Gerard Radnitzky

Objective Criteria of Scientific Progress? Inductivism, Falsificationism, and Relativism

Ideally science should tell us many interesting things about the world, and what it says should be certain. It should tell us much both in the sense of being precise and in the sense of giving us deep knowledge, knowledge of the underlying structures, of the innermost constitution of the world. At least so it was thought for a long time, from the Pre-socratics to recent times. J. W. N. Watkins calls this ideal of science ‘the Bacon-Descartes Ideal’ in his contribution ‘The Popperian Approach to Scientific Knowledge’, which opens the LSE-position paper at the very beginning of this volume.

Forschung als innovatives System: Entwurf einer integrativen Sehweise, die Modelle erstellt zur Beschreibung und Kritik von Forschungsprozessen

SummaryResearch is regarded as transformations of complexes composed of knowledge, problems and (hardware and software) instruments. Sequences of such transformations are embedded in human settings in which they are given directions. Problems and the work of solving them are divided into empirical and theoretical ones. In an advanced science like physics empirical and theoretical work are interrelated by means of flows of problem-generating information. Empirical and theoretical researchers work also on problems of their own making. Residuals of knowledge which cannot be systematized at the same rate as it is produced as well as clashes between new and old knowledge are potential starting points of new lines of research.

Wissenschaftstheorie als Forschungswissenschaft

SummaryThe theory of research under development at this Institute aims at systematically describing and evaluating research and its products. It conceives research as an innovative sytem in which knowledge, problems and instruments are produced and processed. It proceeds by tacking between case studies of research enterprises (past or on-going) and constructing models over such features as data generation, hypothesis checking, systematization of pieces of knowledge, etc. Its auxiliaries are systems-theory, information theory, etc. It results should make possible a critical examination of the factors that steer research processes — such as the perspective, criteria, ideals of science. A criticism informed by the results of this type of theory of research ought to be of value both for active researchers and for others concerned with research.

The birth of modern science out of the ‘European Miracle’

SummaryTo understand the present situation we must know something about its history. The ‘Rise of the West’, which grew out of the ‘European Miracle’, is a special case of cultural evolution. The development of science is an important element in this process. Cultural evolution went hand in hand with biological evolution. Evolutionary epistemology illuminates the achievements and the evolution of cognitive sensory apparatus of various species. Mans cognitive sensory apparatus is adapted to the ‘mesocosmos’, the world of medium-sized dimensions. The biological structures constitute the hardware of the cognitive sensory apparatus, while certain expectations and theories, which are ontogenetically apriori, constitute the corresponding system software. A distinction is introduced between ‘primary theories’ (linked to the sensory apparatus) and ‘secondary theories’. The latter are the result of attempts to meet the demand for an explanation of phenomena that cannot be explained in terms of ‘primary theories’. Two subsets of ‘secondary theories’ are compared: spiritualistic-personalized theories and scientific theories. From the historical point of view the scientific secondary theories are but a special subset of the class of secondary theories. From the systematic point of view it is instructive to focus on a comparison of the two subsets: what do they have in common? in what respects do they differ? The rise of scientific thinking is closely linked to the ‘European Miracle’. How (and when and why) did the West grow rich? To answer this question we must first produce an explanation of the principle: theories about the consequences of institutional arrangements. Then we can give a historical explanation of why this development took place in Europe and only there. It is claimed that the secret of success, economic wealth and the first approximations to relatively free societies, was the taming of the state, the taming of cleptocracy (independent of the nature of the agency having cleptocratic appetites, be it princes or parliaments). The taming of the state is a pre-democratic achievement. Finally, the consequences of institutional arrangements for scientific progress and innovation are examined. Only if the system is market-like, will it link individual effort with reward and, through the competitive process, encourage the wide dissemination and use of new ideas. There is no tradeoff between freedom on the one hand and economic success and the growth of scientific knowledge on the other. Freedom and the ensuing flexibility is the key to the past and to the future.