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An Alternative to the Traditional Model? Laudan on Disagreement and Consensus in Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Andrew Lugg
Andrew Lugg*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Ottawa
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Extract

Larry Laudan's primary aim in his latest book, Science and Values, is to account for the high degree of agreement and the ubiquity of disagreement in science. Arguing that earlier philosophers have either concentrated on agreement and ignored disagreement or highlighted disagreement at the expense of agreement, he sets out to provide “a single, unified theory of rationality which promises to be able to explain both these striking features of science” (p. 3). However, while recognizing that Laudan has done much to clarify this issue and to bring traditional thinking about science into line with scientific practice, I shall argue that the basic problem remains to be solved. To do justice to agreement and disagreement, we must pursue a more radical course than the one Laudan charts.

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , September 1986 , pp. 419 - 424
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association 1986

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Footnotes

†

In writing this paper, I have benefited from conversations with Howard Duncan.

References

Laudan, L. (1984), Science and Values. Berkeley, University of California Press.Google Scholar
Whewell, W. (1851), “Of the Transformation of Hypotheses in the History of Science,” Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 9: 139–47.Google Scholar