Larry Laudan | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1941-10-16)October 16, 1941 Austin, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | August 23, 2022(2022-08-23) (aged 80) |
| Education | |
| Education | University of Kansas (B.A., 1962) Princeton University (Ph.D., 1965) |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | Contemporary philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Pragmatism |
| Institutions | University of Pittsburgh,Virginia Tech,University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa,University of Texas Law School,UNAM |
| Main interests | Philosophy of science,epistemology,philosophy of law |
| Notable ideas | Reticulationist model ofscientific rationality centered around the concept of research traditions[1] Pessimistic induction Criticism ofpositivism,realism, andrelativism |
Laurens Lynn "Larry"Laudan (/ˈlaʊdən/;[2] October 16, 1941 – August 23, 2022)[3] was an Americanphilosopher of science andepistemologist. He strongly criticized the traditions ofpositivism,realism, andrelativism, and he defended a view of science as a privileged and progressive institution against challenges. Laudan's philosophical view of "research traditions" is seen as an important alternative toImre Lakatos's "research programs".[4]
Laudan earned his B.A. in Physics from theUniversity of Kansas and his PhD in Philosophy fromPrinceton University. He then taught atUniversity College London and, for many years, at theUniversity of Pittsburgh. Subsequently, he taught at theVirginia Polytechnic Institute & State University,University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and theNational Autonomous University of Mexico. Despite his official retirement, Laudan continued lecturing at theUniversity of Texas, Austin.[5] His later work was onlegal epistemology. He was the husband of food historianRachel Laudan.[citation needed]
Laudan's most influential book isProgress and Its Problems (1977), in which he charges philosophers of science with paying lip service to the view that "science is fundamentally a problem-solving activity" without taking seriously the view's implications for the history of science and its philosophy, and without questioning certain issues in the historiography and methodology of science. Against notions of "genuineprogress", represented byKarl Popper, and "revolutionism," represented byThomas Kuhn, Laudan maintained inProgress and Its Problems that science is an evolving process that accumulates more empirically validated evidence while solving conceptual anomalies at the same time. Mere evidence collecting or empirical confirmation does not constitute the true mechanism of scientific advancement; conceptual resolution and comparison of the solutions of anomalies provided by various theories form an indispensable part of the evolution of science.
Laudan is particularly well known for hispessimistic induction argument against the claim that the cumulative success of science shows that science must truly describe reality. Laudan famously argued in his 1981 article "A Confutation of Convergent Realism"[6] that "the history of science furnishes vast evidence of empirically successful theories that were later rejected; from subsequent perspectives, their unobservable terms were judged not to refer and thus, they cannot be regarded as true or even approximately true."[7]
InBeyond Positivism and Relativism (1996), Laudan wrote that "the aim of science is to secure theories with a high problem-solving effectiveness" and that scientific progress is possible when empirical data is diminished. "Indeed, on this model, it is possible that a change from an empirically well-supported theory to a less well-supported one could be progressive, provided that the latter resolved significant conceptual difficulties confronting the former."[8] Finally, the better theory solves more conceptual problems while minimizing empirical anomalies.
Laudan has also written onrisk management and the subject ofterrorism. He has argued that "moral outrage and compassion are the proper responses to terrorism, but fear for oneself and one's life is not. The risk that the average American will be a victim of terrorism is extremely remote."[9] He wroteThe Book of Risks in 1996, which details the relative risks of variousaccidents.
