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Reflections on Peirce's Concepts of Testability and The Economy of Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Jeff Foss
Jeff Foss*
Affiliation:
University of Victoria
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Extract

Could there have been a more down to earth philosopher of science than Charles Saunders Peirce? His later years are characterized by metaphysical opinions that are speculative. Yet throughout his career, his view of scientific method was quintessentially pragmatic. For instance, he reckons the testability of scientific hypotheses by these oft-repeated standards: “money, time, energy, thought” (7.220). He came to the philosophy of science from the laboratory by a route involving a dispute with leading scientists, carried on in the scientific journals and congresses of his day, and reported to the International Geodetic Committee. The dispute concerned the soundness of the design of certain experiments carried out by Peirce and others to measure the strength of the gravitational field at the Earth's surface. (Peirce's own account of these events is given in 7.1 - 7.20.

Type
Part I. Discovery and Justification
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1984 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1984 , 1984 , pp. 28 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1984

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