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Can Theories be Refuted?

Essays on the Duhem-Quine Thesis

  • Book
  • © 1976

Overview

Editors:
  1. Sandra G. Harding

    1. Sate University of New York, Albany, USA

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Part of the book series: Synthese Library (SYLI, volume 81)

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Table of contents (16 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages I-XXI
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  2. Physical Theory and Experiment

    • Pierre Duhem
    Pages 1-40

  3. Two Dogmas of Empiricism

    • Willard van Orman Quine
    Pages 41-64

  4. Empiricist Criteria of Cognitive Significance: Problems and Changes

    • Carl G. Hempel
    Pages 65-85

  5. Postscript (1964) on Cognitive Significance

    • Sandra G. Harding
    Pages 86-88

  6. Some Fundamental Problems in the Logic of Scientific Discovery

    • Karl R. Popper
    Pages 89-112

  7. Background Knowledge and Scientific Growth

    • Karl R. Popper
    Pages 113-115

  8. The Duhemian Argument

    • Adolf Grünbaum
    Pages 116-131

  9. A Comment on Grünbaum’s Claim

    • Willard van Orman Quine
    Pages 132-132

  10. Scientific Revolutions as Changes of World View

    • Thomas S. Kuhn
    Pages 133-154

  11. Grünbaum on the ‘Duhemian Argument’

    • Laurens Laudan
    Pages 155-161

  12. Quine, Grünbaum, and the Duhemian Thesis

    • Carlo Giannoni
    Pages 162-175

  13. Duhem, Quine and Grünbaum on Falsification

    • Gary Wedeking
    Pages 176-183

  14. Duhem, Quine and A New Empiricism

    • Mary Hesse
    Pages 184-204

  15. Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes

    • Imre Lakatos
    Pages 205-259

  16. Is it Never Possible to Falsify A Hypothesis Irrevocably?

    • Adolf Grünbaum
    Pages 260-288

  17. The Rationality of Science

    • Paul K. Feyerabend
    Pages 289-315

  18. Back Matter

    Pages 316-323
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Keywords

About this book

According to a view assumed by many scientists and philosophers of science and standardly found in science textbooks, it is controlled ex­ perience which provides the basis for distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable theories in science: acceptable theories are those which can pass empirical tests. It has often been thought that a certain sort of test is particularly significant: 'crucial experiments' provide supporting empiri­ cal evidence for one theory while providing conclusive evidence against another. However, in 1906 Pierre Duhem argued that the falsification of a theory is necessarily ambiguous and therefore that there are no crucial experiments; one can never be sure that it is a given theory rather than auxiliary or background hypotheses which experiment has falsified. w. V. Quine has concurred in this judgment, arguing that "our statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience not indi­ vidually but only as a corporate body". Some philosophers have thought that the Duhem-Quine thesis gra­ tuitously raises perplexities. Others see it as doubly significant; these philosophers think that it provides a base for criticism of the foundational view of knowledge which has dominated much of western thought since Descartes, and they think that it opens the door to a new and fruitful way to conceive of scientific progress in particular and of the nature and growth of knowledge in general.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Sate University of New York, Albany, USA

    Sandra G. Harding

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Can Theories be Refuted?

  • Book Subtitle: Essays on the Duhem-Quine Thesis

  • Editors: Sandra G. Harding

  • Series Title: Synthese Library

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1863-0

  • Publisher: Springer Dordrecht

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland 1976

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-90-277-0629-4Published: 31 December 1975

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-90-277-0630-0Published: 31 December 1975

  • eBook ISBN: 978-94-010-1863-0Published: 06 December 2012

  • Series ISSN: 0166-6991

  • Series E-ISSN: 2542-8292

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXI, 323

  • Topics: Philosophy of Science

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