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"One of the main tasks for human reason is to make the universe we live in understandable to ourselves. This is the task of science. There are two different components of about equal importance in this enterprise. The first is poetic inventiveness ..."
– Karl Popper
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Author Archives: Lee Kelly
The Duhem-Quine Thesis Reconsidered – Part Two
In part one, I defended Popper and his criterion of falsifiability from the Duhem-Quine thesis. I examined Popper’s position and revealed that not only was Popper aware of the Duhem-Quine problem before most of his critics, but that he also … Continue reading
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Are Some Possible Worlds Closer Than Others?
Something I thought of today. Suppose three logically possible worlds. Each world is identical except for the colour and shape of your gem. World 1: The gem is blue and oval World 2: The gem is not-blue and oval World … Continue reading
Posted in epistemology
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The Opposition of Justification and Explanation and Its Consequences for the Scientific Realism
An explanandum is an experience we seek to explain, such as the changing seasons. An explanans is a set of claims which explain the experience, such as that the earth orbits of the sun once every 365 days, that the earth is … Continue reading
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The Duhem-Quine Thesis Reconsidered – Part One
A popular criticism of Karl Popper is that his criterion of falsifiability runs aground on the Duhem-Quine thesis. That is, for any putative falsification, it’s always possible to preserve a scientific hypothesis by revising auxiliary hypotheses in its stead. For … Continue reading
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The Meta-Problem of Induction
Suppose that every problem of induction in the past has been solvable. What, then, justifies our expectation that future problems of induction are solvable? Answering induction merely presupposes that induction doesn’t have any unsolvable problems, because if it does have … Continue reading
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The Quest for Doubt
[NOTE: In the following essay, I attribute views to philosophers without caveats or qualifications. This is mostly for ease of exposition. While I believe philosophers, both professional and amateur, have a tendency toward the views I attribute to them, there … Continue reading
Posted in epistemology
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Begging Questions
Presumption — a proposition that must be true if an argument is sound, though not explicitly stated in the premises. Implication — a proposition that cannot be false if an argument is sound, though not explicitly stated in the premises. … Continue reading
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Goodman vs. Falsifiability
Here are some new thoughts and arguments concerning the problem of induction. More than once, I’ve come across the argument that Goodman’s “new” problem of induction can be solved by appealing to degrees of falsifiability. Recently, I came across the … Continue reading
Posted in epistemology, logic
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On Corroboration
A theory can only be corroborated by the evidence when the negation of that evidence would falsify the theory. That is, the evidence must represent a test of the theory, and a test requires the possibility of failure. Tautologies and … Continue reading
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Science: An Effective Method?
A tacit assumption common in arguments concerning the scientific method, criteria of demarcation, experimental procedures, and so forth, is that scientific methods should be like effective methods for empirical problems. In logic, an effective method is a procedure for computing the … Continue reading
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