studietaak 4 (7,5%) Flashcards
Imre Lakatos saw himself as taking the middle path between Popper and Kuhn:
- Popper offered a universal methodology for science
- Kuhn rejected this, but illustrated how detailed historical analysis of scientific episodes could inform philosophy
- Lakatos search for a dialect between “Statute Law” (general priniciples, as per Popper) and “Case Law” (the relevance of particular historical cases for judging what is right, as per Kuhn)
- Lakatos accepted Kuhn’s historical analysis as a critique of Popper’s specific methodology, but accepted Popper’s arguments that the philosopher of science is interested in objective knowledge and its rational basis, but not in subjective states or the sociology of scientists
- Lakatos firmly rejected the relativistic overtones in Kuhn’s thought
- Lakatos believed passionately in the need for an objective demarcation criterion between science proper and pseudo-science
Popper’s comment suggest a general strategy that Lakatos made explicit
certain great achievements in the history of science illustrate rational theory choice and genuine science if anything goes
- Lakatos: a good methodology should also be able to make us change our value judgments in the “odd” historical case, as no methodology should be entirely hostage to our pre-theoretical value judgments
- neither a-priori statute law, nor particular cases are ultimate arbiters of what is rational
Lakatos incorporated into his methodology 2 points from Kuhn
1) constant presence of anomalies
2) distinction between core and peripheral beliefs
Positive Heuristic
a unified and coherent set of principles for how to modify and sophisticate the refutable protective belt
Lakatos provided criteria for evaluating research programmes.
If a modification in a research programme (i.e. the Protective Belt) predicts some hitherto unexpected fact, the programme is “theoretically progressive”. Further, if some of these predictions are actually corroborated, the programme is “empirically progressive”, otherwise the problem-shift is “degenerating”.
(to be progressive, not all predictions have to be confirmed)
Degeneration can show itself in 3 ways:
1) a change is adhoc if it does not lead to a novel prediction
2) the change is adhoc if a new prediction is made but not corroborated
3) a prediction may be made and confirmed, but the change is still unsatisfactory to scientists -adhoc- if it is not generated by the positive heuristic
- the succession of adhoc changes show the programme has no coherence
in Mature Science, the protective belt has intellectual coherence, it is not just an arbitrary set of disconnected theories
the hardcore and intellectual driving force of the positive heuristic is explicit recognition by Lakatos of the continuity and coherence of real science (all swans are white = falsifiable, but not yet science)
Progressive Programme
theory ahead of data
Degenerating Programme
Theory lags behind
Lakatos saw himself as providing a means of reconstructing the objective rational basis of the history of science, in those episodes where we generally agree that theory choice was rational
- the distinction between anomaly and falsification is crucial for Popper, irrelevant for Lakatos.
Popper urged people to strive for consistency, Lakatos regarded it as rational to work on inconsistent foundations if the outcome was progressive
What made a prediction “novel” in the relevant way
was not temporal factors (=whether the prediction literally came before discovering the fact).
A prediction is novel for a theory if it was not used in constructing the theory -use novelty- the value of use novelty can indicate why people find temporal novelty impressive
Lakatos took novel predictions as “conjectural signs of truth”
- progressiveness is a conjectural sign of truth in our universe
Key difference between Kuhn and Popper
that Kuhn believed falsifications are always targeted at peripheral rather than core theories, whereas Popper regarded all theories as open to such targeting (Lakatos sided with Kuhn)
In zijn filosofie probeert Lakatos
de processen achter de wetenschapsontwikkeling zo precies mogelijk in kaart te brengen en daarmee helder te krijgen hoe wij op objectieve wijze wetenschap kunnen onderscheiden van pseudowetenschap
Lakatos probeert een brug te slaan tussen Kuhn en Popper
hij probeert de problemen op te lossen waar beide visies mee kampen. De filosofieën van Kuhn en Popper vertonen op vele punten overeenkomsten:
1) zetten zich af tegen de inductivistische benadering van de Logisch Positivisten
2) verkondigen een theorie gedreven (ipv datagedreven) ideaal van de wetenschap
3) veronderstellen theoriegeladenheid van observaties; het idee dat theorie neutrale data niet bestaan en dat observaties altijd gekleurd worden door (al dan niet impliciete theoretische aannamen)
Visie van Lakatos verenigd Popper en Kuhn, maar hij kreeg ook kritiek:
- volgens Popper is een theorie alleen wetenschappelijk wanneer deze falsifieerbare uitspraken genereert (een goede theorie heeft dus vele falsificatie pogingen doorstaan). Lakatos vindt Popper’s falsificatie criterium te streng en niet rijmen met de wetenschappelijke praktijk (wetenschappers geven niet zomaar hun geliefde theorieën op)
- Lakatos vindt dat een nieuwe theorie de kans moet krijgen om zich te ontwikkelen en tijdelijk gevrijwaard moet zijn van falsificaties
- Lakatos verzet zich tegen Kuhn’s idee dat theoriekeuze bepaald wordt door een groep wetenschappers (paradigma keuze proces noemt hij “mob psychology”)
- Lakatos wil een methode ontwikkelen om de rationele standaarden voor theoriekeuze en de invloed van irrationele sociale processen, zoals competitie, uit te bannen (Op deze manier wil hij de relativistische dreiging, zoals hij het zag in Kuhn’s filosofie, buiten de deur houden en de rol van rationaliteit achter wetenschappelijke progressie waarborgen)
- volgens Lakatos wordt wetenschap gekenmerkt door onderzoeksprogramma’s (research programmes), die zich net als paradigma’s op macro niveau bevinden
