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3 - Revisiting Critical Rationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2010

By
Alan Musgrave  and
Deborah G. Mayo
Edited by
Deborah G. Mayo  and
Aris Spanos
Deborah G. Mayo
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Aris Spanos
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
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Summary

Critical Rationalism, Explanation, and Severe Tests

This chapter has three parts. First, I explain the version of critical rationalism that I defend. Second, I discuss explanation and defend critical rationalist versions of inference to the best explanation and its meta-instance, the Miracle Argument for Realism. Third, I ask whether critical rationalism is compatible with Deborah Mayo's account of severe testing. I answer that it is, contrary to Mayo's own view. I argue, further, that Mayo needs to become a critical rationalist – as do Chalmers and Laudan.

Critical Rationalism

Critical rationalism claims that the best method for trying to understand the world and our place in it is a critical method – propose views and try to criticise them. What do critical methods tell us about truth and belief? If we criticize a view and show it to be false, then obviously we should not believe it. But what if we try but fail to show that a view is false? That does not show it to be true. So should we still not believe it?

Notoriously, the term “belief” is ambiguous between the act of believing something (the believing) and the thing believed (the belief). Talk of “reasons for beliefs” inherits this ambiguity – do we mean reasons for believings or reasons for beliefs? Critical rationalists think we mean the former. They think there are reasons for believings that are not reasons for beliefs.

Type
Chapter
Information
Error and Inference
Recent Exchanges on Experimental Reasoning, Reliability, and the Objectivity and Rationality of Science
 , pp. 88 - 124
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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References

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Laudan, L. (1997), “How About Bust? Factoring Explanatory Power Back into Theory Evaluation,” Philosophy of Science, 64: 303–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Lycan, W. (1985), “Epistemic Value,” Synthese, 64: 137–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayo, D.G. (1996), Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayo, D.G. (2000), “Experimental Practice and an Error Statistical Account of Evidence,” Philosophy of Science, 67: S193–S207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayo, D.G. (2006), “Critical Rationalism and Its Failure to Withstand Critical Scrutiny,” pp. 63–96 in Cheyne, C. and Worrall, J. (eds.), Rationality and Reality: Conversations with Alan Musgrave, Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, J.S. (1888), A System of Logic, 8th edition, Harper and Bros., New York.Google Scholar
Musgrave, A.E. (1999), Essays on Realism and Rationalism, Rodopi, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Musgrave, A.E. (2001), “Rationalitat und Zuverlassigkeit” [“Rationality and Reliability”], Logos, 7: 94–114.Google Scholar
Peirce, C.S. (1931–1958), The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Hartshorne, C. and Weiss, P. (eds.), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Psillos, S. (2001), “Predictive Similarity and the Success of Science: A Reply to Sanford,” Philosophy of Science, 68: 346–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, H. (1975), Mathematics, Matter and Method: Philosophical Papers, Vol. 1, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Sankey, H. (2006), “Why Is it Rational to Believe Scientific Theories Are True?” pp. 109–32 in Cheyne, C. and Worrall, J. (eds.), Rationality and Reality: Conversations with Alan Musgrave, Springer, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smart, J.J.C. (1968), Between Science and Philosophy, Random House, New York.Google Scholar
Stanford, K.J. (2000), “An Antirealist Explanation of the Success of Science,” Philosophy of Science, 67: 266–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraassen, B. (1980), The Scientific Image, ClarendonPress, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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