Science and Values The Aims of Science and Their Role in Scientific Debate

by Larry Laudan (Author)
January 1986
First Edition
Paperback
$31.95, £27.00 eBook
$31.95, £27.00
Series
Pittsburgh Series in Philosophy and History of Science
Title Details

Rights: Available worldwide
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9780520908116

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About the Book Table of Contents Related Books

About the Book

Laudan constructs a fresh approach to a longtime problem for the philosopher of science: how to explain the simultaneous and widespread presence of both agreement and disagreement in science. Laudan critiques the logical empiricists and the post-positivists as he stresses the need for centrality and values and the interdependence of values, methods, and facts as prerequisites to solving the problems of consensus and dissent in science.

Acknowledgments
Preface
One
Two Puzzles about Science: Reflections on Some Crises in Philosophy and Sociology of Science
The Consensual View and the Puzzle of Agreement
The "New Wave" Preoccupation with Dissensus
Two
The Hierarchical Structure of Scientific Debates
Factual Consensus Formation
Methodological Consensus Formation
Three
Closing the Evaluative Circle: Resolving Disagreements about Cognitive Values
The Covariance Fallacy
The Reticulated Model and the Mechanics of Goal Evaluation
The Reticulated Model of Scientific Rationality
Four
Dissecting the Holist Picture of Scientific Change
Kuhn on the Units of Scientific Change
Kuhn's Critique of Methodology
Five
A Reticulational Critique of Realist Axiology
and Methodology
Epilogue
References
Index