Can Theories be Refuted?: Essays on the Duhem-Quine Thesis

by Sandra G. Harding (Editor)

According to a view assumed by many scientists and philosophers of science and standardly found in science textbooks, it is controlled ex­ perience which provides the basis for distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable theories in acceptable theories are those which can pass empirical tests. It has often been thought that a certain sort of test is particularly 'crucial experiments' provide supporting empiri­ cal evidence for one theory while providing conclusive evidence against another. However, in 1906 Pierre Duhem argued that the falsification of a theory is necessarily ambiguous and therefore that there are no crucial experiments; one can never be sure that it is a given theory rather than auxiliary or background hypotheses which experiment has falsified. w. V. Quine has concurred in this judgment, arguing that "our statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience not indi­ vidually but only as a corporate body". Some philosophers have thought that the Duhem-Quine thesis gra­ tuitously raises perplexities. Others see it as doubly significant; these philosophers think that it provides a base for criticism of the foundational view of knowledge which has dominated much of western thought since Descartes, and they think that it opens the door to a new and fruitful way to conceive of scientific progress in particular and of the nature and growth of knowledge in general.

Genres: Philosophy

344 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1975

About the author

Sandra G. Harding was an American philosopher of feminist and postcolonial theory, epistemology, research methodology, and philosophy of science. She directed the UCLA Center for the Study of Women from 1996 to 2000, and co-edited Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society from 2000 to 2005. Until her deceassed, she was a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Education and Gender Studies at UCLA and a Distinguished Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at Michigan State University. In 2013 she was awarded the John Desmond Bernal Prize by the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S).