Due, Austin
(2022)
Are ‘phase IV’ trials exploratory or confirmatory experiments?
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 95.
pp. 126-133.
Abstract
Exploratory experiments are characterized as experiments that do not test hypotheses. Experiments that do test hypotheses are often characterized as confirmatory experiments. Philosophers of science have pointed out that research programmes can be both confirmatory and exploratory. However, the way confirmatory and exploratory experimentation are each defined precludes single cases of experimentation being jointly confirmatory and exploratory; how can an experiment both test and not test a hypothesis? Here I argue that a recharacterization of the relationship between exploratory and confirmatory experimentation is needed, and I appeal to ‘phase IV’ trials to show what this recharacterization could look like. In short, I offer a recharacterization of the relationship between exploratory and confirmatory experimentation where the former remains a distinct kind of experimentation but is not necessarily non-hypothesis-testing.
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