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Summary The question of the nature of scientific progress arises from reflection on the nature of scientific change.  Change in science is not typically mere change nor is it typically a change of fashion.  Scientific change leads to scientific progress.  But how is progress to be conceived?  Some have thought of scientific progress in terms of advance on truth or the cumulative build-up of truth.  Others have been inclined to think of progress in terms of the growth of knowledge.  Still others have thought of progress in a way that does not require growth of knowledge or truth, so much as improved problem-solving capacity or efficacity.
Key works Concerns about the cumulative model of scientific progress may be found in Kuhn 1962, or in later editions, e.g. Kuhn 1996Laudan 1977 is a sustained discussion of the topic which proposes a problem-solving model of progress.  For a good introduction to Popper's views about science and scientific progress, see Popper 1989.  A recent proposal which understands scientific progress in terms of the accumulation of knowledge is found in Bird 2007
Introductions Niiniluoto 2008

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  1. Robert Ackermann (1988). Experiment as the Motor of Scientific Progress. Social Epistemology 2 (4):327 – 335.
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  2. Robert Almeder (1983). Scientific Progress and Peircean Utopian Realism. Erkenntnis 20 (3):253 - 280.
    I argue that (1) if scientific progress, construed in revolutionary terms, were to continue indefinitely long, then any non-trivial question answerable by the use of the scientific method would in fact be answered in a way that would allow for further refinement without undermining the essential correctness of the answer; and (2) it is reasonable to believe that scientific progress will continue indefinitely long. The establishment of (1) and (2) entails that any non-trivial empirically answerable question will be answered in (...)
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  3. Hanne Andersen (1997). Craig Dilworth: Scientific Progress. A Study Concerning the Nature of the Relation Between Successive Scientific Theories. Craig Dilworth: The Metaphysics of Science. An Account of Modern Science in Terms of Principles, Laws and Theories. [REVIEW] Erkenntnis 47 (2):265-271.
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  4. Gunnar Andersson (1986). II. Lakatos and Progress and Rationality in Science: A Reply to Agassi. Philosophia 16 (2):239-243.
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  5. Davis Baird & Thomas Faust (1990). Scientific Instruments, Scientific Progress and the Cyclotron. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 41 (2):147-175.
  6. Alan Baker (2001). Mathematics, Indispensability and Scientific Progress. Erkenntnis 55 (1):85-116.
  7. Greg Bamford (1999). What is the Problem of Ad Hoc Hypotheses? Science and Education 8 (4):375 - 86..
    The received view of an ad hochypothesis is that it accounts for only the observation(s) it was designed to account for, and so non-ad hocness is generally held to be necessary or important for an introduced hypothesis or modification to a theory. Attempts by Popper and several others to convincingly explicate this view, however, prove to be unsuccessful or of doubtful value, and familiar and firmer criteria for evaluating the hypotheses or modified theories so classified are characteristically available. These points (...)
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  8. Greg Bamford (1989). Popper, Refutation and 'Avoidance' of Refutation. Dissertation, The University of Queensland
    Popper's account of refutation is the linchpin of his famous view that the method of science is the method of conjecture and refutation. This thesis critically examines his account of refutation, and in particular the practice he deprecates as avoiding a refutation. I try to explain how he comes to hold the views that he does about these matters; how he seeks to make them plausible; how he has influenced others to accept his mistakes, and how some of the ideas (...)
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  9. Eric Barnes (1991). Beyond Verisimilitude: A Linguistically Invariant Basis for Scientific Progress. Synthese 88 (3):309 - 339.
    This paper proposes a solution to David Miller's Minnesotan-Arizonan demonstration of the language dependence of truthlikeness (Miller 1974), along with Miller's first-order demonstration of the same (Miller 1978). It is assumed, with Peter Urbach, that the implication of these demonstrations is that the very notion of truthlikeness is intrinsically language dependent and thus non-objective. As such, truthlikeness cannot supply a basis for an objective account of scientific progress. I argue that, while Miller is correct in arguing that the number of (...)
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  10. William Bechtel (1984). The Evolution of Our Understanding of the Cell: A Study in the Dynamics of Scientific Progress. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 15 (4):309-356.
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  11. Alexander Bird (2008). Scientific Progress as Accumulation of Knowledge: A Reply to Rowbottom. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 39 (2):279-281.
    I defend my view that scientific progress is constituted by the accumulation of knowledge against a challenge from Rowbottom in favour of the semantic view that it is only truth that is relevant to progress.
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  12. Alexander Bird (2007). What is Scientific Progress? Noûs 41 (1):64–89.
    I argue that scientific progress is precisely the accumulation of scientific knowledge.
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  13. Ingo Brigandt, An Alternative to Kitcher's Theory of Conceptual Progress and His Account of the Change of the Gene Concept.
    The present paper discusses Kitcher’s framework for studying conceptual change and progress. Kitcher’s core notion of reference potential is hard to apply to concrete cases. In addition, an account of conceptual change as change in reference potential misses some important aspects of conceptual change and conceptual progress. I propose an alternative framework that focuses on the inferences and explanations supported by scientific concepts. The application of my approach to the history of the gene concept offers a better account of the (...)
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  14. Robert E. Butts (1979). Review Symposium : Scientific Progress: The Laudan Manifesto. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 9 (4):475-483.
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  15. Gustavo Cevolani, Roberto Festa & Theo A. F. Kuipers (forthcoming). Verisimilitude and Belief Change for Nomic Conjunctive Theories. Synthese.
    In this paper, we address the problem of truth approximation through theory change, asking whether revising our theories by newly acquired data leads us closer to the truth about a given domain. More particularly, we focus on “nomic conjunctive theories”, i.e., theories expressed as conjunctions of logically independent statements concerning the physical or, more generally, nomic possibilities and impossibilities of the domain under inquiry. We define both a comparative and a quantitative notion of the verisimilitude of such theories, and identify (...)
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  16. Gustavo Cevolani & Luca Tambolo (forthcoming). Progress as Approximation to the Truth: A Defence of the Verisimilitudinarian Approach. Erkenntnis.
    In this paper we provide a compact presentation of the verisimilitudinarian approach to scientific progress (VS, for short) and defend it against the sustained attack recently mounted by Alexander Bird (2007). Advocated by such authors as Ilkka Niiniluoto and Theo Kuipers, VS is the view that progress can be explained in terms of the increasing verisimilitude (or, equivalently, truthlikeness, or approximation to the truth) of scientific theories. According to Bird, VS overlooks the central issue of the appropriate grounding of scientific (...)
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  17. Hasok Chang (2007). Scientific Progress: Beyond Foundationalism and Coherentism. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements 82 (61).
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  18. Marc de Mey (1982/1992). The Cognitive Paradigm: An Integrated Understanding of Scientific Development. University of Chicago Press.
    In this study of the cognitive paradigm, De Mey applies the study of computer models of human perception to the philosophy and sociology of science. "A most stimulating, and intellectually delightful book."--John Goldsmith "[De Mey] has brought together an unusually wide range of material, and suggested some interesting lines of thought, about what should be an important application of cognitive science: The understanding of science itself."-- Cognition and Brain Theory "It ought to be on the shelf of every teacher and (...)
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  19. Catherine Delmas, Christine Vandamme & Donna Spalding Andréolle (eds.) (2010). Science and Empire in the Nineteenth Century: A Journey of Imperial Conquest and Scientific Progress. Cambridge Scholars.
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  20. Craig Dilworth (1994/1986). Scientific Progress: A Study Concerning the Nature of the Relation Between Successive Scientific Theories. Kluwer Academic.
    In this way Dilworth succeeds in providing a conception of science in which scientific progress is based on both rational and empirical considerations.
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  21. Mauro Dorato (2011). TRUTH, LAWS AND THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. Manuscrito 34 (1):185-204.
    In this paper I analyze the difficult question of the truth of mature scientific theories by tackling the problem of the truth of laws. After introducing the main philosophical positions in the field of scientific realism, I discuss and then counter the two main arguments against realism, namely the pessimistic metainduction and the abstract and idealized character of scientific laws. I conclude by defending the view that well-confirmed physical theories are true only relatively to certain values of the variables that (...)
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  22. J. Dupre (1995). Review of Kitcher: "The Advancement of Science: Science Without Legend, Objectivity Without Illusions". [REVIEW] .
    Philip Kitcher's book begins with a familiar historical overview. In the 1940s and 50s a confident, optimistic vision of science was widely shared by philosophers and historians of science. The goal of science was to discover the truth about nature, and over the centuries science had advanced steadily towards that goal; science discerned the real kinds of things of which the world was composed and the causal relations between them; the methods of science were rational and its deliverances objective; and (...)
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  23. Gabor Forrai (2002). Lakatos, Reason, and Rationality. In G. Kampis L. Kvasz & M. Stöltzner (eds.), Appraising Lakatos: Mathematics, Methodology, and the Man. Kluwer.
  24. Gábor Forrai (1993). From the Method of Proofs and Refutations to the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7 (2):161-175.
    Abstract The paper is an attempt to interpret Imre Lakatos's methodology of scientific research programmes (MSRP) on the basis of his mathematical methodology, the method of proofs and refutations (MPR). After sketching MSRP and MPR and analysing their relationship to Popper's and Poly a's work, I argue that MSRP was originally conceived as a methodology in the same sense as MPR. The most conspicuous difference between the two, namely that MSRP is fundamentally backward?looking, whereas MPR is primarily forward?looking, is due (...)
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  25. Tord H. Ganelius (ed.) (1986). Progress in Science and its Social Conditions: Nobel Symposium 58, Held at Lidingö, Sweden, 15-19 August 1983. Published for the Nobel Foundation by Pergamon Press.
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  26. M. P. Gapochka (1975). The Unity of Social and Scientific Progress Under Socialism: 250th Anniversary of the Ussr Academy of Sciences. "Social Sciences Today" Editorial Board.
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  27. Elizabeth Garber (2007). Inventing Temperature: Measurement and Scientific Progress. Review of Metaphysics 60 (3):653-655.
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  28. Donald Gillies (2009). Hasok Chang Inventing Temperature: Measurement and Scientific Progress. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 60 (1):221-228.
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  29. Dimiter Ginev (1988). Scientific Progress and the Hermeneutic Circle. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 19 (3):391-395.
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  30. Thomas A. Goudge (1981). Peirce and Rescher on Scientific Progress and Economy of Research. Dialogue 20 (02):357-365.
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  31. Bert Hamminga (2005). Constructive Realism and Scientific Progress. Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 83 (1):317-336.
    This paper exploits the language of structuralism, as it has recently been developed with stunning effectiveness in defining the relations between confirmation, empirical progress and truth approximation, to concisely clarify the fundamental problem of the classical Lakatos concept of scientific progress, and to compare its way of evaluation to the real problems of scientists facing the far from perfect theories they wish to improve and defend against competitors.I opt basically for the structuralist terminology adopted in Kuipers (2000), because that is (...)
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  32. RF Hendry & DJ Mossley (1999). Review. Realism Rescued: How Scientific Progress is Possible. Jerrold L Aronson, R Harré, Eileen Cornell Way. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 50 (1):175-179.
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  33. Gerald James Holton (1986/1998). The Advancement of Science, and its Burdens: With a New Introduction. Harvard University Press.
    These are just a few of the questions posed in The Advancement of Science, and Its Burdens.
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  34. Gerald James Holton (1986). The Advancement of Science, and its Burdens: The Jefferson Lecture and Other Essays. Cambridge University.
    In this book Professor Holton continues his analysis of how modem science works and what its influences are on our world, with particular emphasis on the role of the thematic elements - those often unconscious presuppositions that guide scientific work to success or failure. The foundation of the book is provided by the author's research on the work of Albert Einstein, which is then contrasted with other styles of research in the advancement of science. The author deals directly with the (...)
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  35. Patrick James (2004). Systemism, Social Mechanisms, and Scientific Progress: A Case Study of the International Crisis Behavior Project. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34 (3):352-370.
    Systemism and social mechanisms, as articulated by Bunge, are concepts with great potential for application to assessment of research progress. This study will use the conceptual tools made available by systemism and social mechanisms to evaluate the International Crisis Behavior (ICB) Project as a scientific effort toward the greater understanding of crises in world politics. Systemism and social mechanisms are articulated as key concepts in the quest for scientific progress. The goals and basic characteristics of the ICB Project as a (...)
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  36. Nicholas Jardine (1986). The Fortunes of Inquiry. Oxford University Press.
    The belief that science shows an accumulation of a body of objective knowledge has been widely challenged by philosophers and historians in the latter half of this century. In this treatise, Dr. Jardine defends this belief with a careful appreciation of the complexities involved, drawing on many controversial issues concerning truth in science, interpretation of past theories, and grounds of scientific method.
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  37. Muhammad Ali Khalidi (1999). Incommensurability. In W. H. Newton-Smith (ed.), A Companion to Philosophy of Science. Blackwell.
  38. Ian James Kidd (forthcoming). Historical Contingency and the Impact of Scientific Imperialism. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science.
    In a recent article in this journal, Steve Clarke and Adrian Walsh propose a normative basis for John Dupré’s criticisms of scientific imperialism, namely, that scientific imperialism can cause a discipline to fail to progress in ways that it otherwise would have. This proposal is based on two presuppositions: one, that scientific disciplines have developmental teleologies, and two, that these teleologies are optimal. I argue that we should reject both of these presuppositions and so conclude that Clarke and Walsh’s proposal (...)
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  39. Philip Kitcher (1993). The Advancement of Science: Science Without Legend, Objectivity Without Illusions. Oxford University Press.
    During the last three decades, reflections on the growth of scientific knowledge have inspired historians, sociologists, and some philosophers to contend that scientific objectivity is a myth. In this book, Kitcher attempts to resurrect the notions of objectivity and progress in science by identifying both the limitations of idealized treatments of growth of knowledge and the overreactions to philosophical idealizations. Recognizing that science is done not by logically omniscient subjects working in isolation, but by people with a variety of personal (...)
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  40. Theo A. F. Kuipers (2005). Another Start for Abduction Aiming at Empirical Progress: Reply to Joke Meheus. Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 83 (1):218-220.
    This paper primarily deals with the conceptual prospects for generalizing the aim of abduction from the standard one of explaining surprising or anomalous observations to that of empirical progress or even truth approximation. It turns out that the main abduction task then becomes the instrumentalist task of theory revision aiming at an empirically more successful theory, relative to the available data, but not necessarily compatible with them. The rest, that is, genuine empirical progress as well as observational, referential and theoretical (...)
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  41. Theo A. F. Kuipers (2005). The Instrumentalist Abduction Task and the Nature of Empirical Counterexamples: Reply to Atocha Aliseda. Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 83 (1):190-192.
    This paper primarily deals with the conceptual prospects for generalizing the aim of abduction from the standard one of explaining surprising or anomalous observations to that of empirical progress or even truth approximation. It turns out that the main abduction task then becomes the instrumentalist task of theory revision aiming at an empirically more successful theory, relative to the available data, but not necessarily compatible with them. The rest, that is, genuine empirical progress as well as observational, referential and theoretical (...)
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  42. Theo A. F. Kuipers (1999). Abduction Aiming at Empirical Progress or Eventruth Approximationleading to a Challenge for Computational Modelling. Foundations of Science 4 (3):307-323.
    This paper primarily deals with theconceptual prospects for generalizing the aim ofabduction from the standard one of explainingsurprising or anomalous observations to that ofempirical progress or even truth approximation. Itturns out that the main abduction task then becomesthe instrumentalist task of theory revision aiming atan empirically more successful theory, relative to theavailable data, but not necessarily compatible withthem. The rest, that is, genuine empirical progress aswell as observational, referential and theoreticaltruth approximation, is a matter of evaluation andselection, and possibly new (...)
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  43. Imre Lakatos & Alan Musgrave (eds.) (1970). Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge University Press.
    Two books have been particularly influential in contemporary philosophy of science: Karl R. Popper's Logic of Scientific Discovery, and Thomas S. Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Both agree upon the importance of revolutions in science, but differ about the role of criticism in science's revolutionary growth. This volume arose out of a symposium on Kuhn's work, with Popper in the chair, at an international colloquium held in London in 1965. The book begins with Kuhn's statement of his position followed by (...)
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  44. David Lamb (1984). Multiple Discovery: The Pattern of Scientific Progress. Avebury.
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  45. L. Laudan (1977). Progress and its Problems: Toward a Theory of Scientific Growth. University of California Press.
    (This insularity was further promoted by the guileless duplicity of scholars in other fields, who were all too prepared to bequeath "the problem of ...
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  46. Jarrett Leplin (1981). Truth and Scientific Progress. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 12 (4):269-291.
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  47. Alexander T. Levine (1999). Scientific Progress and the Fregean Legacy. Mind and Language 14 (3):263–290.
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  48. B. I. B. Lindahl (1992). Discovery, Theory Change, and the Nobel Prize: On the Mechanisms of Scientific Evolution. An Introduction. Theoretical Medicine 13 (2).
  49. John Losee (2004). Theories of Scientific Progress: An Introduction. Routledge.
    What is the nature of scientific progress, and what makes it possible? When we look back at the scientific theories of the past and compare them to the state of science today, there seems little doubt that we have made progress. But how have we made this progress? Is it a continuous process, which gradually incorporates past successes into present theories, or are entrenched theories overthrown by superior competitors in a revolutionary manner? Theories of Scientific Progress presents the arguments for (...)
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  50. Andrew Lugg (1979). Review Symposium : Laudan and the Problem-Solving Approach to Scientific Progress and Rationality. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 9 (4):466-474.
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  51. Robert W. P. Luk (2010). Understanding Scientific Study Via Process Modeling. Foundations of Science 15 (1).
    This paper argues that scientific studies distinguish themselves from other studies by a combination of their processes, their (knowledge) elements and the roles of these elements. This is supported by constructing a process model. An illustrative example based on Newtonian mechanics shows how scientific knowledge is structured according to the process model. To distinguish scientific studies from research and scientific research, two additional process models are built for such processes. We apply these process models: (1) to argue that scientific progress (...)
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  52. Karen J. Maschke (2005). Reconciling Protection with Scientific Progress. Hastings Center Report 35 (5):3-3.
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  53. Nicholas Maxwell, What’s Wrong With Aim-Oriented Empiricism?
    For four decades it has been argued that we need to adopt a new conception of science called aim-oriented empiricism. This has far-reaching implications and repercussions for science, the philosophy of science, academic inquiry in general, conception of rationality, and how we go about attempting to make progress towards as good a world as possible. Despite these far-reaching repercussions, aim-oriented empiricism has so far received scant attention from philosophers of science. Here, sixteen objections to the validity of the argument for (...)
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  54. Nicholas Maxwell (2009). From Knowledge to Wisdom. In David Cayley (ed.), Ideas on the Nature of Science. Goose Lane Editions.
    There are these two absolutely basic problems: to learn about the universe and ourselves as a part of the universe, and to learn how to create a civilized world. Essentially, we have solved the first problem. We solved it when we created modern science. That is not to say that we know everything that is to be known, but we created a method for improving our knowledge about the world. But we haven't solved the second problem. And to solve the (...)
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  55. Nicholas Maxwell (2006). The Enlightenment Programme and Karl Popper. In I. I. Jarvie, K. Milford & D. Miller (eds.), Karl Popper: A Centenary Assessment. Volume 1: Life and Times, Values in a World of Facts. Ashgate.
    Popper first developed his theory of scientific method – falsificationism – in his The Logic of Scientific Discovery, then generalized it to form critical rationalism, which he subsequently applied to social and political problems in The Open Society and Its Enemies. All this can be regarded as constituting a major development of the 18th century Enlightenment programme of learning from scientific progress how to achieve social progress towards a better world. Falsificationism is, however, defective. It misrepresents the real, problematic aims (...)
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  56. Nicholas Maxwell (2005). Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos and Aim-Oriented Empiricism. Philosophia 32 (1-4):181-239.
    In this paper I argue that aim-oriented empiricism (AOE), a conception of natural science that I have defended at some length elsewhere[1], is a kind of synthesis of the views of Popper, Kuhn and Lakatos, but is also an improvement over the views of all three. Whereas Popper's falsificationism protects metaphysical assumptions implicitly made by science from criticism, AOE exposes all such assumptions to sustained criticism, and furthermore focuses criticism on those assumptions most likely to need revision if science is (...)
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  57. Nicholas Maxwell (1993). Induction and Scientific Realism: Einstein Versus Van Fraassen Part Three: Einstein, Aim-Oriented Empiricism and the Discovery of Special and General Relativity. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44 (2):275-305.
    In this paper I show that Einstein made essential use of aim-oriented empiricism in scientific practice in developing special and general relativity. I conclude by considering to what extent Einstein came explicitly to advocate aim-oriented empiricism in his later years.
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  58. Nicholas Maxwell (1979). Induction, Simplicity and Scientific Progress. Scientia 114:629-653.
    In a recent work, Popper claims to have solved the problem of induction. In this paper I argue that Popper fails both to solve the problem, and to formulate the problem properly. I argue, however, that there are aspects of Popper's approach which, when strengthened and developed, do provide a solution to at least an important part of the problem of induction, along somewhat Popperian lines. This proposed solution requires, and leads to, a new theory of the role of simplicity (...)
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  59. Ernst Mayr (1987). The Ontological Status of Species: Scientific Progress and Philosophical Terminology. Biology and Philosophy 2:145-66.
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  60. John McCumber (1983). Scientific Progress and Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Idealistic Studies 13 (1):1-10.
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  61. John F. Metcalfe (1991). Whewell's Developmental Psychologism: A Victorian Account of Scientific Progress. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 22 (1):117-139.
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  62. Robert Andrews Millikan (1973). Evolution in Science and Religion. Port Washington, N.Y.,Kennikat Press.
  63. Moti Mizrahi, What is Scientific Progress? Lessons From Scientific Practice.
    In a recent debate about the nature of scientific progress, Alexander Bird and Darrell Rowbottom have argued for two competing accounts of progress. According to Bird, scientific progress consists in the accumulation of scientific knowledge. Rowbottom, on the other hand, thinks that truth alone is necessary for progress. Both use thought experiments and appeal to intuitions in support of their views, and it seems fair to say that the debate has reached an impasse. In an attempt to avoid this stalemate, (...)
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  64. Moti Mizrahi & Wesley Buckwalter, The Role of Justification in the Ordinary Concept of Scientific Progress.
    Alexander Bird and Darrell Rowbottom have argued for two competing accounts of the concept of scientific progress. For Bird, progress consists in the accumulation of scientific knowledge. For Rowbottom, progress consists in the accumulation of true scientific beliefs. Both appeal to intuitions elicited by thought experiments in support of their views, and it seems fair to say that the debate has reached an impasse. In an attempt to avoid this stalemate, we conduct a systematic study of the factors that underlie (...)
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  65. Thomas Mormann (2006). Truthlikeness for Theories on Countable Languages. In Ian Jarvie, Karl Milford & David Miller (eds.), Karl Popper: A Centenary Assessment vol. 3.
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  66. Nicola Mößner (2011). Thought Styles and Paradigms—a Comparative Study of Ludwik Fleck and Thomas S. Kuhn. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 42 (2):362–371.
    At first glance there seem to be many similarities between Thomas S. Kuhn’s and Ludwik Fleck’s accounts of the development of scientific knowledge. Notably, both pay attention to the role played by the scientific community in the development of scientific knowledge. But putting first impressions aside, one can criticise some philosophers for being too hasty in their attempt to find supposed similarities in the works of the two men. Having acknowledged that Fleck anticipated some of Kuhn’s later theses, there seems (...)
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  67. Bence Nanay (2010). Rational Reconstruction Reconsidered. The Monist 93 (4):598-617.
    Here is a dilemma concerning the history of science. Can the history of scientific thought be reduced to the history of the beliefs, motives and actions of scientists? Or should we think of the history of scientific thought as in some sense independent from the history of scientists? The aim of this paper is to carve out an intermediate position between these two. I will argue that the history of scientific thought supervenes on, but not reducible to, the history of (...)
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  68. Ilkka Niiniluoto, Scientific Progress. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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  69. Ilkka Niiniluoto (1980). Scientific Progress. Synthese 45 (3):427 - 462.
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  70. David Pearce (1984). Research Traditions, Incommensurability and Scientific Progress. Journal for General Philosophy of Science 15 (2):261-271.
    Summary In hisProgress and its Problems, Laudan dismisses the problem of incommensurability in science by endorsing two general assertions. The first claims there are actually no incommensurable pairs of theories or research traditions; the second maintains that his problem-solving model of scientific progress would be able rationally to appraise even incommensurable pairs of theories or traditions (are compare them for their progressiveness). I argue here that Laudan fails to provide a plausible defence of either thesis, and that this creates some (...)
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  71. M. Rosaria Nucci Pearce & David Pearce (1989). Technology Vs. Science: The Cognitive Fallacy. Synthese 81 (3):405 - 419.
    There are fundamental differences between the explanation of scientific change and the explanation of technological change. The differences arise from fundamental differences between scientific and technological knowledge and basic disanalogies between technological advance and scientific progress. Given the influence of economic markets and industrial and institutional structures on the development of technology, it is more plausible to regard technological change as a continuous and incremental process, rather than as a process of Kuhnian crises and revolutions.
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  72. Karl R. Popper (1994). The Myth of the Framework: In Defence of Science and Rationality. Routledge.
  73. Sam S. Rakover (1992). Outflanking the Mind-Body Problem: Scientific Progress in the History of Psychology. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 22 (2):145–173.
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  74. Friedrich Rapp (1980). Observational Data and Scientific Progress. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 11 (2):153-162.
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  75. Francis Remedios (2012). Review of Kuhn’s Evolutionary Social Epistemology. [REVIEW] Philosophy in Review 32 (6):533-535.
  76. Xavier Donato Rodríguedez (2007). Idealization, Abduction, and Progressive Scientific Change. Theoria 22 (3):331-338.
    After a brief comparison of Aliseda’s account with different approaches to abductive reasoning, I relate abduction, as studied by Aliseda, to idealization, a notion which also occupies a very important role in scientific change, as well as to different ways of dealing with the growth of scientific knowledge understood as a particular kind of non-monotonic process. A particularly interesting kind of abductive reasoning could be that of finding an appropriate concretization case for a theory, originally revealed as extraordinarily success-ful but (...)
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  77. Darrell P. Rowbottom (2010). What Scientific Progress Is Not: Against Bird's Epistemic View. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 24 (3):241-255.
    This paper challenges Bird’s view that scientific progress should be understood in terms of knowledge, by arguing that unjustified scientific beliefs (and/or changes in belief) may nevertheless be progressive. It also argues that false beliefs may promote progress.
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  78. Darrell P. Rowbottom (2008). N-Rays and the Semantic View of Scientific Progress. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 39 (2):277-278.
    This paper challenges a recent argument of Bird’s, which involves imagining that Réné Blondlot’s belief in N-rays was true, in favour of the view that scientific progress should be understood in terms of knowledge rather than truth. By considering several variants of Bird’s thought-experiment, it shows that the semantic account of progress cannot be so easily vanquished. A key possibility is that justification is only instrumental in, and not partly constitutive of, progress.
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  79. Michael Ruse (1978). Problems of Scientific Revolution: Progress and Obstacles to Progress in the Sciences. Erkenntnis 13 (1):407-416.
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  80. Howard Sankey (2009). A Curious Disagreement: Response to Hoyningen-Huene and Oberheim. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science A 40 (2):210-212.
    In this response, doubts are expressed relating to the treatment by Hoyningen-Huene and Oberheim of the relation between incommensurability and content comparison. A realist response is presented to their treatment of ontological replacement. Further questions are raised about the coherence of the neo-Kantian idea of the world-in-itself as well as the phenomenal worlds hypothesis. The notion of common sense is clarified. Meta-incommensurability is dismissed as a rhetorical device which obstructs productive discussion.
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  81. Kenneth F. Schaffner (1992). Theory Change in Immunology Part I: Extended Theories and Scientific Progress. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 13 (2).
    This two-part article examines the competition between the clonal selection theory and the instructive theory of the immune response from 1957–1967. In Part I the concept of a temporally extended theory is introduced, which requires attention to the hitherto largely ignored issue of theory individuation. Factors which influence the acceptability of such an extended theory at different temporal points are also embedded in a Bayesian framework, which is shown to provide a rational account of belief change in science. In Part (...)
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  82. Luigi Scorzato (forthcoming). On the Role of Simplicity in Science. Synthese.
    Simple assumptions represent a decisive reason to prefer one theory to another in everyday scientific praxis. But this praxis has little philosophical justification, since there exist many notions of simplicity, and those that can be defined precisely strongly depend on the language in which the theory is formulated. The language dependence is a natural feature—to some extent—but it is also believed to be a fatal problem, because, according to a common general argument, the simplicity of a theory is always trivial (...)
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  83. Michael J. Shaffer (2008). Re-Formulating the Correspondence Principle: Problems and Prospects. Polish Journal of Philosophy 2 (1):99-115.
    The generalized correspondence principle is the assertion of something like the following methodological norm: successor theories ought to incorporate precursor theories as special cases. However, the actual core connotation of this principle seems to be that when we are constructing new theories in some domain of application we ought to retain as much of prior but refuted theories as is possible while eliminating inconsistency with the data. As a result, it is argued here that the correspondence principle has not been (...)
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  84. Daniel Sirtes & Eric Oberheim (2006). Einstein, Entropy, and Anomalies. AIP Conference Proceedings 861:1147-1154.
    This paper strengthens and defends the pluralistic implications of Einstein's successful, quantitative predictions of Brownian motion for a philosophical dispute about the nature of scientific advance that began between two prominent philosophers of science in the second half of the twentieth century (Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend). Kuhn promoted a monistic phase-model of scientific advance, according to which a paradigm driven `normal science' gives rise to its own anomalies, which then lead to a crisis and eventually a scientific revolution. Feyerabend (...)
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  85. Peter Skagestad (1979). C. S. Peirce on Biological Evolution and Scientific Progress. Synthese 41 (1):85 - 114.
  86. M. Solomon (1995). Legend Naturalism and Scientific Progress: An Essay on Philip Kitcher's the Advancement of Science. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 26 (2):205-218.
    Philip Kitcher's The Advancement of Science sets out, programmatically, a new naturalistic view of science as a process of building consensus practices. Detailed historical case studies--centrally, the Darwinian revolution--are intended to support this view. I argue that Kitcher's expositions in fact support a more conservative view, that I dub 'Legend Naturalism'. Using four historical examples which increasingly challenge Kitcher's discussions, I show that neither Legend Naturalism, nor the less conservative programmatic view, gives an adequate account of scientific progress. I (...)
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  87. J. J. Sparkes (1972). Pattern Recognition and Scientific Progress. Mind 81 (321):29-41.
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  88. Michael Specter (2009). Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives. Penguin Press.
    Vioxx and the fear of science -- Vaccines and the great denial -- The organic fetish -- The era of echinacea -- Race and the language of life -- Surfing the exponential.
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  89. David Teira (2006). Inventing Temperature: Measurement and Scientific Progress. Theoria 21 (3):344-345.
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  90. Jonathan Y. Tsou (2006). Genetic Epistemology and Piaget's Philosophy of Science: Piaget Vs. Kuhn on Scientific Progress. Theory and Psychology 16 (2):203-224.
    This paper concerns Jean Piaget's (1896–1980) philosophy of science and, in particular, the picture of scientific development suggested by his theory of genetic epistemology. The aims of the paper are threefold: (1) to examine genetic epistemology as a theory concerning the growth of knowledge both in the individual and in science; (2) to explicate Piaget's view of ‘scientific progress’, which is grounded in his theory of equilibration; and (3) to juxtapose Piaget's notion of progress with Thomas Kuhn's (1922–1996). Issues of (...)
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  91. Ioannis Votsis (forthcoming). Structural Realism: Continuity and its Limits. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science.
    Structural realists of nearly all stripes endorse the structural continuity claim. Roughly speaking, this is the claim that the structure of successful scientific theories survives theory change because it has latched on to the structure of the world. In this paper I elaborate, elucidate and modify the structural continuity claim and its associated argument. I do so without presupposing a particular conception of structure that favours this or that kind of structural realism. Instead I focus on how structural realists can (...)
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  92. John Worrall (1982). Scientific Realism and Scientific Change. Philosophical Quarterly 32 (128):201-231.
  93. Jesùs P. Zamora Bonilla (1996). Verisimilitude, Structuralism and Scientific Progress. Erkenntnis 44 (1):25 - 47.
    An epistemic notion of verisimilitude (as the degree in which a theory seems closer to the full truth to a scientific community) is defined in several ways. Application to the structuralist description of theories is carried out by introducing a notion of empirical regularity in structuralist terms. It is argued that these definitions of verisimilitude can be used to give formal reconstructions of scientific methodologies such as falsificationism, conventionalism and normal science.
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