Explaining the novel success of science

Abstract

The book aims at explaining science’s novel success, i.e., the surprising ability of theories to predict phenomena that were not used to formulate them (12). In Chapter 1, three types of novel success are distinguished: (1) predictions of observations of a different kind from those on which the theory was based; (2) predictions about parts of reality, which were not accessible when the theory was formulated; (3) the empirical success of ‘‘theories’’ advanced on ‘‘more or less a priori grounds.’’ Wright’s examples of (3), however, are not theories, but conservation laws and inverse square laws. Moreover, this taxonomy is not an exhaustive partition, for (1), (2), and (3) abundantly overlap. For example, both the prediction of Neptune and of new chemical elements qualify simultaneously as instances of (1) and (2); and all observations of type (3) (predicted by a priori theories) were not used in framing the theory, so they are also instances of type (1). In Chapter 2, Wright criticizes the tentative explanations of success offered by: good luck, the simplicity of nature, scientific realism, meta-induction, evolutionary epistemology, logic of invention, science itself, sociology, and Kantian epistemology. But even granting that each of them, as formulated here, is insufficient, perhaps two or more of them together (e.g., scientific realism and simplicity of nature) might do the job. Having argued that success cannot by explained a posteriori by meta-induction, in Chapter 3, Wright argues it can be done a priori, through BonJour’s (1988, 208–216) a priori justification of induction: