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47Reply to Mary HesseThe Monist 55 (3): 525-525. 1971.I am happy to see Dr. Hesse’s clarification of her earlier discussion of consilience. I shall not comment here on her interesting, if controversial, thesis that a confirmed theory confers no likelihood on its untested entailments, except insofar as the latter are analogous to previously confirmed entailments of that theory. It would be premature to comment on the thesis until Hesse has spelled out in more detail her account of analogy.
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32Views of progress: Separating the pilgrims from the rakesPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 10 (3): 273-286. 1980.
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73Dominance and the disunity of method: Solving the problems of innovation and consensusPhilosophy of Science 56 (2): 221-237. 1989.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 illustra…Read more
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The methodological foundations of Mach's anti-atomism and their historical rootsIn Peter K. Machamer & Robert G. Turnbull (eds.), Motion and Time, Space and Matter, Ohio State University Press. pp. 390--417. 1976.
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54A problem-solving approach to scientific progressIn Ian Hacking (ed.), Scientific revolutions, Oxford University Press. 1981.
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Progress and its problems: Towards a theory of scientific growthBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 32 (1): 57-71. 1978.
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77Towards a Reassessment of Comte’s ‘Methode Positive’Philosophy of Science 38 (1): 35-53. 1971.In this study of Auguste Comte's philosophy of science, an attempt is made to explicate his views on such methodological issues as explanation, prediction, induction and hypothesis. Comte's efforts to resolve the dual problems of demarcation and meaning led to the enunciation of principles of verifiability and predictability. Comte's hypothetico-deductive method is seen to permit conjectures dealing with unobservable entities
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Hacking, Ian, "The Emergence of Probability: A Philosophical Study of Early Ideas About Probability, Induction and Statistical Inference" (review)Erkenntnis 13 (n/a): 417. 1978.
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313Science and Values: The Aims of Science and Their Role in Scientific DebateUniversity of California Press. 1984.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
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63The Philosophy of Progress..PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1978. 1978.
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ComteIn Noretta Koertge (ed.), Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons. pp. 3--375. 2008.
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9869The Demise of the Demarcation ProblemIn Robert S. Cohen & Larry Laudan (eds.), Physics, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: Essays in Honor of Adolf Grünbaum, D. Reidel. pp. 111--127. 1983.
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132Aim-less epistemology?Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 21 (2): 315-322. 1990.
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347Progress and its Problems: Toward a Theory of Scientific GrowthUniversity of California Press. 1977.(This insularity was further promoted by the guileless duplicity of scholars in other fields, who were all too prepared to bequeath "the problem of ...
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196If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix ItBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 40 (3): 369-375. 1989.
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15Waves, Particles, Independent Tests and the Limits of InductivismPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992. 1992.This paper seeks to show that Achinstein's recent attempt to establish that both parties to the wave-particle debate in 19th-century optics were Bayesian conditionalizers forces us to ignore several of the key conceptual issues in that controversy-not least the role of the vera causa principle and, more important still, the role of positive evidence in securing acceptance for the wave theory of light.
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48Damn the Consequences!Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 69 (2). 1995.
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77Thoughts on HPS: 20 years laterStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 20 (1): 9-13. 1989.
Areas of Specialization
20th Century Philosophy |
General Philosophy of Science |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Law |
General Philosophy of Science |