Theories of Scientific Progress: An Introduction

Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Contents......Page 5
List of illustrations......Page 8
Introduction......Page 10
Progress as incorporation......Page 14
Whewell's ~tributary  river~ image of scientific progress......Page 16
Brewster on how not to do history of science......Page 26
Mill's objections to Whewell's historicism......Page 28
Progress through reduction......Page 37
Lakatos' version of the ~progress is incorporation~ thesis......Page 47
Progress and the asymptotic agreement of calculations......Page 60
Progress as revolutionary overthrow......Page 72
I.B. Cohen on the identification of scientific revolutions......Page 74
Kuhn's taxonomic criterion......Page 77
Toulmin's ~ideals of natural order~......Page 82
Ideological upheaval and revolutionary change......Page 84
Kuhn's three-beat pattern......Page 85
Laudan's  reticulational model of scientific change......Page 91
Popper on progress through overthrow-with-incorporation......Page 97
Descriptive theories of scientific progress......Page 104
Normative and descriptive theories......Page 106
Scientific progress and convergence upon truth......Page 107
Laudan on scientific progress as increasing problem-solving effectiveness......Page 129
Kitcher on conceptual progress and explanatory progress......Page 135
Normative naturalism......Page 139
Scientific progress and the theory of organic evolution......Page 149
Conclusion......Page 165
Notes......Page 169
References......Page 178
Index of names......Page 184
Index of subjects......Page 187