Abstract
In the methodology of scientific research programs (MSRP) there are important features on the problem of prediction, especially regarding novel facts. In his approach, Imre Lakatos proposed three different levels on prediction: aim, process, and assessment. Chapter 5 pays attention to the characterization of prediction in the methodology of research programs. Thus, it takes into account several features: (1) its pragmatic characterization, (2) the logical perspective as a proposition, (3) the epistemological component, (4) its role in the appraisal of research programs, and (5) its place as a value for scientific research.
The notion of “novel facts” is highly relevant in his conception, where several aspects are involved: the directions of novel facts, the different kinds of novelty, and the transition from six possible options of “novel facts” to four choices. Thereafter, the prediction of novel facts as the criterion of appraisal is considered. On the one hand, this requires analyzing the theoretical, empirical, and heuristic possibilities of appraisal; and, on the other, whether there is an overemphasis on the role of prediction in methodology of scientific research programs. As a consequence, there is an analysis of Lakatos’ criterion of appraisal in MSRP and economics.
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Notes
- 1.
John Worrall sees ways in which the methodology of scientific research programs improves on Popper’s methodology (Worrall 1978). However, he recognizes that Lakatos did not develop the “positive heuristics,” which is an important aspect of his conception. For this reason, Worrall seeks advancements regarding Lakatos’ proposals (Worrall 2001b).
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In addition to the difference due to the role of prediction in the methodology of social sciences, there is also in Lakatos a more intense emphasis on prediction within the general methodology of science, which accompanies his stress on the “novel facts.”
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Prediction is not the main aim of science on Lakatos’ view. Truth is the fundamental aim; predictive success is the indication that we may be approaching truth.
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There is an inconsistent element here, because if the predicted novel facts were contradicted by previous or rival programs, then they would be already known. I owe this idea to John Worrall, Personal communication, 30 May 2004.
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For Worrall, what Lakatos seems to have in mind in this statement is related with the issue of (so-called) “theory-ladenness” of observation. In this regard, Worrall considers that ultimately there must be sentences whose truth value we can decide independently of theory. (Otherwise the whole scientific enterprise would be without foundation). Personal communication, March 2000.
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This “heuristic progress” could be interpreted as an anticipation of his acceptance of the Zahar–Worrall view. It means explanation/prediction of an old/new fact in a way that “cohered” with the general ideas underlying the program.
- 11.
Another case of heuristic progress is the following: “the progress is not even so much in the actual novel predictions which go beyond the premises—in this case that planets might move also in parabolas—but in the mathematical and physical novelty of problem-solving techniques which later lead to, and form part of, a progressive research programme” Lakatos (1961 and 1973/1978b, p. 101).
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John Worrall maintains that Imre Lakatos was confused in this issue insofar as “predictions are always ‘ontological’: they always say that something exists or some effect occurs. Again the stuff about ‘reinterpretation’ is a reflection of the fact that Lakatos was vaguely aware of the correct Zahar-Worrall view [on novel facts] even when officially he was highlighting temporally novel facts. Hence he realized that there was no reason why, e.g., planetary stations and retrogressions should not fully support Copernican theory, despite [their] being known for centuries before Copernicus, and so he talked about Copernicus’s ‘reinterpretation’ of stations and retrogressions (he may not actually use that example then, but it captures the point). But—according to Worrall—this confusion is shown to be quite unnecessary once the Zahar-Worrall’s view is adopted,” Personal communication, March 2000.
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It means that the fact could be an entity discovered later on (e.g., Neptune).
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“Nobody had thought to make such an observation before Einstein’s programme. Thus, in a progressive research programme, theory leads to the discovery of hitherto unknown novel facts” (Lakatos 1974b, p. 5).
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Following the Zahar–Worrall view on novel facts, “heuristic progress” can also be understood as some particular shift in theory “cohered” with the heuristic principles underlying the program. If you get increase of empirical content (whether new or old facts) in a way that “cohered” with the heuristic, then you have “heuristic progress.”
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Cf. Worrall, J., Personal communication, 30.5.2004.
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Roger Backhouse gives three reasons on this relevance of Lakatos’ prediction of novel facts for the economists. See Backhouse (1994b, pp. 187–188).
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“Where Kuhn and Feyerabend see irrational change, I predict that the historian will be able to show that there has been rational change. The methodology of research programmes thus predicts (or, if you wish, ‘postdicts’) novel historical facts, unexpected in the light of extant (internal and external) historiographies and these predictions will, I hope, be corroborated by historical research. If they are, then the methodology of scientific research programmes will itself constitute a progressive problemshift” (Lakatos 1971/1978a, p. 133).
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This position is endorsed in Achinstein (1995, p. 163).
- 27.
On these conceptions, with a large amount of bibliographical information, see Gonzalez (2006a).
- 28.
For Latsis, the Chicago school’s self defense includes that “even obvious falsity of the hard core in the standard interpretation need not deprive a research programme of its progressive character” (1972, p. 241).
- 29.
An example of an instrumentalist approach that does not have a defensive character and includes an empirical criterion of scientific progress is Laudan’s methodology. This is made clear in his first conception of methodology, which has also a conceptual criterion of progress (cf. Laudan 1977), and it is even more patent in his second methodology, which relies on the concept of “evidence” (cf. Laudan 1996). On his views, cf. Gonzalez (1998e).
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It is the case that, despite Latsis’ interpretation, there is nothing in Lakatos to support a long-term instrumentalism (as opposed to a short-term attitude of “we will eventually produce a theory that at least might be ‘realistic’ but give us one breathing-space in the meantime”).
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Gonzalez, W. (2015). Prediction and Novel Facts in the Methodology of Scientific Research Programs. In: Philosophico-Methodological Analysis of Prediction and its Role in Economics. Theory and Decision Library A:, vol 50. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08885-3_4
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