Cat, Jordi (2025) Failure in Practice and Dialectic in Theory: More Value, Context, Relativity and Plurality in Science. [Preprint]
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Abstract
In this paper I point to different features and cases of scientific inquiry that suggest the relevance of a broad pattern of negativism. I have noted the role in categories of description and more normative epistemic and methodological standards across different sciences. Finally, I have focused on causal description and reasoning and identified and examined important implications. The relational character of this dialectical pattern at work, synchronic and diachronic, and the cognitive, methodological and practical values it provides renders the picture not just plural, in a descriptive sense, but also pluralistic. This is contextual and integrated; in the case of scientific change, it is not the simple global dialectics of Popperian conjectures and refutations or Kuhnian paradigms and revolutions. The picture I provide for appreciating much scientific practice is one of contextual, synthetic pluralism that has been missed. Additional empirical examination can shed some light on the details of specific cases and their various forms of contributing to scientific change without substituting for a contextual account a monolithic Hegelian caricature.
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