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Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes

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Book cover Can Theories be Refuted?

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

Abstract

For centuries knowledge meant proven knowledge — proven either by the power of the intellect or by the evidence of the senses. Wisdom and intellectual integrity demanded that one must desist from unproven utterances and minimize, even in thought, the gap between speculation and established knowledge. The proving power of the intellect or the senses was questioned by the sceptics more than two thousand years ago; but they were browbeaten into confusion by the glory of Newtonian physics. Einstein’s results again turned the tables and now very few philosophers or scientists still think that scientific knowledge is, or can be, proven knowledge. But few realize that with this the whole classical structure of intellectual values falls in ruins and has to be replaced: one cannot simply water down the ideal of proven truth - as some logical empiricists do — to the ideal of’probable truth’1 or — as some sociologists of knowledge do — to ‘truth by [changing] consensus’.2

This paper is a considerably improved version of my (1968b) and a crude version of my (1970). Some parts of the former are here reproduced without change with the permission of the Editor of theProceedings of the Aristotelian Society. In the preparation of the new version I received much help from Tad Beckman, Colin Howson, Clive Kilmister, Larry Laudan, Eliot Leader, Alan Musgrave, Michael Sukale, John Wat- kins and John Worrall.

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Authors
  1. Imre Lakatos
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Sate University of New York, Albany, USA

    Sandra G. Harding

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© 1976 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland

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Lakatos, I. (1976). Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. In: Harding, S.G. (eds) Can Theories be Refuted?. Synthese Library, vol 81. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1863-0_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1863-0_14

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

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