Timeline for Can science prove statements to be true?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 29 at 21:12 | comment | added | J D | +1 I've upvoted. DQ talks about holistic requirements about theory including auxiliary theories and tests, but I don't think it rejects confirmation of theories so much as confirmation of statements. That's what confirmation holism angles with. Theories are not statements but are interlocking webs of belief and statement which must be held while individual planks are swapped out. | |
| Jan 29 at 20:45 | comment | added | Dcleve | @abcga -- I think you are a bit off on Quine Duhem, but you are correct, my text benefitted from some elaboration. I spelled out what "facts" are, why Popper recanted on falsification, and what the alternatives to it are. | |
| Jan 29 at 20:43 | history | edited | Dcleve | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Expanded on the alternatives to falsification.
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| Jan 29 at 14:40 | comment | added | user71009 | I upvoted, but please make it more precise. | |
| Jan 29 at 14:40 | comment | added | user71009 | @Dcleve (b) an amendment to an already well-established theory cannot be falsified independently. We falsify the whole theory (in conjunction with the amendment). Because our knowledge of biology, chemistry etc. depends on physics, this means that potentially discoveries in any science can have an effect on physics and other fundamental natural sciences. Popper thought it's more granular. | |
| Jan 29 at 14:38 | comment | added | user71009 | That's a misunderstanding of the Duhem-Quine thesis. The thesis says that any statement of a theory can be held to be true in light of any evidence because it doesn't have any observational consequences by itself. This doesn't mean that a whole theory is never falsifiable - a theory has observational consequences and can be falsified. The only challenge that the Duhem-Quine thesis poses for falsificationism is that: (a) a theory understood as something that you can find in textbooks has to be supplied by auxilliary assumptions (about instruments etc.) to produce observational consequences. | |
| Dec 31, 2023 at 20:08 | comment | added | Hudjefa | Very true! 😃 👍 | |
| Dec 30, 2023 at 1:50 | comment | added | niels nielsen | wow indeed. a true disincentive for me putting in my one cent's worth! | |
| Dec 22, 2023 at 23:02 | comment | added | Dcleve | Wow. A short summary of the decades of 20th century debate on this very question, plus names of the leading philosophers and movements involved got DOWNVOTED!! Wow. Tough crowd. | |
| Dec 22, 2023 at 22:16 | history | answered | Dcleve | CC BY-SA 4.0 |