Nicholas Rescher endorses an evolutionary epistemology. His approach differs from the one delineated in a famous book by Karl Popper, who based his approach on the “random conjectures and refutation” model. Rescher’s opinion about this issue is that, on such Popperian grounds, scientific progress becomes more or less inexplicable. In particular, the success in furnishing explanatory theories that perform well in prediction and the guidance of applications in a complex world becomes an accident of miracolous proportions. On such bases it becomes quite hard to explain Popper’s recourse to truth conceived of as “regulative ideal”, just because his random strategy gives no warrant for the convinction that we are indeed approaching ideal truth. This papers shows that the difference in the two approaches lies in their divergent opinions about induction and the methods for justifying inductive reasoning.
Rescher’s Evolutionary Epistemology
MARSONET, MICHELE
2005-01-01
Abstract
Nicholas Rescher endorses an evolutionary epistemology. His approach differs from the one delineated in a famous book by Karl Popper, who based his approach on the “random conjectures and refutation” model. Rescher’s opinion about this issue is that, on such Popperian grounds, scientific progress becomes more or less inexplicable. In particular, the success in furnishing explanatory theories that perform well in prediction and the guidance of applications in a complex world becomes an accident of miracolous proportions. On such bases it becomes quite hard to explain Popper’s recourse to truth conceived of as “regulative ideal”, just because his random strategy gives no warrant for the convinction that we are indeed approaching ideal truth. This papers shows that the difference in the two approaches lies in their divergent opinions about induction and the methods for justifying inductive reasoning.
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