Scientific Rationality and Progress: A Paradox in the Laudan's Account

Abstract

Imre Lakatos once remarked that „the central problem in philo¬sophy of science is the problem of normative appraisal of scientific theories" 1. Although Lakatos may have exaggerated the significance of this problem, it is crucial for any philosophy of science to give an account of the rational appraisal of scientific theories. Thus, a significant question for any philosophy of sciences is: How do scientists, and the rest of us for that matter, determine that one scientific theory is rationally preferable to another? Larry Laudan, in Progress and Its Problems (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), has developed a pro¬vocative answer to this question. In this paper, I shall outline Laudan’s answer, and then show that Laudan’s account of scientific rationality is fundamentally inconsistent.