Predictive success, partial truth and Duhemian realism.
According to a defense of scientific realism known as the 'divide et impera move', mature scientific theories enjoying predictive success are partially true. This paper investigates a paradigmatic historical case: the prediction, based on Fresnel's wave theory of light, that a bright spot should fig...
| Publicado en: | Synthese Vol. 194; no. 9; pp. 3245 - 3266 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Sep2017
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=125256848&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 125256848 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2017 vid: 194 iid: 9 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 125256848 10.1007/s11229-016-1305-8 ppf: 3245 ppct: 21 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 467KB tig: atl: Predictive success, partial truth and Duhemian realism. aug: au: Leconte, Gauvain su: Success Truth Realism Wave theory of light Prediction models Duhem, Pierre Maurice Marie, 1861-1916 sug: subj: Success Truth Realism Wave theory of light Prediction models Duhem, Pierre Maurice Marie, 1861-1916 keyword: Divide et impera move Fresnel's bright spot prediction Novel prediction Partial truth Pierre Duhem Scientific realism ab: According to a defense of scientific realism known as the 'divide et impera move', mature scientific theories enjoying predictive success are partially true. This paper investigates a paradigmatic historical case: the prediction, based on Fresnel's wave theory of light, that a bright spot should figure in the shadow of a disc. Two different derivations of this prediction have been given by both Poisson and Fresnel. I argue that the details of these derivations highlight two problems of indispensability arguments, which state that only the indispensable constituents of this success are worthy of belief and retained through theory-change. The first problem is that, contrary to a common claim, Fresnel's integrals are not needed to predict the bright spot phenomenon. The second problem is that the hypotheses shared by to these two derivations include problematic idealizations. I claim that this example leads us to be skeptical about which aspects of our current theories are worthy of belief. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2017. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2017 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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