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    Carmelics

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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Laudan's Problem-Solving Model explicitly replaces truth-approximation with empirical problem scope as the criterion of scientific progress.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Problem scope alone cannot explain why one theory solves problems better than another without invoking accuracy or truth-likeness as criteria.
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    • 2.A theory could expand problem scope through ad hoc auxiliary hypotheses while diverging from truth, making progress merely apparent, not genuine.
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    • 3.Laudan's model struggles to distinguish legitimate scientific progress from technologically useful but systematically false frameworks.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Truth-approximation is metaphysically problematic and unobservable, while problem-solving scope is empirically measurable and pragmatically useful.
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    • 2.Science historically progressed by solving new empirical problems (disease, navigation, energy) rather than by approaching abstract metaphysical truth.
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    • 3.Problem-solving models avoid the pessimistic induction: past 'true' theories were later abandoned, but their problem-solving contributions endured.
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