Theories of Scientific Progress

John Losee is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Lafayette College, Eason, PA. He is the author of A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (1972), which has been translated into eleven foreign languages and is currently in its fourth English Edition, and Philosophy of Science and Historical Enquiry (1987).

• Introduction Part I: Progress as Incorporation 1. Whewell's 'Tributary-River' Image of Scientific Progress 2. Brewster on How Not To Do History of Science 3. Mill's Objections to Whewell's Historicism 4. Progress Through Reduction 5. Lakatos' Version of the 'Progress Is Incorporation' Thesis 6. Progress and the Asymptotic Agreement of Calculations Part 2: Progress as Revolutionary Overthrow 7. I. B. Cohen on the Identification of Scientific Revolutions 8. Kuhn's Taxonomic Criterion 9. Toulmin's 'Ideals of Natural Order' 10. Ideological Upheaval and Revolutionary Change 11. Kuhn's Three-Beat Pattern 12. Laudan's Reticulational Model of Scientific Change 13. Popper on Progress Through Overthrow-With-Incorporation Part 3: Descriptive Theories of Scientific Progress 14. Normative and Descriptive Theories 15. Scientific Progress and Convergence Upon Truth a. Peirce on Science as a Self-Correcting Enterprise b. Duhem and Quine on the Limits of Falsification c. Cartwright on the Importance of False Theories d. Rescher on Methodological Pragmatism and Scientific Progress e. Progress, Realism and Miracles 16. Laudan on Scientific Progress as Increasing Problem-Solving Effectiveness 17. Kitcher on Conceptual Progress and Explanatory Progress 18. Normative Naturalism 19. Scientific Progress and the Theory of Organic Evolution a. Toulmin on Conceptual Evolution b. Hull on Selection Processes c. Is the Evolutionary Analogy Appropriate? d. Campbell and Popper on Blind Variation and Selective Retention e. Does the Evolutionary Analogy have Explanatory Value? f. Ruse on the Evolutionary Origins of Evaluative Standards. Conclusion