Confirmation, empirical progress, and truth approximation / / edited by Roberto Festa, Atocha Aliseda and Jeanne Peijnenburg.

• Superior document: Essays in debate with Theo Kuipers ; 1
• TeilnehmendeR: Festa, Roberto.; Aliseda, Atocha.; Peijnenburg, Adriana Johanna Maria, 1952-
• Place / Publishing House: Amsterdam ;, New York, NY : : Rodopi.; c2005.
• Year of Publication: 2005
• Language: English
• Series: Poznań Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 83.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (544 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

This book is the first of two volumes devoted to the work of Theo Kuipers, a leading Dutch philosopher of science. Philosophers and scientists from all over the world, thirty seven in all, comment on Kuipers' philosophy, and each of their commentaries is followed by a reply from Kuipers. The present volume focuses on Kuipers' views on confirmation, empirical progress, and truth approximation, as laid down in his From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism (Kluwer, 2000). In this book, Kuipers offered a synthesis of Carnap's and Hempel's confirmation theory on the one hand, and Popper's theory of truth approximation on the other. The key element of this synthesis is a sophisticated methodology, which enables the evaluation of theories in terms of their problems and successes (even if the theories are already falsified), and which also fits well with the claim that one theory is closer to the truth than another. Ilkka Niiniluoto, Patrick Maher, John Welch, Gerhard Schurz, Igor Douven, Bert Hamminga, David Miller, Johan van Benthem, Sjoerd Zwart, Thomas Mormann, Jesús Zamora Bonilla, Isabella Burger andamp; Johannes Heidema, Joke Meheus, Hans Mooij, and Diderik Batens comment on these ideas of Kuipers, and many present their own account. The present book also contains a synopsis of From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism. It can be read independently of the second volume of Essays in Debate with Theo Kuipers, which is devoted to Kuipers' Structures in Science (2001).

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material / Roberto Festa , Atocha Aliseda and Jeanne Peijnenburg -- INTRODUCTION / Roberto Festa , Atocha Aliseda and Jeanne Peijnenburg -- THE THREEFOLD EVALUATION OF THEORIES: A SYNOPSIS OF FROM INSTRUMENTALISM TO CONSTRUCTIVE REALISM. ON SOME RELATIONS BETWEEN CONFIRMATION, EMPIRICAL PROGRESS, AND TRUTH APPROXIMATION (2000) / Theo A.F. Kuipers -- QUALITATIVE CONFIRMATION AND THE RAVENS PARADOX / Patrick Maher -- GRUESOME PREDICATES / John R. Welch -- BAYESIAN H-D CONFIRMATION AND STRUCTURALISTIC TRUTHLIKENESS: DISCUSSION AND COMPARISON WITH THE RELEVANT-ELEMENT AND THE CONTENT-PART APPROACH / Gerhard Schurz -- LACUNAE, EMPIRICAL PROGRESS AND SEMANTIC TABLEAUX / Atocha Aliseda -- EMPIRICAL PROGRESS AND AMPLIATIVE ADAPTIVE LOGICS / Joke Meheus -- ON A LOGIC OF INDUCTION / Diderik Batens -- ABDUCTION AND TRUTHLIKENESS / Ilkka Niiniluoto -- EMPIRICAL EQUIVALENCE, EXPLANATORY FORCE, AND THE INFERENCE TO THE BEST THEORY / Igor Douven -- CONSTRUCTIVE REALISM AND SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS / Bert Hamminga -- BEAUTY, A ROAD TO THE TRUTH? / David Miller -- TRUTHLIKENESS WITH A HUMAN FACE: ON SOME CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE THEORY OF VERISIMILITUDE AND THE SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE / Jesús P. Zamora Bonilla -- UPDATING THEORIES / Sjoerd D. Zwart -- A NOTE ON MODELING THEORIES / Johan van Benthem -- GEOMETRY OF LOGIC AND TRUTH APPROXIMATION / Thomas Mormann -- FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE: COMPARATIVE ORDERINGS ON STATES AND THEORIES / Isabella C. Burger and Johannes Heidema -- METAPHOR AND METAPHYSICAL REALISM / J.J.A. Mooij -- ON THE RELATIONS BETWEEN (NEO-CLASSICAL) PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AND LOGIC / Roberto Festa -- BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THEO A.F. KUIPERS / Roberto Festa , Atocha Aliseda and Jeanne Peijnenburg -- INDEX OF NAMES / Roberto Festa , Atocha Aliseda and Jeanne Peijnenburg -- MONOGRAPHS-IN-DEBATE: CONTENTS OF BACK ISSUES / Roberto Festa , Atocha Aliseda and Jeanne Peijnenburg.