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9868The 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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1493A confutation of convergent realismPhilosophy of Science 48 (1): 19-49. 1981.This essay contains a partial exploration of some key concepts associated with the epistemology of realist philosophies of science. It shows that neither reference nor approximate truth will do the explanatory jobs that realists expect of them. Equally, several widely-held realist theses about the nature of inter-theoretic relations and scientific progress are scrutinized and found wanting. Finally, it is argued that the history of science, far from confirming scientific realism, decisively conf…Read more
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1107Beyond Positivism and Relativism: Theory, Method, and EvidenceWestview Press. 1996.By targeting and critiquing these assumptions, he lays the groundwork for a post-positivist philosophy of science that does not provide aid and comfort to the enemies of reason. This book consists of thirteen essays.
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682The Epistemic, the Cognitive, and the SocialIn Peter Machamer & Gereon Wolters (eds.), Science, values, and objectivity, University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 14-23. 2004.
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346Progress 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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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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285How about bust? Factoring explanatory power back into theory evaluationPhilosophy of Science 64 (2): 306-316. 1997.1. Introduction. The papers by Hellman and Mayo offer up a rich menu of problems and proposed solutions, so there is much here for a friendly critic to fasten on. In order to bring a modicum of focus to my commentary, I shall limit my remarks to the Duhem problem and its radiations in epistemology and methodology. Both Mayo and Hellman claim to have solutions to that hoary old problem and they tout these solutions as key indicators of the explanatory power of their respective technical epistemol…Read more
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282Demystifying underdeterminationIn C. Wade Savage (ed.), Scientific Theories, University of Minnesota Press. pp. 267-97. 1990.
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256Normative naturalismPhilosophy of Science 57 (1): 44-59. 1990.Normative naturalism is a view about the status of epistemology and philosophy of science; it is a meta-epistemology. It maintains that epistemology can both discharge its traditional normative role and nonetheless claim a sensitivity to empirical evidence. The first sections of this essay set out the central tenets of normative naturalism, both in its epistemic and its axiological dimensions; later sections respond to criticisms of that species of naturalism from Gerald Doppelt, Jarrett Leplin …Read more
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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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185Progress or Rationality? The Prospects for Normative NaturalismAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 24 (1). 1987.
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160Commentary: Science at the Bar-Causes for ConcernScience, Technology, and Human Values 7 (41): 16-19. 1982.
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145The Elementary Epistemic Arithmetic of Criminal JusticeEpisteme 5 (3): 282-294. 2008.This paper propounds the following theses: 1). that the traditional focus on the Blackstone ratio of errors as a device for setting the criminal standard of proof is ill-conceived, 2). that the preoccupation with the rate of false convictions in criminal trials is myopic, and 3). that the key ratio of interest, in judging the political morality of a system of criminal justice, involves the relation between the risk that an innocent person runs of being falsely convicted of a serious crime and th…Read more
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144Two dogmas of methodologyPhilosophy of Science 43 (4): 585-597. 1976.This paper argues that it has been widely assumed by philosophers of science that the cumulative retention of explanatory success is a "sine qua non" for making judgements about the progress or rational preferability of one theory over another. It has also been assumed that it is impossible to make objective, Comparative judgements of the acceptability of rival theories unless all the statements of both theories could be translated into a common language. This paper seeks to show that both these…Read more
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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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126William Whewell on the Consilience of InductionsThe Monist 55 (3): 368-391. 1971.Most contributions to Whewell scholarship have tended to stress the idealistic, antiempirical temper of Whewell’s philosophy. Thus, the only two monograph-length studies on Whewell, Blanché’s Le Rationalisme de Whewell and Marcucci’s L’ ‘Idealismo’ Scientifico di William Whewell, are, as their titles suggest, concerned primarily with Whewell’s departures from classical British empiricism. Particularly in his famous dispute with Mill, it has proved tempting to parody Whewell’s position in the deb…Read more
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117Science and Relativism: Some key controversies in the philosophy of scienceUniversity of Chicago Press. 1990.Some Key Controversies in the Philosophy of Science Larry Laudan. the mouths of my realist, relativist, and positivist. (By contrast, there is at least one person who hews to the line I have my prag- matist defending.) But I have gone to some ...
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114Some problems facing intuitionist meta-methodologiesSynthese 67 (1). 1986.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. Garber's (1985) critique of Laudan's (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…Read more
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113Physics, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: Essays in Honor of Adolf Grünbaum (edited book)D. Reidel. 1983.GEOMETRY AND SEMANTICS: AN EXAMINATION OF PUTNAM'S PHILOSOPHY OF GEOMETRY There are many ways to shed light on how and why our conception of geometry changed during the last two centuries. One fruitful strategy is to relate those ...
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102For more than a half-century, evidence scholars have been exploring whether the criminal standard of proof can be grounded in decision theory. Such grounding would require the emergence of a social consensus about the utilities to be assigned to the four outcomes at trial. Significant disagreement remains, even among legal scholars, about the relative desirability of those outcomes and even about the formalisms for manipulating their respective utilities. We attempt to diagnose the principal rea…Read more
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85A Confutation of Convergent RealismIn Yuri Balashov & Alexander Rosenberg (eds.), Philosophy of Science: Contemporary Readings, Routledge. pp. 211. 1980.
Areas of Specialization
20th Century Philosophy |
General Philosophy of Science |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Law |
General Philosophy of Science |