Larry Laudan

Science and values : the aims of science and their role in scientific debate

In this title, Laudan constructs a fresh approach to a longtime problem for the philosopher of science: how to explain the simultaneous and widespread presence of both agreement and disagreement in science. Laudan critiques the logical empiricists and the post-positivists as he stresses the need for centrality and values and the interdependence of values, methods, and facts as prerequisites to solving the problems of consensus and dissent in science.

Beyond positivism and relativism : theory, method and evidence

Introduction The Sins of the Fathers: Positivist Origins of Postpositivist Relativisms Theory And Evidence Demystifying Underdetermination Empirical Equivalence and Underdetermination (with Jarrett Leplin.) Methods And Progress A Problem-Solving Approach to Scientific Progress For Method: Answering the Relativist Critique of Kuhn and Feyeraband Reconciling Progress and Loss Choosing The Aims And Methods Of Science Progress or Rationality? The Prospects for Normative Naturalism The Rational Weight of the Scientific Past: Forging Fundamental Change in a Conservative Discipline Normative Naturalism: Replies to Friendly Critics History And Sociology Of Science The Pseudo-Science of Science? The Demise of the Demarcation Problem Science at the BarCauses for Concern Dominance and the Disunity of Method: Solving the Problems of Innovation and Consensus (with Rachel Laudan.).

The Demise of the Demarcation Problem

We live in a society which sets great store by science. Scientific ‘experts’ play a privileged role in many of our institutions, ranging from the courts of law to the corridors of power. At a more fundamental level, most of us strive to shape our beliefs about the natural world in the ‘scientific’ image. If scientists say that continents move or that the universe is billions of years old, we generally believe them, however counter-intuitive and implausible their claims might appear to be. Equally, we tend to acquiesce in what scientists tell us not to believe. If, for instance, scientists say that Velikovsky was a crank, that the biblical creation story is hokum, that UFOs do not exist, or that acupuncture is ineffective, then we generally make the scientist’s contempt for these things our own, reserving for them those social sanctions and disapprobations which are the just deserts of quacks, charlatans and con-men. In sum, much of our intellectual life, and increasingly large portions of our social and political life, rest on the assumption that we (or, if not we ourselves, then someone whom we trust in these matters) can tell the difference between science and its counterfeit.

The Pseudo-Science of Science?

After several decades of benign neglect, the content of science has once again come under the scrutinous gaze of the sociologist of knowledge. Aberrant Marxists, structuralists, Habermasians, ‘archeologists of knowledge’ and a host of others have begun to argue (or, sometimes, to presume largely without argument) that we can give a sociological account of why scientists adopt virtually all of the specific beliefs about the world which they do. More than this, it is often claimed that only via sociology (or its cognates, anthropology and archaeology) can we hope to acquire a ‘scientific’ understanding of science itself. The older sociological tradition, which tended to take a hands-off policy where ‘sound’ scientific belief was concerned, has been variously indicted by the new wave as lacking the courage of its convictions, treating science as ‘sacred’ and unimaginatively selling short the explanatory resources of a robust sociology of knowledge.

Why was the Logic of Discovery Abandoned

It is difficult to find a problem area in the philosophy of science about which more nonsense has been talked and in which more confusion reigns than ‘the philosophy of discovery’. It is even hard to keep the characters straight. Russ Hanson, who thought the logic of discovery was a good thing, advocated the method of abduction, which was a method for the evaluation, not the discovery, of hypotheses. Hans Reichenbach, who was notorious for insisting that the ‘context of discovery’ is of no philosophical significance, was a proponent of the straight rule of induction, a technique for the discovery of natural regularities if ever there was one. Not to be slighted here is Karl Popper who wrote a book called the Logic of Scientific Discovery, which denies the existence of any referent for its title.

II.1 The Pseudo-Science of Science?

After several decades of benign neglect, the content of science has once again come under the scrutinous gaze of the sociology of knowledge. Aberrant Marxists, structuralists, Habermasians, ‘archaeologists of knowledge’ and a host of others have begun to argue (or, sometimes, to presume largely without argument) that we can give a sociological account ofwhy scientists adopt virtually all of the specific beliefs about the world which they do. More than this, it is often claimed that only via sociology (or its cognates, anthropology and archaeology) can we hope to acquire’a ‘scientific’ understanding of science itself. The older sociological tradition, which tended to take a hands-off policy where ‘sound’ scientific belief was concerned, has been variously indicted by the new wave as lacking the courage of its convictions, treating science as ‘sacred’ and unimaginatively selling short the explanatory resources of a robust sociology of knowledge.

Testing Theories of Scientific Change

Science is accorded high value in our culture because, unlike many other intellectual endeavors, it appears capable of producing increasingly reliable knowledge. During the last quarter century a group of historians and philosophers of science (known variously as ‘theorists of scientific change’, the ‘post-positivist school’ or the ‘historical school’) has proposed theories to explain progressive change in science. Their concepts and models have received such keen attention that terms like ‘paradigm’ have passed from obscurity to common speech. In this volume, we subject key claims of some of the theorists of scientific change to just that kind of empirical scrutiny that has been so characteristic of science itself. Certain claims emerge unscathed — the existence and importance of large-scale theories (guiding assumptions) in the physical sciences for example. Others, such as the supposed importance of novel predictions or the alleged insignificance of anomalies, seem to be without foundation. We conclude that only by engaging in testing of this sort will the study of science be able to make progress.

Explaining the Success of Science: Beyond Epistemic Realism and Relativism

Throughout the first half of the eighteenth century, scientific opinion concerning the structure of the cosmos was deeply polarized; numerous “systems of the world” found their advocates among prominent natural philosophers, but the two leading rival systems were those of Descartes and of Newton. Cartesian physics held sway in France and on much of the rest of the continent; Newton’s reigned in England. The young Voltaire journeyed from Paris to London in the spring of 1727. He was confused by the contrasting world-views he found. With an acute case of culture shock, he wrote to a friend back home: A Frenchman who arrives in London finds a great shift in scientific opinion that makes the mind weary. He left the world full; he finds it empty. At Paris you see the universe composed of tiny vortices of subtle matter; in London we see nothing of the kind…With the Cartesians, all change is explained by collisions between bodies, which we don’t understand very well; with the Newtonians it is done by an attraction which is even more obscure. In Paris you fancy the earth’s shape like a round melon; at London it is flattened on the two sides.2

Dominance and the Disunity of Method: Solving the Problems of Innovation and Consensus

It is widely supposed that the scientists in any field use identical standards for evaluating theories. Without such unity of standards, consensus about scientific theories is supposedly unintelligible. However, the hypothesis of uniform standards can explain neither scientific disagreement nor scientific innovation. This paper seeks to show how the presumption of divergent standards (when linked to a hypothesis of dominance) can explain agreement, disagreement and innovation. By way of illustrating how a rational community with divergent standards can encourage innovation and eventually reach consensus, recent developments in geophysics are discussed at some length.

Some problems facing intuitionist meta-methodologies

Intuitionistic meta-methodologies, which abound in recent philosophy of science, take the criterion of success for theories of scientific rationality to be whether those theories adequately explicate our intuitive judgments of rationality in exemplary cases. Garbers (1985) critique of Laudans (1977) intuitionistic meta-methodology, correct as far as it goes, does not go far enough. Indeed, Garber himself advocates a form of intuitionistic meta-methodology; he merely denies any special role for historical (as opposed to contemporary or imaginary) test cases. What all such positions lack is a base from which to inform, criticize, or restructure our core methodological intuitions. To acquiesce in this is to deny that exemplary cases can serve the sort of warranting role required for intuitionism. This point is reinforced by a series of reasons for denying the warranting role of pre-analytic judgments of rationality. These reasons point the way toward an improved approach to meta-methodology.