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oai:uvadoc.uva.es:10324/227902021-06-23T10:14:05Zcom_10324_1156com_10324_931com_10324_894col_10324_1294

Caamaño Alegre, María de la Concepción 2015 The purpose of this work is twofold: to explain some of the limitations affecting traditional approaches to theory success, and to outline a criterion for the comparative evaluation of a theory’s empirical success. Empirical adequacy, predictive power, specification of causal mechanisms, and explanatory unification are here regarded as the main, not mutually exclusive kinds of theory success. From that basis, the traditional quantitative criterion for theory success -mainly revolving around the number of a theory’s true empirical consequences-, is refined by adding some key qualitative requirements specially focused on issues regarding a theory’s scope, predictive power, and possible adhocness. A special emphasis will be placed on the following issues: a) the superiority of prediction over accommodation (Lipton 1991/2004, Foster 2002), b) the resolution of non-refuting anomalies (Laudan 2000, Kuipers 2005), and c) the limited use of ad hoc hypotheses (Thagard 1978, Leplin 1975). application/pdf http://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/22790 eng Universidad de Nantes (Francia) Theory Success: Some Evaluative Clues info:eu-repo/semantics/article TEXT UVaDOC. Repositorio Documental de la Universidad de Valladolid Hispana