Scientific Progress

1. Front Matter

   Pages 1-9

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Craig Dilworth

   Pages 11-13

3. The Deductive Model

   • Craig Dilworth

   Pages 14-17

4. The Basis of the Logical Empiricist Conception of Science

   • Craig Dilworth

   Pages 18-21

5. The Basis of the Popperian Conception of Science

   • Craig Dilworth

   Pages 22-29

6. The Logical Empiricist Conception of Scientific Progress

   • Craig Dilworth

   Pages 30-36

7. The Popperian Conception of Scientific Progress

   • Craig Dilworth

   Pages 37-51

8. Popper, Lakatos, and the Transcendence of the Deductive Model

   • Craig Dilworth

   Pages 52-59

9. Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Incommensurability

   • Craig Dilworth

   Pages 60-65

10. The Gestalt Model

    • Craig Dilworth

    Pages 66-76

11. The Perspectivist Conception of Science

    • Craig Dilworth

    Pages 77-99

12. Development of the Perspectivist Conception in the Context of the Kinetic Theory of Gases

    • Craig Dilworth

    Pages 100-117

13. The Set-Theoretic Conception of Science

    • Craig Dilworth

    Pages 118-132

14. Application of the Perspectivist Conception of the Views of Newton Kepler and Galileo

    • Craig Dilworth

    Pages 133-141

15. Back Matter

    Pages 142-164

    PDF

For the philosopher interested in the idea of objective knowledge of the real world, the nature of science is of special importance, for science, and more particularly physics, is today considered to be paradigmatic in its affording of such knowledge. And no understand­ ing of science is complete until it includes an appreciation of the nature of the relation between successive scientific theories-that is, until it includes a conception of scientific progress. Now it might be suggested by some that there are a variety of ways in which science progresses, or that there are a number of different notions of scientific progress, not all of which concern the relation between successive scientific theories. For example, it may be thought that science progresses through the application of scientific method to areas where it has not previously been applied, or, through the development of individual theories. However, it is here suggested that the application of the methods of science to new areas does not concern forward progress so much as lateral expansion, and that the provision of a conception of how individual theories develop would lack the generality expected of an account concerning the progress of science itself.

• Galileo Galilei
• Issac Newton
• Karl R. Popper
• concept
• idea
• individual
• knowledge
• nature
• physics
• science

• Department of Philosophy, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

  Craig Dilworth

Policies and ethics