05:01
Last Modified:	10 Nov 2021 05:01
Item ID:	19828
Subjects:	General Issues > Evidence General Issues > Theory Change
Date:	2022
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/19828

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