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Misunderstanding Understanding Scientific Progress

Maxwell, Nicholas (2018) Misunderstanding Understanding Scientific Progress. [Preprint]

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Abstract

In my book Understanding Scientific Progress (Maxwell 2017), I argue that fundamental philosophical problems about scientific progress, above all the problem of induction, cannot be solved granted standard empiricism (SE), a doctrine which most scientists and philosophers of science take for granted. A key tenet of SE is that no permanent thesis about the world can be accepted as a part of scientific knowledge independent of evidence. For a number of reasons, we need to adopt a rather different conception of science which I call aim-oriented empiricism (AOE). This holds that we need to construe physics as accepting, as a part of theoretical scientific knowledge, a hierarchy of metaphysical theses about the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, these theses becoming increasingly insubstantial as we go up the hierarchy. Fundamental philosophical problems about scientific progress, including the problems of induction, theory unity, verisimilitude and scientific discovery, which cannot be solved granted SE, can be solved granted AOE. In his review of Understanding Scientific Progress, Moti Mizrahi makes a number of criticisms, all of which are invalid in quite elementary ways


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Maxwell, Nicholas
Keywords: Scientific progress; problem of underdetermination; problem of theory unity; problem of verisimilitude; problem of induction; problem of rational scientific discovery; pessimistic induction.
Subjects: General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics
General Issues > Confirmation/Induction
General Issues > Explanation
General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
Specific Sciences > Physics
General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
General Issues > Structure of Theories
General Issues > Theory Change
Depositing User: Nicholas Maxwell
Date Deposited: 10 Feb 2018 17:21
Last Modified: 10 Feb 2018 17:21
Item ID: 14367
Official URL: http://www.paragonhouse.com/xcart/Understanding-Sc...
Subjects: General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics
General Issues > Confirmation/Induction
General Issues > Explanation
General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
Specific Sciences > Physics
General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
General Issues > Structure of Theories
General Issues > Theory Change
Date: 10 February 2018
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/14367

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