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In Praise of Truth and Substantive Rationality: Comments on Laudan’s Progress and Its Problems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Noretta Koertge
Noretta Koertge*
Affiliation:
Indiana University
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Like most philosophers, Laudan [7] believes that by and large science makes cognitive progress and that the development of science is more or less rational. His book deals with two major problems:

  1. (a) In what sense does science progress? What is scientific progress?

  2. (b) Wherein lies the rationality of the growth of science? What is scientific rationality?

In the main body of this paper, I first summarize and evaluate some of Laudan’s criticisms of his predecessors. Then I outline and criticize Laudan’s own theory of scientific progress and scientific rationality. In the Postscript I sketch my own views concerning the issue of changes in the canons of scientific rationality and the problem of using history to evaluate normative theories of scientific rationality.

Type
Part XII. Laudan’s Progress and Its Problems
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1978 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1978 , 1978 , pp. 505 - 521
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 Philosophy of Science Association

Footnotes

1

I would like to acknowledge Alberto Coffa’s many helpful comments and probing questions. The Postcript of this paper is a direct result of discussions with History and Philosophy of Science students in my seminar on Theories of Scientific Progress, Spring 1979.

References

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