Larry Laudan’s View of Scientific Progress

The problem of scientific truth has always been a crucial problem in the philosophy of science. The previous schools of logical empiricism and falsificationism believed that science and truth contained each other. But historicists, such as Thomas Samuel Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, etc., believe that truth and science have nothing to do with each other, and the two are completely separate. Larry Laudan also believed that science has nothing to do with truth, but he tried to find a middle way between logicism and historicism. He proposed a problem-solving model and a reticulated model of scientific progress. He conducted detailed analysis and research on scientific problems, which are divided into empirical problems and conceptual problems. If we are astonished at anything about nature and attempt to explain and account for it, it constitutes an empirical problem. Empirical problems include unsolved problems, solved problems, and anomalous problems. Unsolved problems are those empirical problems which have not been adequately solved by any theory; solved problems are those empirical problems which are adequately solved by a theory; anomalous problems are those that are not solved by a particular theory, but one or more of its competitors have. Laudan’s concept of anomalous problem is different from previous theories on anomaly, it is a comparative concept between theories. Its precise definition is: Whenever an empirical problem, p, has been solved by any theory, p then constitutes an anomaly for every theory in the related domain which does not also solve p. Solved problems support a scientific theory, anomalous problems constitute evidence against another theory, and unsolved problems point the way for research and exploration. Conceptual problems include internal conceptual problems and external conceptual problems. Internal conceptual problems arise when a theory exhibits some internal inconsistency, or when the basic analytical categories of the theory are ambiguity or circularity within the theory; external conceptual problems are generated by a theory, T, when T conflicts with another theory or doctrine which the proponents of T believe to be rationally well founded. External conceptual problems play a decisive role in theory evaluation and are more important than internal conceptual problems.