Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T19:26:21.062Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Appraisal of Theories: Kuhn Meets Bayes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Wesley C. Salmon
Wesley C. Salmon*
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Can statistical inference shed any worthwhile light on theory change? For many years I have believed that the answer is “Yes.” Let me try to explain why I think so. On my first reading of Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) I was so deeply shocked at his repudiation of the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification that I put the book down without finishing it. By 1969, when a conference was held at the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science on the relations between the history of science and the philosophy of science, I had returned to Structure and formed the view that Kuhn’s rejection of this fundamental distinction resulted from his adoption of an inadequate conception of scientific justification. It appeared that he saw scientific confirmation in terms of the traditional hypothetico-deductive (H-D) schema, according to which a scientific hypothesis (or theory) is confirmed by observing the truth of its logical consequences.

Type
Part VIII. Statistical Inference and Theory Change
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1990 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1990 , 1990 , pp. 324 - 332
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alvarez, L.W., et al. (1980), “Extraterrestrial Cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction”, Science 208: 1095–1108.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carnap, R. (1950), Logical Foundations of Probability. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Earman, J. (forthcoming), Bayes or Bust? A Critical Examination of Bayesian Confirmation Theory. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press/Bradford Books.Google Scholar
Gardner, M. (1957), Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Glen, W. (1989), “Meteorites, Volcanoes and Dinosaurs: Update on a Historical Project on the Current Debates”, Center for the History of Physics Newsletter 21: 2–3.Google Scholar
Harari, H. (1983), “The Structure of Quarks and Leptons”, Scientific American 248, no. 4 (April): 56–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, T.S. (1962), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, T.S. (1977), “Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice”, in The Essential Tension. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 320-39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, T.S. (1983), “Rationality and Theory Choice”, Journal of Philosophy 80: 563-72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popper, K.R. (1959), The Logic of Scientific Discovery. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Reichenbach, H. (1949), The Theory of Probability. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Salmon, W.C. (1967), The Foundations of Scientific Inference. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, W.C. (1970), “Bayes’s Theorem and the History of Science”, in Historical and Philosophical Perspectives of Science, vol. 5, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Stuewer, Roger H. (ed.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 68–86.Google Scholar
Salmon, W.C. (1983), “Carl G. Hempel on the Rationality of Science”, Journal of Philosophy 80: 555-62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, W.C. (1990), “Rationality and Objectivity in Science, or Tom Kuhn Meets Tom Bayes”, in Scientific Theories vol. 14, Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science, Wade Savage, C. (ed.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 175–204.Google Scholar
Savage, L.J. (1954), The Foundations of Statistics. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Shimony, Abner (1970), “Scientific Inference”, in The Nature and Function of Scientific Theories, Colodny, Robert G. (ed.). Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 79–172.Google Scholar
Suppes, Patrick (1966), “A Bayesian Approach to the Paradoxes of Confirmation”, in Aspects of Inductive Logic, Hintikka, Jaakko and Suppes, Patrick (eds.). Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co., pp. 198–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Velikovski, Immanuel (1950), Worlds in Collision. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Worrall, John (1990), “Scientific Revolutions and Scientific Rationality: The Case of the Elderly Holdout”, in Scientific Theories vol. 14, Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science, Wade Savage, C. (ed.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 319-54.Google Scholar