Research Programs

Drawing on insights from Imre Lakatos' seminal work on theories of rationality, Leslie Allan develops seven criteria for rational theory choice that avoid presuming the rationality of the scientific enterprise. He shows how his axioms of rationality follow from the general demands of an objectivist epistemology. Allan concludes by considering two weighty objections to his framework.

Imre Lakatos holds a well-deserved primary place in current philosophy of science. In this essay, Leslie Allan critically examines Lakatos' theory of knowledge in two key areas. The first area of consideration is Lakatos' notion that knowledge is gained through a process of competition between rival scientific research programmes. Allan identifies and discusses four problems with Lakatos' characterization of a research programme. Next, Allan considers Lakatos' proposed test of adequacy for theories of rationality using his methodology of historiographical research programmes. (...) Allan discovers tensions within Lakatos' criteria and suggests ways of strengthening his test. (shrink)

Sometimes themes can be found in common across very different systems in which change occurs. Imre Lakatos developed a theory of change in science, and one involving entities visible at different levels. There are theories defended at a particular time, and there are also research programs, larger units that bundle together a sequence of related theories and within which many scientists may work. Research programs are competing higher-level units within a scientific field. Scientific change involves change within research programs, and (...) change in the ensemble of research programs present at a time, where some will be growing, some shrinking, some progressing, some degenerating. These are also themes in biological evolution. Recent biology has often found itself dealing with the relation between change at a level of "collectives" – such as organisms like us – and change at a lower level – the level of cells, genes, and other evolving parts. This work is continuous with an older discussion, one that arose when biological evolution was no more than a vague speculation, round the beginning of the 19th century. What is the living individual? What is the basic unit of life or living organization? Questions like this were pursued by Goethe, by Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles, and many others. Initially it was plants, especially, that were seen to raise these problems, and then newly described marine animals with strange life cycles. The discussion was influenced by the rise of the cell theory in the early 19th century, but some writers looked for individuals well below the level of the cell. (shrink)

The following paper was constructed with two goals in mind: to use AI as a co-construction tool in academic research and to provide examples of how Inesia-Forde’s frameworks of social change can be applied across various fields and substantive areas, for students looking to complete their thesis or dissertations in record time. The examples cited in the paper for which AI constructed tables were previously discussed in my dissertation and other published works, but have not been formalized (ethical use of (...) AI). However, AI identified some areas where the frameworks can be applied (e.g., unethical use by students who do not credit AI as a research tool or who use AI-generated examples rather than their own). In this paper, the focus was on how AI would apply the frameworks to areas I know it applies to, rather than to new ones. To support the new applications, I would have had to conduct independent research, which is not an aim of this paper. Analysts interested in these areas can conduct independent research to determine whether AI cited appropriate examples. (shrink)

Every inquiry begins from somewhere. Before a framework can justify, test, revise, or defend its claims, it already relies on norms, capacities, practices, or commitments it does not fully vindicate within the same episode. This paper names one subset of those dependencies as faith, while sharply distinguishing the term from religious belief, revelation, credulity, or assent against evidence: a faith-floor is an explicit, action-guiding program commitment held under incomplete warrant and governed by public conditions of correction. The paper argues that (...) no enacted inquiry is floorless, and that the constructive response to the old regress problem is neither suspension nor concealment but naming. A crowned floor—a starting commitment promoted into final fact—becomes dogma. A named floor can be audited, inherited, revised, and abandoned if it degenerates. Naming does not validate the commitment; it makes the commitment auditable. The paper draws a seam the corpus has run implicitly: the access-floor and the content-floor differ in kind. The access-floor is experience as the route by which claims reach human inquiry—a necessary condition whose denial must use it. The content-floor is UCT's elected commitment that its canonical kernel tracks recurring structural relations across domains—named, revisable, and fruit-tested. Biological Faith Systems and How Minds Resolve show the same commitment-before-certainty structure operating in biology and mind; this paper names the foundational form and gives it a stable address in the T0 gateway arc: Kernel First → Faith Without Fideism → Sealed Inquiry → The Tether. (shrink)

Comme il a été façonné par les améliorations de ses outils et méthodes, et par son discours avec les critiques, je décris comment le programme de recherche astrologique a progressé à travers trois étapes de modélisation et de limitations de conception. Les tests à facteur unique (par exemple, les nombreuses expériences de signe solaire uniquement qui ont été publiées) sont généralement sousdéterministes. Les tests multifactoriels, à moins qu'ils ne soient très bien conçus, peuvent facilement devenir surdéterministes. Les tests d'appariement de (...) thèmes ont été vulnérables aux erreurs de biais de confirmation jusqu'au développement d'un protocole d'appariement de thèmes entiers basé sur une machine qui a objectivement produit des preuves avec des tailles d'effet élevées. Une méta-analyse des résultats récents montre les progrès rapides et comment améliorer encore les résultats. La valeur du programme n'est pas seulement de corroborer les contrefactuels taxonomiques des «livres de cuisine» astrologiques, mais d'étendre leur portée explicative par la comparaison des postulats et des inférences astrologiques avec les philosophies d'autres disciplines en termes de processus quantifiables et d'effets émergents. (shrink)

A research programme is distinguished from a single thesis by generative range: it produces problems, guides their formulation, and suggests forms of solution across a wide domain (Lakatos, 1978). This paper argues that Constraint Theory (CT) — the thesis, established by transcendental argument, that constraint is the ontological primitive constitutive of determinate existence as such — constitutes a progressive research programme in this precise sense, and that the body of work developed from it over the preceding years provides the evidence (...) for this claim. -/- The paper is structured as follows. Section 1 identifies the hard core of the CT research programme and distinguishes it from the protective belt of domain applications. Section 2 states the foundational argument with the precision required for a systematic evaluation of its scope and limits. Section 3 surveys the seventeen domains in which CT has generated non-trivial philosophical contributions, organising them by the type of explanatory achievement CT provides in each: dissolution of a standing problem, resolution of a persistent debate, unification of previously separate accounts, or principled extension of a framework that existed only in partial form. Section 4 identifies the structural pattern that recurs across all seventeen applications and argues that this recurrence is evidence for the foundational character of the primitive rather than a coincidence of domain-specific contingencies. Section 5 makes the Lakatosian argument explicit: CT satisfies the criteria for a progressive research programme, not merely a degenerative one or a unified metaphor, and the pattern of its development from 2007 to the present is the pattern of progressive problem shifts rather than ad hoc accommodation. Section 6 addresses the principal objections to CT as a framework. Section 7 draws conclusions about the programme’s current status and directions for further development. (shrink)

A prior paper established constraint as an ontological primitive: the transcendental condition of determinacy, distinction, and existence as such (Prideaux, 2026a). A companion paper demonstrated that moral order is structurally homologous to thermodynamic constraint dynamics (Prideaux, 2026c), and a third paper offered a structuralist resolution of the problem of evil grounded in the ontological necessity of limitation for manifestation (Prideaux, 2026b). The present paper extends the research programme by identifying seven further philosophical domains in which Constraint Theory supplies either novel (...) explanatory traction or previously unavailable formal precision: the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind and personal identity, political philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of language, metaphysics of causation and time, and psychopathology. For each domain, the paper articulates the core application, identifies the specific gap or puzzle that constraint-theoretic analysis addresses, traces the relevant existing literature, and proposes a proof-of-principle argument demonstrating the framework’s fertility. The paper does not exhaust any domain but establishes that the constraint-theoretic approach constitutes a genuine research programme with implications across the central areas of philosophy. It is offered as an invitation to further development by the philosophical community. (shrink)

How can we maintain the reality and significance of human moral concerns in a universe that science has seemingly revealed to be utterly indifferent to us? This paper follows William James’ struggle to answer this question, from his early embrace of his father’s religious monism, through a period of atheistic scientism, to his mature position advocating for belief in a finite God. While James is often read as defending religious faith on pragmatic grounds, I argue instead that his belief can (...) only be understood as part of his lifelong project to recognize evil’s reality and significance. (shrink)

The Hallmarks of Aging framework has become a widely accepted schema within geroscience, organizing diverse mechanisms of cellular and molecular decline. This article examines whether the Hallmarks function as a scientific paradigm and, beyond that, whether they have enabled genuine scientific progress—an angle largely absents from current literature. Drawing on models from the philosophy of science, the article evaluates the framework’s status and impact from multiple perspectives. From Kuhn, the Hallmarks act as exemplars within the damage paradigm, guiding “normal science” (...) without instigating revolutionary change. From Lakatos, they form part of a protective belt that stabilizes a research programme rather than producing theoretical innovation. From Laudan, they help solve empirical problems but leave conceptual issues unresolved. From Kitcher, their success lies in rhetorical and institutional unification more than inferential structure. From Galison, they are best understood as an instrumental “trading zone” that enables cross-disciplinary coordination. In sum, while the Hallmarks have brought coherence and methodological infrastructure to aging research, they may also constrain conceptual imagination—raising critical questions about the field’s long-term epistemic vitality. (shrink)

Integrated Information Theory (IIT) proposes that consciousness is integrated information, quantified by a measure called Phi, with the proposal developed across four major versions (Tononi, 2004; Tononi, 2008; Oizumi, Albantakis, & Tononi, 2014; Albantakis et al., 2023). The variants share the central commitment that consciousness is identical with integrated information measured by Phi. This paper argues that IIT is not a theory of consciousness. It is a theory of mathematical potentials of brain function, with the consciousness label applied to instances (...) of the measure exceeding zero. The formalism produces a number; the identity between the number and consciousness is reached by an inference to a good explanation that does not derive the identity, with IIT's authors characterizing the move as abductive rather than as a logical derivation. -/- The thesis rests on three structural absences in IIT's current form. Substrate-independence, the formalism describes any network with the right internal causal structure and commits to no specific physical substrate, so the central claim cannot pick out the human brain as the bearer of consciousness on its own terms. Computational inaccessibility, Phi at brain scale cannot be computed in practice or in principle for any actual brain, so the central measure has no operational application at the scale where conscious experience is. The constitutive bridge, the identity claim that consciousness is integrated information requires a mechanism showing how integration constitutes phenomenal experience, comparable to how molecular structure constitutes the macroscopic properties of water, and IIT's authors concede that the postulates are "unproven assumptions" and that the move from axiom to postulate is "an inference to a good explanation," neither of which derives the identity. -/- The diagnosis predicts a recurring pattern in IIT's engagement with brain function and counterexamples. Where IIT's central claim is asked to do work, defenders import additional structure that the central claim itself does not contain, and the imports do the work the central claim cannot. The pattern is identified at operationalization, at the combining operations within the disambiguated quantities of IIT 4.0, at the response to Aaronson's counterexample, and at the auxiliary hypotheses tested by the Cogitate Consortium's preregistered adversarial collaboration (Cogitate Consortium et al., 2025), where the central prediction of sustained posterior-cortex synchronization was not supported and the supported predictions concerned imports rather than the identity claim itself. -/- The diagnosis carries a forward-looking predictive commitment with explicit falsification conditions. IIT in its current form cannot generate brain-specific or consciousness-specific predictions from its central claim. The negative form of falsification is defeated by IIT supplying any of the three absences (substrate-independence, computational inaccessibility, the constitutive bridge). The positive form of falsification is defeated by a future version of IIT grounded strictly in the human brain rather than in a substrate-independent formalism applied to brain. -/- The diagnosis is supported by direct verbatim quotations from each formulation of IIT (Tononi, 2004; Tononi, 2008; Oizumi, Albantakis, & Tononi, 2014; Tononi & Koch, 2015; Albantakis et al., 2023), with the authors' own concessions across versions confirming the structural pattern at every stage. -/- Keywords: integrated information theory, Phi, consciousness, panpsychism, IIT 4.0, exclusion postulate, intrinsicality, substrate-independence, falsifiability, theories of consciousness, Cogitate Consortium. (shrink)

The Cogitate Consortium's preregistered adversarial collaboration (Cogitate Consortium et al., 2025) is widely cited as a rigorous test of Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT). This paper argues that the collaboration's design was soft-adversarial in the structural sense, and that within the lax design the two theories failed at predictions the consortium had let them choose. The collaboration tested biological implementations the consortium itself flagged as separable from each theory's central claim, named the retreat path before (...) data collection, and accepted predictions that overlapped with other theories of consciousness. The bar was low. Both theories cleared parts of it and failed others, with the failures concentrated at the imports the theories had committed to in advance. The diagnosis has two prongs. The collaboration was lax by design, with the laxity diagnosable from the consortium's own published commitments. The theories failed within the laxity, with the failures diagnosable from the consortium's own preregistered pass-fail criteria. The two prongs combine into a stronger result than either alone. A theory cannot be defended by retreating to a core claim the experiment did not test, when the theory's authors agreed in advance that the imports were what the experiment would test, and when the imports failed. -/- The paper applies the three-register read (*The Three-Register Read*, Stewart, 2026v) to a procedural target rather than a theoretical one. The Cogitate collaboration is a system that stipulates a target (a rigorous adversarial test of IIT and GNWT) and operates with imported machinery to deliver it. The methodology's instruments apply to the procedural commitments the same way they apply to theoretical commitments, and the diagnostic patterns the paper surfaces are named as instruments where the methodology supplies the named diagnostic. -/- Keywords: Cogitate Consortium, adversarial collaboration, preregistration, integrated information theory, global neuronal workspace theory, global workspace theory, neural correlates of consciousness, falsifiability, consciousness, theories of consciousness, posterior cortex, prefrontal cortex. (shrink)

Lakatos's methodology of scientific research programmes classifies programmes as either progressive or degenerating. This paper argues that the dichotomy is structurally incomplete within its own taxonomy and proposes a third state: the retired research programme (RRP). The phenomenon of old theories being retained within restricted domains has been treated by Bohr's correspondence principle, Nagel's reduction model, Laudan's research traditions, and structural realism; none of these, however, supplies a third state with behavioral criteria inside Lakatos's own classification. The paper's construction has (...) three layers. First, five criteria for retirement: historical fertility (confirmed type-novel predictions); cessation of domain-expanding fertility (type-novel predictions stop while instance-level results may continue); content-generating protective-belt modifications during the crisis followed by cessation of immunization once a containing successor appears; the mathematical structure remaining in active service within the demarcated domain with error bounds derivable in principle from the successor; and the domain being co-surveyed by the old programme's anomaly inventory and the successor's limit derivations. Second, a relational model: retirement is not an intrinsic state of a single programme but a relational outcome determined by two variables—crisis behavior (content-generating trials versus immunization) and successor relation (containment or its absence)—yielding four terminal outcomes: retirement, abandonment, prolonged crisis, and partial salvage. Third, a synchronously usable methodological test: whether a belt modification carries novel content is decidable at the moment it is proposed, distinguishing honest trials from immunization in real time. Newtonian mechanics serves as the paradigm case, classical electromagnetism as a second case; Ptolemaic astronomy (immunization without a containing successor, ending in abandonment) and the contemporary MOND debate (a real-time demonstration of the immunization test) serve as contrasts. Four objections are addressed: retirement as merely "degeneration with a lucky successor," re-labeling of prior work, retrospective (Whig) classification, and the KAM-theorem counterexample; normative corollaries are drawn for historiography, working scientists, research communities in crisis, and funding policy. (shrink)

Intellectual courage requires acting to promote epistemic goods despite significant risk of harm. Courage is distinguished from recklessness and cowardice because the expected epistemic benefit of a courageous action outweighs (in some sense) the threatened harm. Sometimes, however, inquirers pursue theories that are not best supported by their current evidence. For these inquirers, the expected epistemic benefit of their actions cannot be explained by appeal to their evidence alone. The probability of pursuing the true theory cannot contribute enough to the (...) expected epistemic benefit for the action to count as courageous rather than reckless. Thus, there must be some other epistemic consideration which favors their action, besides evidence for their theory. I argue that the proper account of intellectual courage requires recognition of inquisitive reasons: a distinct category of epistemic reasons which concern successful inquiry. This category includes reasons to think a theory itself is promising, e.g., that the theory suggests potentially fruitful new research. It also includes social epistemic reasons, e.g., that pursuing a theory will improve the distribution of cognitive labor. Inquisitive reasons help explain why researchers who pursue improbable theories count as intellectually courageous, rather than reckless. The expected epistemic benefit of an action is partially determined by the inquisitive reasons in its favor. On my account, intellectually courageous inquiry requires acting in a way that is sensitive to inquisitive reasons. (shrink)

As it has been shaped by improvements in its tools and methods, and by its discourse with critics, I describe how the astrological research program has advanced through three stages of modelling and design limitations. Single-factor tests (for example, the many Sun-sign–only experiments that have been published) are typically underdeterministic. Multi-factor tests, unless they are very well designed, can easily become overdeterministic. Chart-matching tests have been vulnerable to confirmation bias errors until the development of a machine-based, whole-chart matching protocol that (...) has objectively produced evidence of high effect-sizes. A meta-analysis of recent results shows the rapid advancement and how to further improve the results. The value of the program is not only to corroborate the taxonomic counterfactuals of astrological “cookbooks,” but to extend their explanatory reach by the comparison of astrological postulates and inferences with philosophies in other disciplines in terms of quantifiable processes and emergent effects. (shrink)

The Elementary Process Theory (EPT) is a collection of seven elementary process-physical principles that describe the individual processes by which interactions have to take place for repulsive gravity to exist. One of the two main problems of the EPT is that there is no proof that the four fundamental interactions (gravitational, electromagnetic, strong, and weak) as we know them can take place in the elementary processes described by the EPT. This paper sets forth the method by which it can be (...) proven that the EPT agrees with the knowledge that derives from the successful predictions of a modern interaction theory T. This determines a fundamentally new research program in theoretical physics. (shrink)

We give an overview of Lakatos’ life, his philosophy of mathematics and science, as well as of this issue. Firstly, we briefly delineate Lakatos’ key contributions to philosophy: his anti-formalist philosophy of mathematics, and his methodology of scientific research programmes in the philosophy of science. Secondly, we outline the themes and structure of the masterclass Lakatos’ Undone Work – The Practical Turn and the Division of Philosophy of Mathematics and Philosophy of Science, which gave rise to this special issue. Lastly, (...) we provide a summary of the contributions to this issue. (shrink)

Transcendental philosophy was not born like Athena out of Zeus’s head, mature and in full armour from the very beginning. That is why in both prefaces to the Critique of Pure Reason (1781 and 1787) Kant introduces the concept of transcendental philosophy as an “idea.” The idea understood architectonically develops slowly and only gradually acquires a definite form. As witnessed by the works of Kant himself and of his predecessors and followers, the idea of transcendental philosophy has undergone a series (...) of changes and adjustments compared to the initial plan. In this context, my goal is not simply exegesis and historical investigation of transcendental philosophy, but also to look at it from a systematic and methodological perspective. I examine the concept of transcendental philosophy from the viewpoint of programmatic metaphilosophy. The first part discusses programmatics as a distinct subsection of metaphilosophy. I argue that Kant’s architectonic methodology and the methodology of Lakatos can be used to understand the inception, development and degradation of philosophical systems. In the second part I look at the project of transcendental philosophy and the stages of its development from the standpoint of architectonics. The third part shows that Lakatos’s methodology can provide a detailed insight into the elements of transcendental philosophy, a clear idea of its logic and identify the component parts that can be improved and developed. In spite of the different levels of detailing and epistemological prerequisites, the methodologies of Kant and Lakatos can be combined to achieve a metaphilosophically informed and progressive understanding of philosophical projects. (shrink)

Scientists often diverge widely when choosing between research programs. This can seem to be rooted in disagreements about which of several theories, competing to address shared questions or phenomena, is currently the most epistemically or explanatorily valuable—i.e. most successful. But many such cases are actually more directly rooted in differing judgments of pursuit-worthiness, concerning which theory will be best down the line, or which addresses the most significant data or questions. Using case studies from 16th-century astronomy and 20th-century geology and (...) biology, I argue that divergent theory choice is thus often driven by considerations of scientific process, even where direct epistemic or explanatory evaluation of its final products appears more relevant. Broadly following Kuhn’s analysis of theoretical virtues, I suggest that widely shared criteria for pursuit-worthiness function as imprecise, mutually-conflicting values. However, even Kuhn and others sensitive to pragmatic dimensions of theory ‘acceptance’, including the virtue of fruitfulness, still commonly understate the role of pursuit-worthiness—especially by exaggerating the impact of more present-oriented virtues, or failing to stress how ‘competing’ theories excel at addressing different questions or data. This framework clarifies the nature of the choice and competition involved in theory choice, and the role of alternative theoretical virtues. (shrink)

Philosophy of science and history of science have been unable to integrate in a meaningful fashion. The major difficulty has been the question of how the history of science can inform the philosophy of science. By making several distinctions to characterize the type of philosophy of science relevant for integrated HPS, I show how traditional approaches to integration failed. These include a top-down and a bottom-up philosophical approach to integrated HPS. I then present a more fruitful way of integrating the (...) disciplines, that of iterations. (shrink)

Lakatos’s methodology of scientific research programmes centres around series of theories, with little regard to the role of models in theory construction. Modifying it to incorporate model-groups, clusters of developmental models that are intended to become new theories, provides a description of the model dynamics within the search for physics beyond the standard model. At the moment, there is no evidence for BSM physics, despite a concerted search effort especially focused around the standard model account of electroweak symmetry breaking. Using (...) the framework provided by Lakatosian research programmes, we can capture the way the periphery of a model-group changes as the available parameter space shrinks, while its central tenets remain untouched by unfavourable experimental findings. By way of motivation, I provide two case studies of model-groups that offer alternative mechanisms for electroweak symmetry breaking: supersymmetry and composite-Higgs models. Both of these model-groups are under pressure from the discovery of the Higgs boson, yet they have both been active research projects in the years after the Higgs discovery. However, a proper assessment of the progress of an ongoing research programme is impossible through a purely Lakatosian lens, so I propose replacing it with Laudan’s problem-solving account, which provides ongoing assessment, while offering normative guidance concerning the pursuit-worthiness of research programmes. My incorporation of model-groups into Lakatosian research programmes captures the developments of two attempts to expand our physical description of the world, and Laudan’s problem-solving rationality allows us to assess their pursuit-worthiness. (shrink)

Neutral Theory is controversial in ecology. Ecologists and philosophers have diagnosed the source of the controversy as: its false assumption that individuals in different species within the same trophic level are ecologically equivalent, its conflict with Competition Theory and the adaptation of species, its role as a null hypothesis, and as a Lakatosian research programme. In this paper, I show why we should instead understand the conflict at the level of research programs which involve more than theory. The Neutralist and (...) Competitionist research programs borrow and construct theories, models, and experiments for various aims and given their home ecological systems. I present a holistic and pragmatic view of the controversy that foregrounds the interrelation between many kinds of practices and decisions in ecological research. (shrink)

This paper offers a new angle on the common idea that the process of science does not support epistemic diversity. Under minimal assumptions on the nature of journal editing, we prove that editorial procedures, even when impartial in themselves, disadvantage less prominent research programs. This purely statistical bias in article selection further skews existing differences in the success rate and hence attractiveness of research programs, and exacerbates the reputation difference between the programs. After a discussion of the modeling assumptions, the (...) paper ends with a number of recommendations that may help promote scientific diversity through editorial decision making. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that embodied cognition, like many other research traditions in cognitive science, offers mostly fallible research heuristics rather than grand principles true of all cognitive processing. To illustrate this claim, I discuss Aizawa’s rebuttal of embodied and enactive accounts of vision. While Aizawa’s argument is sound against a strong reading of the enactive account, it does not undermine the way embodied cognition proceeds, because the claim he attacks is one of fallible heuristics. These heuristics may be (...) helpful in developing models of cognition in an interdisciplinary fashion. I briefly discuss the issue of whether this fallibility actually makes embodied cognition vulnerable to charges of being untestable or non-scientific. I also stress that the historical approach to this research tradition suggests that embodied cognition is not poised to become a grand unified theory of cognition. (shrink)

This paper describle about the discovery and development of the concept of the particle named "neutrino", using the perspective of the philosophy of science of Imre Lakatos. With this focus, we making a historiographical and epistemological analysis of scientific practice, which culminated in its formulation, as well as subsequent developments. In this sense, the work makes a rational reconstruction regarding the research program that the formulation and discovery of the neutrino participates in, as well as the principle of conservation of (...) energy that can be understood as a fundamental part of the methodological assumptions of such program. (shrink)

This paper explores a particularist element in the theory of method of Imre Lakatos, who appealed to the value-judgements of élite scientists in the appraisal of competing theories of method. The role played by such value-judgements is strongly reminiscent of the epistemological particularism of Roderick Chisholm. Despite the existence of a clear parallel between the particularist approaches of both authors, it is argued that Lakatos’s approach is subject to a weakness that does not affect the approach of Chisholm.

Kuhn’s view of science is as follows. Science involves two key phases: normal and extraordinary. In normal science, disciplinary matrices (DMs) are large and pervasive. DMs involve “beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by the members of a given community” (Kuhn 1996, 175). “And so on” is regrettably vague, but Kuhn (1977, 1996) mentions three other key elements: symbolic generalizations (such as F=dp/dt), models (such as Bohr’s atomic model), and exemplars. These components of DMs overlap somewhat. For instance, symbolic (...) generalizations may feature in techniques and beliefs, and models may exhibit values. To be a (genuine) scientist, in the normal science phase, is to puzzle solve within the boundaries of the DM. It is to buy into the ruling dogma (Kuhn 1963) and to accept that “failure to achieve a solution discredits only the scientist ... ‘It is a poor carpenter who blames his tools’” (Kuhn 1996, 80). Puzzle solving involves a wide variety of activities, including. (shrink)

It is discerned what light can bring the recent historical reconstructions of maxwellian optics and electromagnetism unification on the following philosophical/methodological questions. I. Why should one believe that Nature is ultimately simple and that unified theories are more likely to be true? II. What does it mean to say that a theory is unified? III. Why theory unification should be an epistemic virtue? To answer the questions posed genesis and development of Maxwellian electrodynamics are elucidated. It is enunciated that the (...) Maxwellian Revolution is a far more complicated phenomenon than it may be seen in the light of Kuhnian and Lakatosian epistemological models. Correspondingly it is maintained that maxwellian electrodynamics was elaborated in the course of the old pre-maxwellian programmes’ reconciliation: the electrodynamics of Ampére-Weber, the wave theory of Young-Fresnel and Faraday’s programme. To compare the different theoretical schemes springing from the different language games James Maxwell had constructed a peculiar neutral language. Initially it had encompassed the incompressible fluid models; eventually – the vortices ones. The three programmes’ encounter engendered the construction of the hybrid theory at first with an irregular set of theoretical schemes. However, step by step, on revealing and gradual eliminating the contradictions between the programmes involved, the hybrid set is “put into order” (Maxwell’s term). A hierarchy of theoretical schemes starting from ingenious crossbreeds (the displacement current) and up to usual hybrids is set up. After the displacement current construction the interpenetration of the pre-maxwellian programmes begins that marks the commencement of theoretical schemes of optics, electricity and magnetism real unification. Maxwell’s programme surpassed that of Ampére-Weber because it did absorb the ideas of the Ampére-Weber programme, as well as the presuppositions of the programmes of Young-Fresnel and Faraday properly co-ordinating them with each other. But the opposite statement is not true. The Ampére-Weber programme did not assimilate the propositions of the Maxwellian programme. Maxwell’s victory over his rivals became possible because the gist of Maxwell’s unification strategy was formed by Kantian epistemology looked in the light of William Whewell and such representatives of Scottish Enlightenment as Thomas Reid and Sir William Hamilton. Maxwell did put forward as basic synthetic principles the ideas that radically differed from that of Ampére-Weber approach by their open, flexible and contra-ontological, genuinly epistemological, Kantian character. For Maxwell, ether was not the ultimate building block of physical reality, from which all the charges and fields should be constructed. “Action at a distance”, “incompressible fluid”, “molecular vortices”, etc. were contrived analogies for Maxwell, capable only to direct the researcher at the “right” mathematical relations. Key words: J.C. Maxwell, unification of optics and electromagnetism, I. Kant, T. Reid, W. Hamilton . (shrink)

Throughout the debate on psi, skeptics have almost universally insisted on different standards for evaluating the evidence, claiming that psi represents a radical departure from our current scientific understanding. Thus, there is considerable ambiguity about what standard of evaluation psi must meet. Little attention has been paid to the possible harm to the integrity of scientific investigation from this resulting inconsistency in testing standards. Some have proposed using a Bayesian framework as an improvement on this dilemma in order to more (...) explicitly model beliefs, assumptions, and background scientific knowledge, especially when evaluating a controversial hypothesis. Recently, Kuhn’s notion of paradigms, which constrains scientific research within bound- aries believed to be most productive, has been incorporated into a Bayesian framework. Within this framework, I explore a likely paradigm or meta-theory used by skeptics that typically constrains research and makes it difficult for psi evidence to be accepted. It appears that such a paradigm would in many respects have difficulty accounting for consciousness, which is fundamental to an understanding of psi. I discuss why psi data are likely to play a key role in making progress in solving the problem of consciousness. Thus, applying different standards of evaluation to psi data is likely counterproductive. (shrink)

Chapter 2 primarily discusses Bernstein’s account and its differences both from Nagle’s metaphysical realism and Rorty’s postmodern pragmatism. Trying to diagnose assumptions that polarize thinkers to become objectivists and relativists, Bernstein articulates a Cartesian Anxiety he thinks they ironically both share. Descartes’ anti-skeptical wave of rigor was presented as a rationalistic project of rebuilding an unstable and dilapidated ‘house of knowledge’ on secure philosophical and scientific foundations. His overtly foundationalist metaphor of rebuilding from timbers set “in rock or hard clay” (...) shapes Descartes’ attempt to refute the skeptic and to secure the objectivity of knowledge as pursued by a more rigorous and analytical method of knowing. (shrink)

In the methodology of scientific research programs (MSRP) there are important features on the problem of prediction, especially regarding novel facts. In his approach, Imre Lakatos proposed three different levels on prediction: aim, process, and assessment. Chapter 5 pays attention to the characterization of prediction in the methodology of research programs. Thus, it takes into account several features: (1) its pragmatic characterization, (2) the logical perspective as a proposition, (3) the epistemological component, (4) its role in the appraisal of research (...) programs, and (5) its place as a value for scientific research. -/- The notion of “novel facts” is highly relevant in his conception, where several aspects are involved: the directions of novel facts, the different kinds of novelty, and the transition from six possible options of “novel facts” to four choices. Thereafter, the prediction of novel facts as the criterion of appraisal is considered. On the one hand, this requires analyzing the theoretical, empirical, and heuristic possibilities of appraisal; and, on the other, whether there is an overemphasis on the role of prediction in methodology of scientific research programs. As a consequence, there is an analysis of Lakatos’ criterion of appraisal in MSRP and economics. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to reconstruct the history of genetic and evolutionary theories of same-sex sexual behavior using Imre Lakatos’ methodology of scientific research programs . Although distinct, those two programs are complementary. Whereas the genetic program maintains that homosexuality is genetically inherited, the evolutionary program attempts to explain how such a gene, which apparently reduces the reproductive fitness of its homozygous carrier, is maintained in the population. This appraisal reveals that the two research programs have not been empirically (...) progressive in the Lakatosian sense. I argue that this situation has arisen precisely because of inappropriate over-commitment to the respective hard cores of the two research programs. As adherence to such cores is essential for success in research programs, according to Lakatos, I argue that Lakatos’ account of science may be descriptively adequate but is normatively inadequate. I provide grounds for generalizing this case as follows: the MSRP may successfully capture the logic of axiomised sciences, such as physics, but applies poorly to most sciences, including biological and social sciences, which do not lend themselves to axiomatic organization. (shrink)

Marian Przełęcki’s semantics for the Received View is a good explication of Carnap’s position on the subject, anticipates many discussions and results from both proponents and opponents of the Received View, and can be the basis for a thriving research program.

_Lakatos: An Introduction_ provides a thorough overview of both Lakatos's thought and his place in twentieth century philosophy. It is an essential and insightful read for students and anyone interested in the philosophy of science.

The model of scientific revolution genesis and structure, extracted from Einstein’s revolution and described in author’s previous publications, is applied to the Copernican one . In the case of Einstein’s revolution I had argued that its cause consisted in the clash between the main classical physics scientific programmes: newtonian mechanics, maxwellian electrodynamics, classical thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. Analogously in the present paper it is argued that the Copernican revolution took place due to realization of the dualism between mathematical astronomy and (...) Aristotelian qualitative physics in Ptolemy’s cosmology and the corresponding efforts to eliminate it. The works of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton were all the stages of the mathematics descendance from skies to earth and reciprocal extrapolation of earth physics on divine phenomena. (shrink)

String theory has been the dominating research field in theoretical physics during the last decades. Despite the considerable time elapse, no new testable predictions have been derived by string theorists and it is understandable that doubts have been voiced. Some people have argued that it is time to give up since testability is wanting. But the majority has not been convinced and they continue to believe that string theory is the right way to go. This situation is interesting for philosophy (...) of science since it highlights several of our central issues. In this paper we will discuss string theory from a number of different perspectives in general methodology. We will also relate the realism/antirealism debate to the current status of string theory. Our goal is two-fold; both to take a look at string theory from philosophical perspectives and to use string theory as a test case for some philosophical issues. (shrink)

In this paper we show that any reasoning process in which conclusions can be both fallible and corrigible can be formalized in terms of two approaches: (i) syntactically, with the use of defeasible reasoning, according to which reasoning consists in the construction and assessment of arguments for and against a given claim, and (ii) semantically, with the use of partial structures, which allow for the representation of less than conclusive information. We are particularly interested in the formalization of scientific reasoning, (...) along the lines traced by Lakatos’ methodology of scientific research programs. We show how current debates in cosmology could be put into this framework, shedding light on a very controversial topic. (shrink)

This dissertation attempts to apply Imre Lakatos' Philosophy of Science to the research program of Mary Schweitzer and staff, presented in two papers published in Science: one of them about the discovery of T-Rex with soft tissue and a later one reporting the detection of collagen. This case-study highlights the more general applicability of Lakatos' Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes to scientific practice in Evolutionary Biology.

Here is a dilemma concerning the history of science. Can the history of scientific thought be reduced to the history of the beliefs, motives and actions of scientists? Or should we think of the history of scientific thought as in some sense independent from the history of scientists? The aim of this paper is to carve out an intermediate position between these two. I will argue that the history of scientific thought supervenes on, but not reducible to, the history of (...) scientists. There is a legitimate level of description for analyzing the history of scientific thought that does not reduce to the individual level of scientists. Yet, every aspect of the history of scientific thought is determined by the actual motives and actions of individual scientists. Maybe surprisingly, I use Imre Lakatos’s controversial concept of the rational reconstruction of the history of science in order to argue for this intermediate position. (shrink)

Pros and contras of Lakatosian epistemological theory-change model in respect to economics are considered. It is argued that one of the main shortcomings of the model is connected in its inability to treat the social factors.

This paper addresses the intellectual motivation of some of those involved in the intelligent design movement. It identifies their concerns with the critique of the claim that Darwinism offers an adequate explanation of prima facie teleological features in biology, a critique of naturalism, and the concern on the part of some of these authors including Dembski, with the revival of 'Old Princeton' apologetics. It is argued that their work is interesting and is in principle intellectually legitimate. It is also suggested, (...) however, that it needs to be appraised qua 'research programme' (after the fashion of the early work of Lakatos), and that, seen in that light, what needs to be accomplished might seem daunting. (shrink)

Recent research shows that research programmes (quantitative, qualitative and mixed) in education are not displaced (as suggested by Kuhn) but rather lead to integration. The objective of this study is to present a rationale for mixed methods (integrative) research programs based on contemporary philosophy of science (Lakatos, Giere, Cartwright, Holton, Laudan). This historical reconstruction of episodes from physical science (spanning a period of almost 300 years, 17 th to 20 th century) does not agree with the positivist image of science. (...) Quantitative data (empirical evidence) by itself, does not facilitate progress (despite widespread belief to the contrary), neither in the physical sciences nor in the social sciences (education) A historical reconstruction shows that both Piaget and Pascual-Leone's research programs in cognitive psychology, follow the Galilean idealisation quite closely, similar to the research programs of Newton, Mendeleev, Einstein, Thomson, Rutherford, Millikan and Perl in the physical sciences. This relationship does not imply that researchers in education have to emulate research in the physical sciences. A major argument in favor of mixed methods (integrative) research programs is that it provides a rationale for hypotheses, theories, guiding assumptions and presuppositions to compete and provide alternatives. Similar to the physical sciences, this proliferation of hypotheses leads to controversies and rivalries, and thus facilitates the decision making process of the scientific community. It is concluded that mixed methods research programs (not paradigms) in education can facilitate the construction of robust strategies, provided we let the problem situation (as studied by practicing researchers) decide the methodology. (shrink)

The debates on the scientificity of social sciences in general, and sociology in particular, are recurring. From the original methodenstreitat the end the 19th Century to the contemporary controversy on the legitimacy of “regional epistemologies”, a same set of interrogations reappears. Are social sciences really scientific? And if so, are they sciences like other sciences? How should we conceive “research programs” Lakatos (1978) or “research traditions” for Laudan (1977) able to produce advancement of knowledge in the field of social and (...) human phenomena? Is the progress of knowledge in social sciences similar to the one generally observed in natural sciences? Is it possible to evaluate the relative merits of each one of these research programs? These debates are important vectors of social and intellectual polarization. The historical divide between the positivist and the hermeneutics poles precedes the structure of the contemporary debate around the epistemic space of social sciences, It is not only a question of renewing the opposition between a monist view of sciences (e.g. McIntyre, 1996) and a dualistic one (e.g. Geertz, 1973) or even a trialist view of sciences (e.g. Lepenies, 1985). It is also a question of asserting dichotomies transformed into framework (including when it is a question of exceeding them): nature-culture, nomothetic-idiographic, models-narrative, structure-history, cause-reason, explanation-comprehension. In this short introduction, we provide, in section 2, a first overview of this epistemological debate in social science. Section 3 proposes a different standpoint on the same questions, by introducing both ontological and methodological aspects in this basic epistemological debate. Namely, following (Hollis, 1994) oppositions of the explanation - understanding, causes - meaning, etc., types discussed in the firsts ection are comparatively examined together with oppositions of the structure - action, holism - individualism types. This allows us to discus show multi-agent design, by integrating various dimensions and standpoints in the same framework (Phan, Amblard, 2007, Chapters 1, 5, 14) can help us to shift these boundaries, and to bypass these oppositions. As model building and ontology design are at the core of this process (Phan, Amblard, 2007, Chapter 12), Section4 discusses various issues of the art of modelling, starting both from economists’ and sociologists’ current standpoints. (shrink)

This note is intended to address one particular issue in the relative status of Quantum Chemistry in comparison to both Chemistry and Physics. It has been suggested, in the context of the question of the reduction relations between Chemistry and Physics that Quantum Chemistry as a research programme is incapable of furnishing useful guidance to practising chemists. If true, this claim will let us qualify Quantum Chemistry as a degenerating research programme, which, due to its complexity has difficulty to be (...) applied to Chemistry. This claim is shown to be false. The replacement claim I wish to make is that Quantum Chemistry is perfectly capable of furnishing such guidance, but renders the ontological status of many models favored by chemists problematic. Quantum Chemistry, however, validates these models in an instrumental fashion. I will argue that Quantum Chemistry is a progressive research programme. (shrink)

With the main work The Revolutions of Science, Thomas S. Kuhn became one of the most read and influential science theorists of the 20th century, and today Kuhn's mindset is part of the majority of science theory courses mandatory at any university course. Kuhn's concepts of paradigms, scientific revolutions and incommensurability have not only changed our view of science but have almost become part of the everyday language and are used far outside the world of science. The legacy of Kuhn (...) paints a picture of the importance Kuhn's thoughts have had to our understanding of the sciences. The authors begin with an introduction to Kuhn's life and work and to the many philosophical discussions that his work has spawned. Next follows a series of chapters outlining Kuhn's influence on the history of science and philosophy of science and his importance in sociology, physics, biology, geography, anthropology, psychology, linguistics and aesthetic sciences. The book is aimed at anyone studying or engaged in one of these subjects, or who wants to understand the debate about the sciences and their evolution over the last half-century. (shrink)

Cognitive architectures - task-general theories of the structure and function of the complete cognitive system - are sometimes argued to be more akin to frameworks or belief systems than scientific theories. The argument stems from the apparent non-falsifiability of existing cognitive architectures. Newell was aware of this criticism and argued that architectures should be viewed not as theories subject to Popperian falsification, but rather as Lakatosian research programs based on cumulative growth. Newell's argument is undermined because he failed to demonstrate (...) that the development of Soar, his own candidate architecture, adhered to Lakatosian principles. This paper presents detailed case studies of the development of two cognitive architectures, Soar and ACT-R, from a Lakatosian perspective. It is demonstrated that both are broadly Lakatosian, but that in both cases there have been theoretical progressions that, according to Lakatosian criteria, are pseudo-scientific. Thus, Newell's defense of Soar as a scientific rather than pseudo-scientific theory is not supported in practice. The ACT series of architectures has fewer pseudo-scientific progressions than Soar, but it too is vulnerable to accusations of pseudo-science. From this analysis, it is argued that successive versions of theories of the human cognitive architecture must explicitly address five questions to maintain scientific credibility. (shrink)