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Measuring the Success of Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Ilkka Niiniluoto
Ilkka Niiniluoto*
Affiliation:
University of Helsinki
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Extract

While most philosophers of science agree that science is, perhaps in many ways, a highly successful enterprise, there is no consensus about the best way of defining and measuring this success. Philosophers are also divided in their views about two further issues: What does the success of a scientific theory indicate? What is the best way of explaining this success?

After some remarks about institutional and pragmatic measures of success, this paper concentrates on rival ways of defining cognitive success. Four realist measures of epistemic credit are discussed: probability, confirmation (corroboration), expected verisimilitude, and probable verisimilitude. Laudan’s non-realist concept of the problem-solving effectiveness of a theory is compared to Hempel’s notion of systematic power. I argue that such truth-independent concepts alone are insufficient to characterize scientific advance. But if they are used as truth-dependent epistemic utilities, they serve as fallible indicators of the truth or truthlikeness of a theory.

Type
Part VIII. Theory and Hypothesis
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1990 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1990 , 1990 , pp. 434 - 445
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1990

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