Abstract
Predictivism holds that, where evidence E confirms theory T, E confirms T more strongly when E is predicted on the basis of T and subsequently confirmed than when E is known in advance of T's formulation and ‘used’, in some sense, in the formulation of T. Predictivism has lately enjoyed some strong supporting arguments from Maher (1988, 1990, 1993) and Kahn, Landsberg, and Stockman (1992). Despite the many virtues of the analyses these authors provide it is my view that they (along with all other authors on this subject) have failed to understand a fundamental truth about predictivism: the existence of a scientist who predicted T prior to the establishment that E is true has epistemic import for T (once E is established) only in connection with information regarding the social milieu in which the T-predictor is located and information regarding how the T-predictor was located. The aim of this paper is to show that predictivism is ultimately a social phenomenon that requires a social level of analysis, a thesis I deem ‘social predictivism’.
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For comments and criticisms I am indebted to Doug Ehring, Mark Heller, Jean Kazez, Patrick Maher, and Alastair Noreross. Special thanks are due to Wayne Woodword for help with the proof in Section 7.
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Barnes, E. Social predictivism. Erkenntnis 45, 69–89 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00226371
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00226371