David Bourget (Western Ontario)
David Chalmers (ANU, NYU)
Rafael De Clercq
Ezio Di Nucci
Jack Alan Reynolds
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Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 33 (2):381-408 (2002)
There is a need to bring about a revolution in the philosophy of science, interpreted to be both the academic discipline, and the official view of the aims and methods of science upheld by the scientific community. At present both are dominated by the view that in science theories are chosen on the basis of empirical considerations alone, nothing being permanently accepted as a part of scientific knowledge independently of evidence. Biasing choice of theory in the direction of simplicity, unity or explanatory power does not permanently commit science to the thesis that nature is simple or unified. This current ‘paradigm’ is, I argue, untenable. We need a new paradigm, which acknowledges that science makes a hierarchy of metaphysical assumptions concerning the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, theories being chosen partly on the basis of compatibility with these assumptions. Eleven arguments are given for favouring this new ‘paradigm’ over the current one.
|Keywords||empiricism induction intellectual revolution metaphysics natural science paradigm change philosophy of physics physics simplicity scientific discovery scientific method|
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Citations of this work BETA
Nicholas Maxwell (2014). Unification and Revolution: A Paradigm for Paradigms. Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 45 (1):133-149.
Nicholas Maxwell (2010). Reply to Comments on Science and the Pursuit of Wisdom. Philosophia 38 (4):667-690.
Nicholas Maxwell (2005). Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos and Aim-Oriented Empiricism. Philosophia 32 (1-4):181-239.
F. A. Muller (2008). In Defence of Constructive Empiricism: Maxwell's Master Argument and Aberrant Theories. Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 39 (1):131-156.
Stephanie Chitpin (2013). Should Popper's View of Rationality Be Used for Promoting Teacher Knowledge? Educational Philosophy and Theory 45 (8):833-844.
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