Laudan vs. Lakatos: Some Remarks on the Final Assessment of Demarcationism

Artur Koterski

Abstract


The paper reconstructs and examines the meta-criterion of demarcation between science and pseudo-science as proposed by Laudan (1983). The analysis shows that Laudan’s meta-criterion overlooks a crucial demand that any reliable criterion should satisfy. This, in turn, opens up a possibility of a non-ad hoc modification of Laudan’s proposal. When the meta-criterion finally meets the requirement which states that any reliable criterion of demarcation has to enable a comparison of any two scientific theories with regard to the degree of their progressiveness, it is possible to point out at least one advanced theory which gives an acceptable definition of science, i.e. Lakatos’s methodology of scientific research programs – strangely enough, not attended to by Laudan. Therefore, the skeptical conclusions of his paper can be refuted; furthermore, after such a modification the meta-criterion of demarcation acquires a homogenous form what makes it stable in a way originally intended by Laudan.


Keywords


problem of demarcation; meta-criterion of demarcation; methodology of scientific research programs

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/i.2017.42.2.147
Date of publication: 2018-06-13 09:03:29
Date of submission: 2018-03-05 11:38:40


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