Promoting scientific progress

Bibliographic Data

ID10702249
AuthorsFinnur Dellsén (0000-0003-4989-4204, University of Iceland, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume182
Issue8
Pages2123-2143
Publication date2025-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophical Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8116 • E-ISSN: 1573-0883
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s11098-025-02335-7
OpenAlexW4411467217
LanguageEN
References cited33

In the philosophical debate about scientific progress, several authors appeal to a distinction between what constitutes scientific progress and what promotes it (e.g., Bird, 2008; Rowbottom, 2008; Dellsén, 2016). However, the extant literature is almost completely silent on what exactly it is for scientific progress to be promoted. Here I provide a precise account of progress promotion on which it consists, roughly, in increasing expected progress . This account may be combined with any of the major theories of what constitutes scientific progress, such as the truthlikeness, problem-solving, epistemic, and noetic accounts. However, I will also suggest that once we have this account of progress promotion up and running, some accounts of what constitutes progress become harder to motivate by the sorts of considerations often adduced in their favor, while others turn out to be easier to defend against common objections

Appeal · Economics · Epistemology · Extant taxon · Metaphysics · Philosophy of language · Philosophy of mind · Philosophy of science · Political science · Positive economics · Promotion (chess) · Scientific progress · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment

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