What is theoretical progress of science?

Synthese:1-21 (2016)
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Abstract

The epistemic conception of scientific progress equates progress with accumulation of scientific knowledge. I argue that the epistemic conception fails to fully capture scientific progress: theoretical progress, in particular, can transcend scientific knowledge in important ways. Sometimes theoretical progress can be a matter of new theories ‘latching better onto unobservable reality’ in a way that need not be a matter of new knowledge. Recognising this further dimension of theoretical progress is particularly significant for understanding scientific realism, since realism is naturally construed as the claim that science makes theoretical progress. Some prominent realist positions are best understood in terms of commitment to theoretical progress that cannot be equated with accumulation of scientific knowledge

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reprint Saatsi, Juha (2019) "What is theoretical progress of science?". Synthese 196(2):611-631

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Juha Saatsi
University of Leeds

Citations of this work

Scientific progress: Four accounts.Finnur Dellsén - 2018 - Philosophy Compass 13 (11):e12525.
Does Scientific Progress Consist in Increasing Knowledge or Understanding?Seungbae Park - 2017 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 48 (4):569-579.

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References found in this work

True Enough.Catherine Z. Elgin - 2017 - Cambridge: MIT Press.
The Scientific Image.William Demopoulos & Bas C. van Fraassen - 1982 - Philosophical Review 91 (4):603.
A confutation of convergent realism.Larry Laudan - 1981 - Philosophy of Science 48 (1):19-49.
A Confutation of Convergent Realism.Larry Laudan - 2001 - In Yuri Balashov & Alexander Rosenberg, Philosophy of Science: Contemporary Readings. New York: Routledge. pp. 211.
Critical scientific realism.Ilkka Niiniluoto - 1999 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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