Scientific Discovery and Theory-Confirmation

Abstract

Although I find most recent challenges to older ‘positivistic’ views in philosophy of science either unchallenging or unconvincing, there is one respect in which the new ‘post-positivists’ are, I believe, definitely right and the older ‘positivists’ definitely wrong. Reichenbach, Carnap, Popper and others all agreed that philosophy of science is exclusively concerned with the logical analysis of the merits of theories already ‘on the table’. Of course, these thinkers were ready to allow that the question of how a theory arrived on the table could be a fascinating one, but they held that it was a question of no interest to a philosopher as such. In particular, to hold that the origins of a theory have any relevance for the appraisal of its scientific merits was, according to these philosophers, to commit one form of the ‘genetic fallacy’.

At various points in this paper (and especially in section 2(c)) I am indebted to Elie lahar. I completed the paper during a most enjoyable and stimulating stay as visiting fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh. I should like to thank Larry Laudan, Nicholas Rescher and especially Adolf Grunbaum for making that stay possible. I received interesting comments on an earlier version from my fellow visiting fellows, especially Ron Giere and Ron Laymon.