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Why Falsification is the Wrong Paradigm for Evolutionary Epistemology: An Analysis of Hull's Selection Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Eugenie Gatens-Robinson
Eugenie Gatens-Robinson*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
*
‡Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Carbondale, IL 62901-4505, USA.
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Abstract

Contemporary empiricism has attempted to ground its analysis of science in a falsificationism based in selection theory. This paper links these evolutionary epistemologies with commitments to certain epistemological and ontological assumptions found in the later work of K. Popper, D. Campbell, and D. Hull. I argue that their assumptions about the character of contemporary empiricism are part of a shared paradigm of epistemological explanation which results in unresolved tensions within their own projects. I argue further that their claim to be doing a science of science is not defensible. Hull's selectionism is analyzed to show how this epistemological agenda has played itself out in late empiricism. I suggest some directions that Hull might take toward an historical epistemology.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 60 , Issue 4 , December 1993 , pp. 535 - 557
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1993

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Footnotes

†

I would like to thank Mark Johnson for his very helpful suggestions and calls for clarification in working out the arguments in this paper.

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