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The Justificational Priority of Science over the Philosophy of Science: Laudan's Science and Hypothesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

A. A. Derksen
A. A. Derksen*
Affiliation:
Philosophy Department, University of Nijmegen
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Abstract

In this note I test a specific thesis about the dependence of philosophy of science on science that Laudan presents in his Science and Hypothesis; namely, that the sciences were justificationally prior to the philosophy of science. I argue that Laudan's historical case studies show a justificational priority that goes the other way. I also argue that the justificational role that in Progress and Its Problems the history of science is alleged to play vis-à-vis competing conceptions of scientific rationality is not apparent in Laudan's argumentation in favor of his suggested analysis in terms of problem-solving effectiveness.

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , June 1986 , pp. 259 - 264
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association 1986

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Footnotes

†

I thank Henry Byerly, Jody Kraus, and an anonymous referee of Philosophy of Science for their comments.

References

Lakatos, I. (1974), “Popper on Demarcation and Induction”, in The Philosophy of Karl Popper, Schilpp, P. A. (ed.). LaSalle IL: Open Court. (Reprinted in and quoted from I. Lakatos, “The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes,” Philosophical Papers, Vol. I, J. Worral & G. Currie (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.)Google Scholar
Laudan, L. (1977), Progress and Its Problems: Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Laudan, L. (1981), Science and Hypothesis: Historical Essays on Scientific Methodology. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar