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Popper and Hypothetico-Deductivism
Abstract
Popper, being a deductivist, stated that reasoning is largely deductive. However, most philosophers disagree and state that reasoning is non-deductive. Deductivists generally consider ampliative reasoning invalid. This chapter provides inductive or ampliative logic leading from evidential premises to evidence-transcending conclusions. It discusses abduction and inference to the best explanation (IBE). In discussing abduction and IBE, ‘facts' that require explanation are a prerequisite. There are two main sources of these facts–namely, sense-experience and testimony. Justificationism refers that a reason for believing something must be a reason for what is believed. On rejecting justificationism, it can be allowed that perceptual experiences are reasons as well as causes of perceptual believing. The distinction between the contexts of discovery and justification is largely because of the logical positivists and Popper. Inductive or ampliative logic are not needed anywhere—not in the context of criticism, not in the context of invention, and not in the context of appraisal either.
... Explanations then require inferences in both ways. There are different types of reasoning that chemists use to infer (Hanson, 1958;Lawson, 2005Lawson, , 2010Rothchild, 2006;Musgrave, 2011;Sprenger, 2011), deduction, induction, retroduction, 14 hypothesis, analogy; all these are at the basis of classical or renewed understandings of the scientific methodology. In this broadening of inferences under consideration, the works of Charles S. Peirce (1957Peirce ( , 1982 on "ampliative" reasoning (that with conclusions far exceeding the content of the premises) are fundamental. ...
... As we have stated, K is initially used to configure our interrogation of the phenomenon but then rigorously tested in front of the results of our interventions. In this presentation of the hypothetico-deductive methodology (Lawson, 2000;Musgrave, 2011;Sprenger, 2011;Yıldırım, 2016), "empirical" knowledge on the phenomenon 15 allows critical evaluation of our postulates without the need to introduce the idea that such postulates were induced from data (Lawson, 2005;Tufan & Sarıtaş, 2018). ...
The aim of this article is to propose a didactical approach to establish appropriate relations between different kinds of chemical knowledge and explanations at the macro and the submicro level. Incorrectly moving between these two levels is regarded as the cause of many misconceptions in school chemistry, and several theoretical frameworks have been proposed to remedy those misconceptions. Our literature review of chemistry education shows that a focus of attention for the macro-submicro interplay problem is put in the relations between observations and inferences; we examine such relations with the aid of ideas from the philosophy of science and the specific philosophy of chemistry. We propose a model-based approach that recognises the continuum between empirical and theoretical, descriptive and explanatory in chemical concepts. Finally, we provide an “exemplary activity” on the topic of gases based on this approach, and we evaluate its suitability in terms of some well-established ideas in didactics of science/chemistry.
... 194-199). Deductivists accept analogical reasoning but reconstruct it as deductive reasoning with an implicit premise (see Musgrave 2011). Inductivists think that analogical reasoning can lend empirical support to a theory. ...
... Deductivism means, of course, modern hypothetico-deductivism, where theories are taken to be conjectures and, therefore, in need of tests. Hypothetico-deductivism is opposed to inductivism, seeMusgrave (2011). External validity concerns have inspired a ''new inductivism'' in economics; seeGuala (2005),Bardsley et al. (2010), and Gadenne (2013) for a thorough methodological criticism. ...
Experimental economists frequently claim that they can contribute to industrial organization (IO) by observing individual behavior in, for example, Cournot or Stackelberg games. In these experiments, they regularly falsify the hypothesis of profit maximization, which is, by and large, retained in applied IO. However, what experimental economists test in the laboratory is, at best, the theory of single-person firms. In contrast, empirical IO studies quite large organizations on the basis of field data, while theoretical IO is concerned with internal organization and its links to market behavior. From a modern theory-testing perspective, many experiments should therefore be considered as irrelevant to modern IO; the focus of experimental IO must change if experimental economists want to contribute to IO.
... In this paper, I argue that an up-to-date version of Popperian methodology-which is also known as critical rationalism, falsificationism, hypothetico-deductivism (cf., e.g., Musgrave 2011) or, less technically, the testing view of science-can easily accommodate Sugden's many poignant observations on Akerlof's model and the methodology of economic modeling in general. Indeed, hypothetico-dedcutivism yields an improved version on ...
... Inductive arguments (including abduction, inference to the best explanation, etc.) are deductively invalid, which is why Sugden (2000: 20) speaks of an "inductive leap". Hypothetico-dedcuvism and inductivism are lucidly explained by Musgrave (2011): Hypothetico-deductivists reject invalid arguments. They consider them as incomplete and insist on adding the missing premises that make the argument deductively valid. ...
Sugden (2000) offers an answer to the question of how unrealistic models can be used to explain real-world phenomena: by considering a set of unrealistic models, one may conclude that a result common to these models also holds for a realistic model that, however, is too complex to be analyzed, or even just stated, explicitly. This is a kind of robustness argument. Sugden argues that the argument is inductive and that the methodological strategy is inconsistent with received methodological views. This paper argues that Sugden’s argument is in need of improvement, that the improved version is deductive, and that the methodological strategy, if applied with care, fits well into one of the received views dismissed by Sugden, namely, hypothetico-deductivism, or the the testing view of science.
... In the literature of philosophy of science, a number of theoretical frameworks have been put forward; authors talk about hypothetical deduction, induction, retrodiction, abduction, which are defined as combined, non-formal and therefore non-demonstrative methods [14]. It is often stated that induction and deduction, which are the classical "scientific methods", are not enough in today's understanding of science [18]. ...
The aim of the present study, of elucidative and argumentative nature, is to propose a first draft for a theoretical approach towards establishing wellfounded explanatory relationships between the micro and macro levels of chemical knowledge. The establishment of such an aim is done taking into account that “levels” in chemistry are usually regarded as the cause of many misconceptions among secondary students. We first examine the recent literature of chemistry education addressing the “macro-micro problem”. We then redefine that problem, using the aid of the philosophy of science and the specific philosophy of chemistry, in terms of observations and inferences. We draw
attention to the theoretical-empirical, explanatory-descriptive, abstract-concrete, general-factual nature of chemical concepts in science education. Finally, we derive some instructional guidelines that intend to be coherent with currently established knowledge in chemistry education research. We indicate some clues for the design of instructional sequences, laboratory practices, and technology-mediated teaching activities that follow the spirit of our theoretical approach.
... In fact proponents of the retroductive strategy can and do criticize Popper's falsificationism (even though they invoke hypothetical constructs in their explanations), for example on the ground that falsificationism aims at refuting one conjecture at a time instead of confronting multiple hypotheses simultaneously (e.g.,Hilborn & Mangel, 1997). Along similar lines, let me emphasize that adherence to an inductivist philosophy of science of the sort described byChiesa (1994) orSkinner (1950) entails no commitment to the feasibility of inductive, as opposed to deductive, logic (cf.Musgrave, 2011). Also see Footnote 1. ...
Behavior analysis exemplifies a highly peculiar type of explanation in which behavior is said to arise from past interactions with the environment rather than from internal mental states. Radical behaviorism has been advanced as a philosophy of science that could legitimate this explanatory specificity of behavior analysis. As described by its proponents, radical behaviorism is a philosophy of science that stresses prediction and contol, that takes empirical regularities to be the building blocks of behavior science, and that proceeds without hypothesizing unobservable states of affairs. In this article I argue firstly that it is a mistake to ground behaviorism (of any kind) in a philosophy of science, secondly that the philosophy of science known as radical behaviorism is deficient, and thirdly that one can reject this philosophy and make use of a particular type of hypothetical constructs without ceasing to be radical or behavioristic. The philosophy of science I propose as an alternative to Skinnerian inductivism embraces causation as a metaphysical primitive and redirects behavior analysis toward the study of invisible relations of influence between environment and behavior.
... For an opposite view, seeMusgrave (2011). For a criticism of Musgrave's view, seeCellucci (2017a). ...
Cancer research is experiencing ‘paradigm instability’, since there are two rival theories of carcinogenesis which confront themselves, namely the somatic mutation theory and the tissue organization field theory. Despite this theoretical uncertainty, a huge quantity of data is available thanks to the improvement of genome sequencing techniques. Some authors think that the development of new statistical tools will be able to overcome the lack of a shared theoretical perspective on cancer by amalgamating as many data as possible. We think instead that a deeper understanding of cancer can be achieved by means of more theoretical work, rather than by merely accumulating more data. To support our thesis, we introduce the analytic view of theory development, which rests on the concept of plausibility, and make clear in what sense plausibility and probability are distinct concepts. Then, the concept of plausibility is used to point out the ineliminable role played by the epistemic subject in the development of statistical tools and in the process of theory assessment. We then move to address a central issue in cancer research, namely the relevance of computational tools developed by bioinformaticists to detect driver mutations in the debate between the two main rival theories of carcinogenesis. Finally, we briefly extend our considerations on the role that plausibility plays in evidence amalgamation from cancer research to the more general issue of the divergences between frequentists and Bayesians in the philosophy of medicine and statistics. We argue that taking into account plausibility-based considerations can lead to clarify some epistemological shortcomings that afflict both these perspectives.
... The body of literature on the debate pro and contra falsificationism is enormous; Schilpp (1974) still provides a classic entry into the debate, while O'Hear (1995) encompasses a more recent collection of essays on Popper's philosophy of science. Musgrave (2009) has offered a defense of hypothetico-deductivism without, however, taking into account the specific case of causal hypotheses (as opposed to generalisations such as ''all emeralds are green''). 6 This summary equation is still today frequently used in introductory textbooks although it is known to be not quite accurate, neither concerning the quantities nor the qualities of the actual reactants. ...
Falsification no longer is the cornerstone of philosophy of science; but it still looms widely that scientists ought to drop an explanatory hypothesis in view of negative results. We shall argue that, to the contrary, negative empirical results are unable to disqualify causally explanatory hypotheses—not because of the shielding effect of auxiliary assumptions but because of the fact that the causal irrelevance of a factor cannot empirically be established. This perspective is elaborated at a case study taken from the history of plant physiology: the formaldehyde model of photosynthesis, which for about sixty years (1870s to 1930s) dominated the field—despite the fact that in these sixty years all the attempts to conclusively demonstrate even the presence of formaldehyde in plants failed.
... Consequently, one might view the experimental report as an inductive argument, as Gross (1990) does, or as a hypothetico-deductive argument, as Lawson (2010) suggests, without making claims about the nature of scientific discovery and reasoning in general. Furthermore, we will take issue with the view put forward by the epistemologist Musgrave (2009) and emphasize that the core of scientific reasoning is to provide good reasons and attempt to make claims that can withstand criticisms. Also, he points to the importance in science of inclusion of epistemic modifiers like "There is reason to suspect that . . . ...
The study reported in this article analyses students' scientific reasoning and writing as displayed in their lab reports from practical work in science class. Based on conceptions of different scientific genres and ways of reasoning, 64 lab reports from two lower-secondary science classes have been analyzed using the constant comparative method. Three main genres of school lab reports have been identified. Hypothetico-deductive reports include a hypothesis or prediction and draw conclusions based on results presented. Inductive reports draw conclusions based on patterns identified in data, but hypothesis are not presented. Explanatory reports present observations or measurements and explain these by indicating how they are consistent with textbook science. Mixes of genres represented in many of the reports were found to be consistent with the specifications set by the two subject teachers. None of the 64 conclusions in the lab reports commented on uncertainties or signal limitations of the stated conclusions. The study findings suggest that a useful distinction may be made between experiment reports and explanatory reports. It is argued that these constitute unique arenas for teaching and learning about scientific ways of thinking and how the epistemic status of claims may vary.
... Something like AH is implicitly assumed if one "generalizes" from single-individual experiments to the behaviour of firms. "Inductive" generalizations are best reconstructed as deductive arguments with implicit premises; seeMusgrave (2011). ...
Theories of industrial organization (IO) are tested in the laboratory more and more often. The example we consider throughout the paper is oligopoly theory, specifically, the Cournot and the Stackelberg model of duopolistic quantity competition with homogeneous products. These models have often been subjected to tests: participants were told that they represented firms and received profits according to their chosen quantities. However, testing a theory in the laboratory requires that the experimental design falls into the domain of the theory. The domain of mainstream IO is market behaviour of large (i.e., multi-agent) firms. The basic hypothesis is that these firms maximize profits. This hypothesis cannot be tested in experiments where single agents are told that they represent firms. For a test, it would be necessary to assume that multi-agent groups and single agents show the same behaviour. This assumption is inconsistent with all current theories of individual behaviour and has, moreover, been falsified in many experiments. It follows that many alleged experimental tests of IO models are irrelevant to mainstream IO. This raises the question of whether relevant laboratory tests are possible at all. The answer is positive if one considers theories of the firm that relate organizational behaviour to the internal structure of the firm, like Alchian and Demsetz’s (1972) contractual view of the firm.
About sixty years ago, Hans Albert criticized economists for their “model platonism”, a methodological attitude that immunizes theoretical models against empirical criticism. Since then, economics has taken an empirical turn; yet, model platonism lingers on. The root of the problem is economists’ reluctance to distinguish explicitly between the law-like and the situational assumptions of their models. Without this distinction, it is impossible to give a satisfactory account of the interplay between theory and empirical investigations. Based on Hans Albert’s critical rationalism, the paper explains how making the distinction allows economists to escape from model platonism. By identifying critical situational assumptions and robust conclusions, economists can, and sometimes do, find approximate explanations even though they cannot completely avoid unrealistic simplifications.
An alternative to mainstream philosophy of mathematics is heuristic philosophy of mathematics, according to which the philosophy of mathematics is concerned with the making of mathematics, in particular discovery, and the method of mathematics is the analytic method. Heuristic philosophy of mathematics is not to be confused with other views of mathematics that might seem similar to it, in particular with the philosophy of mathematical practice, which is not concerned with the making of mathematics, in particular discovery, but, like mainstream philosophy of mathematics, only with finished mathematics. The chapter describes characters, origin, goal, and advantages of heuristic philosophy of mathematics.KeywordsHeuristic philosophy of mathematics
Practical heuristics
Philosophy of mathematical practice
Heuristic view of mathematicsBottom-up approach
Open systems
Mathematics as problem solving
Problems vs. theorems
On occasion of Hans Albert’s 100-th anniversary the paper addresses a wider audience of philosophers, political scientists and economists who are broadly interested in critical rationalism but not well acquainted with Albert’s systematization of the Popperian philosophical program. Laying out Albert’s intellectual career and his critical realism, fallibilism and methodological revisionism puts him on the present intellectual PPE map as a philosopher-economist in his own right. Beyond contributions to the “Positivismusstreit” and his seminal work on “Model Platonism” in economics, in particular his views on technological thinking and the role of institutions in science have wide ranging, still underappreciated implications.
Нельзя недооценивать роль метаданных в поддержке исследований; более того, трудно развить системное понимание активности метаданных в ходе исследовательского процесса. В статье предварительно анализируется, как активности метаданных встроены в жизненные циклы исследования и данных. В частности, выделяются некоторые основные активности метаданных, связанные с компонентами общего исследовательского процесса, от формулирования гипотезы до распространения результатов и управления данными. В ходе исследования возникают эпистемологические вопросы относительно присутствия активности метаданных во время проведения исследования и управления данными. Эта работа концептуализирует и обосновывает связь между метаданными и жизненными циклами исследований и данных, а также представляет четкое отображение, выявляющее профиль этих активностей, и создает впечатление относительно ценности метаданных в области научных исследований и управления данными.
Poppers Logik der Forschung steht für eine erhebliche Problemverschiebung in der Wissenschaftstheorie, von der Logik der Forschung zur Verfassung der Wissenschaft. Popper sieht die Methodologie als eine Institution, als ein Regelsystem für die Akzeptanz oder Verwerfung von Theorien und Beobachtungsaussagen. Dieser immer noch wenig beachtete institutionelle Aspekt von Poppers kritischem Rationalismus ist zum einen für die Interpretation der methodologischen Regeln von Bedeutung. Zum anderen wirft er ein neues Problem auf: Kann sich eine solche Methodologie als Verfassung der Wissenschaft etablieren? Eine institutionenökonomische Analyse des wissenschaftlichen Wettbewerbs zeigt, dass eine notwendige Bedingung dafür erfüllt ist: die Methodologie des kritischen Rationalismus ist anreizkompatibel, das heißt, es liegt im Interesse eines Forschers, diese Methodologie zu beachten, wenn er erwartet, dass die anderen Forscher ebenso verfahren.
Bilimi anlama faaliyeti olan bilim felsefesinin bilimin doğasına ilişkin anlayışları tanımlamada da kritik bir önemi olmalıdır. Nitekim, bilimin doğası; bilim nedir? sorusuna, bilim tarihi, bilim sosyolojisi, bilim psikolojisi ve bilim felsefesi açısından getirilen yaklaşımların tümünü temsil eden bir kavram olarak ifade edilmektedir. Bu yaklaşımlara katkı sağlayan bilim felsefesi ise epistemoloji ve ontoloji boyutları ile bilimi, metodolojik ve rasyonel yönü gibi farklı problem alanlarında ele alır. Bilim felsefesinin bu ve benzeri problemler üzerine getirdiği açıklamalar fen eğitimi açısından da değerli olduğu ve fen eğitiminde bilim felsefesi ve tarihinin önemi uzun bir süredir vurgulanmaktadır. Bu çalışmada günümüz fen eğitiminin anahtar kavramları olan fen okuryazarlığı bağlamında bilimin doğası, bilim felsefesinin önemli bir tartışma konusu olan bilimin rasyonalite sorunu ışığında ele alınmıştır. Yine bu bağlamda bilimin doğasına yönelik bilim felsefesinin olası katkılarına değinilmiş ve bazı önerilerde bulunulmuştur.
To understand science, besides doing a science; it is necessary to evaluate it with historical, philosophical, sociological and even psychological context. Philosophy of Science, as an understanding activity on science, it must also be a critical factor in defining the nature of science. Philosophy of Science take the science with epistemology and ontology dimensions and problem areas such as methodological and rational aspects. Since a long time, it is emphasized that the statements given by the philosophy of science are also valuable in terms of science education. In this study, the nature of science in the context of science literacy, the key concepts of present-day science education, is discussed in the light of the rationality problem of science, which is an important topic of discussion of science philosophy. In this context, the possible contributions of science philosophy to the nature of science in science education are mentioned and some suggestions are presented.
The periodic table is an introduction to the elements and is important in terms of chemistry education. In many chemistry teaching programs around the world, effective use of periodic table is aimed. However, considering the characteristics of the periodic table, it is not possible to encounter with a way or a method to use them in the literature. For this reason, the aim of this study is to draw attention to the nature of the periodic table, and to open a door to think that this nature is advantageous in terms of chemistry education. For this purpose, the historical development and present situation of the periodic table are briefly mentioned and the concepts of periodic law, periodic system and periodic table are analyzed from a philosophical point of view. Afterwards, in the light of the methodological and epistemological aspects of the historical development of the periodic table, periodic law and periodic system relations is discussed in the context of the chemistry education for the effective use of periodic table. In this discussion, the hypothetical-deductive method was pointed that might be compatible for the effective use of the periodic system, and some suggestions for chemistry education have been given.
Poppers Logik der Forschung steht für eine erhebliche Problemverschiebung in der Wissenschaftstheorie, von der Logik der Forschung zur Verfassung der Wissenschaft. Popper sieht die Methodologie als eine Institution, als ein Regelsystem für die Akzeptanz oder Verwerfung von Theorien und Beobachtungsaussagen. Dieser immer noch wenig beachtete institutionelle Aspekt von Poppers kritischem Rationalismus ist zum einen für die Interpretation der methodologischen Regeln von Bedeutung. Zum anderen wirft er ein neues Problem auf: Kann sich eine solche Methodologie als Verfassung der Wissenschaft etablieren? Eine institutionenökonomische Analyse des wissenschaftlichen Wettbewerbs zeigt, dass eine notwendige Bedingung dafür erfüllt ist: die Methodologie des kritischen Rationalismus ist anreizkompatibel, das heißt, es liegt im Interesse eines Forschers, diese Methodologie zu beachten, wenn er erwartet, dass die anderen Forscher ebenso verfahren.
The paper characterizes Bayesianism and critical rationalism as alternative recipes for judgment and decision making. It evaluates these alternatives against the background of the claim that following the respective recipe promotes the decision maker’s interests. Regarding Bayesian rationality, the claim is rejected, both for large and small worlds. Regarding critical rationality, the claim is accepted. It is argued that the critical-rationalist recipe works because it successfully exploits the laws governing human decision makers’ environment. The Bayesian recipe, however, is “too thin” to serve a decision maker’s interests.
How is knowledge acquired? In the past century it has been generally believed that this question is vacuous, because there is no method for acquiring knowledge, the basic laws of science can be reached only by intuition, then, from them, conclusions are deduced and compared with experience. This belief has had a very negative impact on logic, the method of science, and philosophy, and contrasts with the views on knowledge from antiquity to the nineteenth century. This chapter maintains that the belief in question has no foundation. It also maintains that there is no more foundation in the claim that today there is no longer need for the traditional approach to science, based on the scientific method, because powerful algorithms can explore huge databases and find correlations and regularities therein, providing rules for prediction.
Logic and reasoning is a core skill of the applied crime analyst. Without an understanding of what constitutes good logic and critical thinking, the analyst will fail to provide sound advice or opinion, barring the most exceptional cases of luck. To do so, the analyst will use both inductive and deductive logic to develop theories and to test these theories against the evidence using the scientific method. Then, and only then, will the conclusions be sound and stand up to scrutiny. In an ideal world, one hypothesis will remain to the exclusion of all others, although this is often not possible within the boundaries of the evidence one has. In these cases, competing hypotheses can be measured against one another using Heuer's ACH methodology. This chapter discusses logic and reasoning, provides some understand of cognitive tools in the form of heuristics, and discusses some cognitive errors to be avoided.
Dawes (2013) claims that we ought not to believe but to accept our best scientific theories. To accept them means to employ them as premises in our reasoning with the goal of attaining knowledge about unobservables. I reply that if we do not believe our best scientific theories, we cannot gain knowledge about unobservables, our opponents might dismiss the predictions derived from them, and we cannot use them to explain phenomena. We commit an unethical speech act when we explain a phenomenon in terms of a theory we do not believe.
This paper covers those parts of elementary logic that are needed in an introductory course on philosophy of science and the methodology of economics. With this aim in mind, much of the technical material from standard logic courses can be dropped. Specifically, the exposition emphasizes the semantic side, with only a few remarks on syntactical aspects. On the other hand, some philosophical and methodological remarks are in order to prepare the ground for methodological discussions. Where appropriate, exercises (including review questions and discussion questions) are provided. Solutions to selected exercises are given at the end of the paper.
The current state of inductive logic is puzzling. Survey presentations are recurrently offered (see, e.g., [20, 30, 52], classic textbooks by leading scholars are reedited and new ones are published (see [28, 59], respectively) and a very rich and extensive handbook was entirely dedicated to the topic just a few years ago [23]. Among the contributions to this very volume, however, one finds forceful arguments to the effect that inductive logic is not needed and that the belief in its existence is itself a misguided illusion ([50]; also see [51] for a consonant line of argument), while other distinguished observers have eventually come to see at least the label as “slightly antiquated” ([43], p. 291).What seems not to have lost any of its currency is the problem which inductive logic is meant to address. Inference from limited ascertained information to uncertain hypotheses is ubiquitous in learning, prediction and discovery. The logical insight that such kind of inference is fallible m ...
The view that the subject matter of epistemology is the concept of knowledge is faced with the problem that all attempts so far to define that concept are subject to counterexamples. As an alternative, this article argues that the subject matter of epistemology is knowledge itself rather than the concept of knowledge. Moreover, knowledge is not merely a state of mind but rather a certain kind of response to the environment that is essential for survival. In this perspective, the article outlines an answer to four basic questions about knowledge: What is the role of knowledge in human life? What is the relation between knowledge and reality? How is knowledge acquired? Is there any a priori knowledge?
Defences of inference to the best explanation (IBE) frequently associate IBE with scientific realism, the idea that it is reasonable to believe our best scientific theories. I argue that this linkage is unfortunate. IBE does not warrant belief, since the fact that a theory is the best available explanation does not show it to be (even probably) true. What IBE does warrant is acceptance: taking a proposition as a premise in theoretical and/or practical reasoning. We ought to accept our best scientific theories since they are the theories that are most likely to lead to the goal of science, which is that of knowledge. In support of this claim I invoke Bill Lycan's Panglossian reflections regarding Mother Nature.1
This study proposes a research design for the enhancement of validity and reliability in conjoint analysis research. For this purpose, we are applying the concept of feedback-driven exploration to conjoint analysis and assess the proposed research design concerning its benefits and limitations in respect of validity and reliability of results. The article is of interest for the field of preference elicitation through stated preference methods, and for model validation in transdisciplinary research. By applying the principle of feedback-driven exploration, we allow for feedback loops between researchers, industry experts and survey participants in order to strengthen both validity and reliability. A multi-case study of the agricultural markets in Switzerland illustrates the functioning of the proposed research design. We find that feedback-driven exploration significantly increases validity and reliability by enhancing methodological rigor and implementing an error-correcting mechanism. Additionally, a better understanding of the underlying decision processes is supported by the design due to increased interaction between researchers, industry experts and market participants.
The ‘construct’ concept occupies a significant place in psychology and, yet its role is misunderstood. Psychologists think that theorising in the area of psychological testing involves conjuring constructs, which are operationally defined and measured via psychometric tests. However, the ‘construct’ concept is unworkable and laden with confused philosophical baggage accrued under the hegemony of logical empiricism, and its real function in psychology is obscured. Via an analysis of its history and logic, I expose its flawed conception of the relation between theoretical and observable concepts and the way in which it serves the myth of mental measurement. Finally, it is shown how the actual logic of theorising in science, which entails that theories are best inferred from relevant phenomena, not imaginatively constructed, oppugns this myth and promises to coordinate theoretical concepts with the phenomena to be explained.
Theories of industrial organization (IO) are tested in the laboratory more and more often. The example we consider throughout the paper is oligopoly theory, specifically, the Cournot and the Stackelberg model of duopolistic quantity competition with homogeneous products. These models have often been subjected to tests: participants were told that they represented firms and received profits according to their chosen quantities. However, testing a theory in the laboratory requires that the experimental design falls into the domain of the theory. The domain of mainstream IO is market behaviour of large (i.e., multi-agent) firms. The basic hypothesis is that these firms maximize profits. This hypothesis cannot be tested in experiments where single agents are told that they represent firms. For a test, it would be necessary to assume that multi-agent groups and single agents show the same behaviour. This assumption is inconsistent with all current theories of individual behaviour and has, moreover, been falsified in many experiments. It follows that many alleged experimental tests of IO models are irrelevant to mainstream IO. This raises the question of whether relevant laboratory tests are possible at all. The answer is positive if one considers theories of the firm that relate organizational behaviour to the internal structure of the firm, like Alchian and Demsetz’s (1972) contractual view of the firm.
Falsification no longer is the cornerstone of philosophy of science; but it still looms widely that scientists ought to drop an explanatory hypothesis in view of negative results. We shall argue that, to the contrary, negative empirical results are unable to disqualify causally explanatory hypotheses-not because of the shielding effect of auxiliary assumptions but because of the fact that the causal irrelevance of a factor cannot empirically be established. This perspective is elaborated at a case study taken from the history of plant physiology: the formaldehyde model of photosynthesis, which for about sixty years (1870s to 1930s) dominated the field-despite the fact that in these sixty years all the attempts to conclusively demonstrate even the presence of formaldehyde in plants failed.
Is there a logic of scientific discovery? An affirmative answer to this question is a thread which ran through all of Imre Lakatos’s writings. In this Lakatos swam against the tide of logical positivist and Popperian orthodoxy. According to that orthodoxy, the ‘context of discovery’ is the province of empirical psychology; it is only the ‘context of justification’ which is the province of logic. Moreover, psychological facts about the way in which a theory was discovered have no bearing upon the logical or epistemological question of whether it is a justified theory. Now Lakatos and his followers were not, of course, the first to swim against the tide of orthodoxy. But they were, I shall argue, the first to make much headway against it.
It is argued in this paper that the valid argument forms coming under the general heading of Demonstrative Induction have played a highly significant role in the history of theoretical physics. This situation was thoroughly appreciated by several earlier philosophers of science and deserves to be more widely known and understood.
In this paper I prove one interesting result and provide strong argument for another. First, I refute deduetivism. To be precise, I show that there are deductively invalid forms of inference that a deductivist cannot consistently reject as unsound. These forms are not, however, inductive. Second, I argue that precisely if there are sound inductive forms of argument, science can be given an adequate rational reconstruction using only non-inductive forms of argument. So to this extent, inductive forms are either unsound or unnecessary. This, I suggest, is the core of truth in much Popperian argument. However, I also argue that precisely if scientific argument can be so analysed, there must be sotmd inductive forms of argument. Inductive inferences, therefore, are either needed for the analysis of scientific inference, or sound. This, I suggest, is the core of truth in much anti-Popperian argument. In fact, surprisingly, relative to uncontroversial assumptions, these two positions are in fact equivalent.
This paper defends deductivism, the view that the only valid arguments are deductivity valid arguments, and that deductive logic is the only logic that we have or need. Inductive arguments are construed as valid deductive enthymemes. Some of these, with general epistemic principles as missing premises, may be sound as well as valid – thus solving the philosophical problem of induction. But that problem is not to be trivialised by regarding the epistemic principles as analytic truths, as Pargetter and Bigelow have recently suggested.
- Howson
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If", "so", and "because
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