Abstract
It is argued that scientific progress occurs not with the cumulative growth of knowledge or when theories get closer to the truth but with discovering new domains and new theories that fit these domains. This horizontal view on the direction of scientific progress (in contrast to vertical, when we aim to get from here to the abstract and ephemeral truth) allows avoiding traditional objections posed by the incommensurability thesis and pessimistic induction, namely, that radical theory changes leave no room for progress. According to this perspective, the discovery of quantum mechanics as a new field of inquiry is a progress in itself, since this discovery had opened up a new distinctive domain of physics and a new theory that fits this domain. While some perspectives on scientific progress maintain that there is a need for correspondence between competing theories, we shift the emphasis from correspondence towards the discovery of new domains and new theories that apply to those domains. This approach allows overcoming the problem of theoretical discontinuity after scientific revolutions. Correspondence between theories is an important but not necessary condition for progress, while the falsifiability of theories as a means of demonstrating the boundaries of old theories and domains and beginnings of the new domains and theories (instead of being merely a means of refutation) is a necessary condition.
Highlights
Scientific progress, rationality and the scientific status of a theory change, as well as the development in scientific inquiry, are central aspects of the philosophy of science that philosophers need to demonstrate and prove that these features are really present in scientific practice
It was suggested that given the numerous attacks the concept of falsification perceives and those shortcomings that these attacks reveal, it is more reasonable to reduce the role of falsificationism in epistemology and, simultaneously, find its distinctive role in scientific practice, which can ensure that the latest is progressive
The concept of Heisenberg’s closed theories contributes to this view as it allows recognizing the central role which transition between old and new domains of physics and other sciences plays in scientific progress and rationality
Summary
Scientific progress, rationality and the scientific status of a theory change, as well as the development in scientific inquiry, are central aspects of the philosophy of science that philosophers need to demonstrate and prove that these features are really present in scientific practice. Progress should be found and traced not in the process of transition from one theory to another but it is more reasonable to confirm the progress when new domains of science emerge and new theories for these domains developed even when no correspondence between these domains and theories exist For this concept of scientific progress, we should revisit the notion of falsifiability and reduce our demands for this tool so that the task of falsification is to recognize and mark the boundaries of existing theories and placed where new domains and theories can be found. Refutation in this case is desirable but not necessary condition for theories and scientists who use them. We discuss the concept of falsification, review various objections against this statement as the criterion of progress and rationality and suggest the weaker formulation of falsifiability as the concept that
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