What is the Problem of Ad Hoc Hypotheses?
Science & Education 8 (4):375 - 86. (1999)
Abstract
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 are obscured largely because the received view fails to adequately separate psychology from methodology or to recognise ambiguities in the use of ''ad hoc''.Author's Profile
DOI
10.1023/a:1008633808051
My notes
Similar books and articles
Popper's explications of ad hocness: Circularity, empirical content, and scientific practice.Greg Bamford - 1993 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44 (2):335-355.
The bayesian treatment of auxiliary hypotheses.Michael Strevens - 2001 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 52 (3):515-537.
Popper, Refutation and 'Avoidance' of Refutation.Greg Bamford - 1989 - Dissertation, The University of Queensland
Ad hoc auxiliary hypotheses and falsificationism.Adolf Grünbaum - 1976 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 27 (4):329-362.
Propter Hoc, Ergo Post Hoc.Alexander Rosenberg - 1975 - American Philosophical Quarterly 12 (3):245 - 254.
Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc.John Woods & Douglas Walton - 1977 - Review of Metaphysics 30 (4):569 - 593.
From Analysis/Synthesis to Conjecture/Analysis: a Review of Karl Popper’s Influence on Design Methodology in Architecture.Greg Bamford - 2002 - Design Studies 23 (3):245-61.
Confirmation of scientific hypotheses as relations.Aysel Dogan - 2005 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 36 (2):243 - 259.
Likelihoods, Multiple Universes, and Epistemic Context.Lydia McGrew - 2005 - Philosophia Christi 7 (2):475 - 481.
Fundamental theories and their empirical patches.Jerome A. Berson - 2008 - Foundations of Chemistry 10 (3):147-156.
Appetitive besires and the fuss about fit.Steven Swartzer - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 165 (3):975-988.
Prediction, Accommodation, and the Logic of Discovery.Patrick Maher - 1988 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988:273 - 285.
Analytics
Added to PP
2011-04-21
Downloads
225 (#55,844)
6 months
3 (#223,827)
2011-04-21
Downloads
225 (#55,844)
6 months
3 (#223,827)
Historical graph of downloads
Author's Profile
Citations of this work
The hypothesis that saves the day: ad hoc reasoning in pseudoscience.Maarten Boudry - 2013 - Logique Et Analyse 223:245-258.