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    Many empirically successful past scientific theories cann... — Carmelics
    Home/Skepticism
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    Many empirically successful past scientific theories cannot be regarded as true or approximately true

    Skepticism
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Laudan's 'pessimistic meta-induction' shows that predictive success systematically fails to track truth across scientific history.
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    • 2.Phlogiston, caloric, and the luminiferous ether all generated novel predictions yet referred to nothing real.
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    • 3.If empirical success were a reliable indicator of truth, we would not observe this recurring pattern of successful-but-false theories.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.van Fraassen's constructive empiricism demonstrates that empirical adequacy—saving the phenomena—is a weaker and more achievable goal than truth.
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    • 2.A theory can be empirically adequate across all observable domains while positing entirely fictitious unobservable structures.
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    • 3.Therefore, the empirical success of a theory underdetermines its truth, meaning success cannot license truth attributions to rejected theories.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.The history of science furnishes vast evidence of empirically successful theories that were later rejected
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    • 2.From subsequent perspectives, the unobservable terms of those rejected theories were judged not to refer
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    Topics

    SkepticismTruth & Knowledge

    Connections

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    Philosophy of Language1 linked

    Related

    A theory can be empirically adequate across all observable domains while positin...From subsequent perspectives, the unobservable terms of those rejected theories ...If empirical success were a reliable indicator of truth, we would not observe th...Laudan's 'pessimistic meta-induction' shows that predictive success systematical...
    +4 moreShow less
    Phlogiston, caloric, and the luminiferous ether all generated novel predictions ...The history of science furnishes vast evidence of empirically successful theorie...Therefore, the empirical success of a theory underdetermines its truth, meaning ...van Fraassen's constructive empiricism demonstrates that empirical adequacy—savi...

    Similar

    The success of a theory does not by itself suggest that it is likely a...83%If even a few historical examples show that theories can be empiricall...83%Moral theories cannot be tested and confirmed in the way that scientif...82%Current scientific theories are false.82%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: scientific-realism
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    Contemporary discussion commonly focuses on Laudan’s (1981) argument to the effect that the history of science furnishes vast evidence of empirically successful theories that were later rejected; from subsequent perspectives, their unobservable terms were judged not to refer and thus, they cannot not be regarded as true or even approximately true. (If one prefers to define realism in terms of scientific ontology rather than reference and truth, one may rephrase the worry in terms of the mistaken
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit