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The Theory-Ladenness of Observation and the Theory-Ladenness of the Rest of the Scientific Process

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

William F. Brewer  and
Bruce L. Lambert
William F. Brewer*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Bruce L. Lambert
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Chicago
*
†Send requests for reprints to William Brewer, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, 603 East Daniel St., Champaign, IL 61820; email: w-brewer@uiuc.edu.
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Abstract

We use evidence from cognitive psychology and the history of science to examine the issue of the theory-ladenness of perceptual observation. This evidence shows that perception is theory-laden, but that it is only strongly theory-laden when the perceptual evidence is ambiguous or degraded, or when it requires a difficult perceptual judgment. We argue that debates about the theory-ladenness issue have focused too narrowly on the issue of perceptual experience, and that a full account of the scientific process requires an examination of theory-ladenness in attention, perception, data interpretation, data production, memory, and scientific communication. We conclude that the evidence for theory-ladenness does not lead to a relativist account of scientific knowledge.

Type
Theory-Ladeness and the Neurology of Perception
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 68 , Issue S3: No. 3 Supplement: Proceedings of the 2000 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers Sep., 2001 , 2001 , pp. S176 - S186
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 2001

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Footnotes

‡

We would like to thank Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, Ellen Brewer, Clark Chinn, Don Dulany, Allan Franklin, and Lester Loschky for very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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