Is the History of Science the Wasteland of False Theories?
| Abstract | Imagine you live in 1823 and you are about to design an advanced course on the theory of heat. About fifty years ago, Lavoisier and Laplace had posited caloric as a material substance—an indestructible fluid of fine particles—which was taken to be the cause of heat and in particular, the cause of the rise of temperature of a body, by being absorbed by the body. No doubt, you rely on the best available theory, which is the caloric theory. In particular, meticulous and knowledgeable as you are, you rely on the best of the best: Laplace’s advanced account of the caloric theory of heat, with all its sophistication, detail and predictive might. You really believe that the best science teaching should be based on the best theories that are available. But you also believe that the best theory that is available is not really the best unless it has a claim to truth (or truthlikeness, or partial truth and the like). For what is the point of teaching a theory about the deep structure of the world unless it does say something or other about this deep structure? The course goes really well. Your notes are impressive. They are soon turned into a textbook with lots of explanatory detail and fancy calculations. Alas! The world does not co-operate. There are no calorific particles among the things there are in it. Heat is destroyed when work is produced. The advanced theory is challenged by alternative theories, anomalies and failed predictions. There is agony, but in your lifetime, the caloric theory gets superseded and is left discredited in the wasteland of false theories. Decades come by. You are not around anymore. Your grandchildren go to school and.. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,631 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesHasok Chang (2003). Preservative Realism and its Discontents: Revisiting Caloric. Philosophy of Science 70 (5):902-912.
Stathis Psillos (1994). A Philosophical Study of the Transition From the Caloric Theory of Heat to Thermodynamics: Resisting the Pessimistic Meta-Induction. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 25 (2):159-190.
Mohamed Elsamahi (2005). A Critique of Localized Realism. Philosophy of Science 72 (5):1350-1360.
Seungbae Park (2011). A Confutation of the Pessimistic Induction. Journal for General Philosophy of Science 42 (1):75-84.
John D. Norton (2003). Causation as Folk Science. Philosophers' Imprint 3 (4):1-22.
John D. Norton (2007). Causation as Folk Science. In Huw Price & Richard Corry (eds.), Causation, Physics, and the Constitution of Reality: Russell's Republic Revisited. Oxford University Press.
Ronald P. Endicott (1998). Collapse of the New Wave. Journal of Philosophy 95 (2):53-72.
Maria Caamaño Alegre (2009). Experimental Validity and Pragmatic Modes in Empirical Science. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 23 (1):19-45.
Gerald D. Doppelt (2011). From Standard Scientific Realism and Structural Realism to Best Current Theory Realism. Journal for General Philosophy of Science 42 (2):295-316.
Ryan Christensen (2011). Theories and Theories of Truth. Metaphysica 12 (1):31-43.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2010-12-22Total downloads19 ( #64,257 of 548,969 )Recent downloads (6 months)2 ( #37,438 of 548,969 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
