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The Status of the D-Thesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Philip L. Quinn
Philip L. Quinn*
Affiliation:
Brown University
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Abstract

Some of the controversy surrounding the Duhemian claim that in science falsification is as inconclusive as verification is reconsidered. The D-Thesis, a particular version of this claim first discussed by Adolf Grünbaum, is formulated in a more precise and perspicuous fashion as a conjunction of two subtheses. Grünbaum's attempt to refute one of the subtheses by means of a geometrical counterexample and some subsequent discussions of this example are examined critically. An argument designed to prove the other subthesis is analyzed and shown to be unsuccessful. It is concluded that the D-Thesis is as yet neither proven nor refuted.

Type
A Panel Discussion of Grünbaum's Philosophy of Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , December 1969 , pp. 381 - 399
Copyright
Copyright © 1969 by The Philosophy of Science Association

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