Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T05:31:15.534Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the Conclusive Falsification of Scientific Hypotheses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Robert Barrett
Robert Barrett*
Affiliation:
Washington University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Adolf Grünbaum has introduced into the literature [4], and several times revised and restated [5] [6], a description of a putative crucial experiment. The outcome of this experiment is supposed to be the conclusive falsification of an hypothesis to the effect that the geometry of a certain region of space, or of a certain surface, is Euclidean. Hereafter, in this paper, I shall refer to this example experiment, in any and all of the different versions of it that Grünbaum has articulated, along with the argumentation with which he has supplemented it, as “Grünbaum's Falsification Example.” I will be concerned with all versions of the experiment itself, but only with the most recent supplementary argumentation that Grünbaum has offered, since the ways in which this differs from earlier arguments reflect a taking into account, on Grünbaum's part, of points critics have raised and flaws that they have purported to find in some of those earlier arguments [7–11].

There are three separate important theses against which one or another version of Grünbaum's Falsification Example may be taken to have been directed. Each of these Grünbaum has either explicitly claimed to refute or at least left himself open to the interpretation that he has sought to refute, by means of the example. I propose to try to make clear that none of these three theses is refuted, or even threatened with counterevidence, by Grünbaum's Falsification Example.

Type
A Panel Discussion of Grünbaum's Philosophy of Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , December 1969 , pp. 363 - 374
Copyright
Copyright © 1969 by The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

[1] Duhem, P., The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1954.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[2] Einstein, A., “Reply to Criticisms” in Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist (ed. Schilpp, P. A.), Library of Living Philosophers, Emerson, Illinois, 1949.Google Scholar
[3] Einstein, A. “Geometry and Experience” in Readings in the Philosophy of the Sciences (eds. Feigl, H. and Brodbeck, M.), Appleton-Century-Croft, New York, 1953.Google Scholar
[4] Grünbaum, A. Philosophical Problems of Space and Time, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1963.Google Scholar
[5] Grünbaum, A. “The Falsifiability of a Component of a Theoretical System” in Mind Matter and Method (eds. Feyerabend, P. K. and Maxwell, G.), University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1966.Google Scholar
[6] Grünbaum, A. “Can We Ascertain the Falsity of a Scientific Hypothesis,” Thalheimer Lecture, Johns Hopkins University, May 9, 1969. Circulated in manuscript to some of his colleagues, May 16, 1969. To be published in Studium Generale, vol. 22 (1969), and later by the Johns Hopkins University Press in a volume of Thalheimer Lectures on Theory and Observation.Google Scholar
[7] Hesse, Mary, Review of [5] in The British Journal of Philosophy of Science, vol. 18(1968).Google Scholar
[8] Landan, L., “On the Impossibility of Crucial Falsifying Experience: Grünbaum on ‘The Duhemian Argument'” in Philosophy of Science, vol. 32 (1965).Google Scholar
[9] Putnam, Hillary, “An Examination of Grünbaum's Philosophy of Geometry” in Philosophy of Science (The Delaware Seminar, vol. II) (ed. Baumrin, B.), Interscience Publishers, New York, 1963.Google Scholar
[10] Sklar, L., “The Falsifiability of Geometric Theory,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 64 (1967).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[11] Swanson, J. W., “On the D-Thesis,” Philosophy of Science, vol. 34 (1967).CrossRefGoogle Scholar