Conceptions of scientific progress in scientific practice: an empirical study

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate over the nature of scientific progress in philosophy of science by taking a quantitative, corpus-based approach. By employing the methods of data science and corpus linguistics, the following philosophical accounts of scientific progress are tested empirically: the semantic account of scientific progress (i.e., scientific progress in terms of truth), the epistemic account of scientific progress (i.e., scientific progress in terms of knowledge), and the noetic account of scientific progress (i.e., scientific progress in terms of understanding). Overall, the results of this quantitative, corpus-based study lend some empirical support to the epistemic and the noetic accounts over the semantic account of scientific progress, for they suggest that practicing scientists use the terms 'knowledge' and 'understanding' significantly more often than the term 'truth' when they talk about the aims or goals of scientific research in their published works. But the results do not favor the epistemic account over the noetic account, or vice versa, for they reveal no significant differences between the frequency with which practicing scientists use the terms 'knowledge' and 'understanding' when they talk about the aims or goals of scientific research in their published works.

What Is the Basic Unit of Scientific Progress? A Quantitative, Corpus-Based Study

“…Using the same methods of text mining and corpus analysis used by Mizrahi (2020a), we test empirically a philosophical account of scientific progress that Mizrahi (2020a) left out of his empirical study, namely, the so-called functional-internalist account of scientific progress according to which the aim or goal or scientific research is to solve problems. In general, our results do not lend much empirical evidence in support of the problem-solving model of scientific progress over the other philosophical accounts of scientific progress (namely, the epistemic, noetic, and semantic accounts of scientific progress) tested in Mizrahi (2020a) and in this follow-up study. Of all the subjects in the JSTOR database we have tested in this study, however, Mathematics is an interesting exception as far as the problem-solving model of scientific progress is concerned.…”

“…3 Mizrahi (2020a) presents the results of a quantitative, corpus-based empirical study, which suggest that practicing scientists use the terms for the basic units of scientific progress 'knowledge' and 'understanding' significantly more often than the term for the basic unit of scientific progress 'truth' when they talk about the aims and/or goals of scientific research in scientific publications. Accordingly, Mizrahi (2020a) argues, these results can be construed as providing some empirical evidence in favor of the epistemic and the noetic accounts over the semantic account of scientific progress. However, Mizrahi (2020a) argues, these results "do not favor the epistemic account over the noetic account, or vice versa, for they reveal no significant differences between the frequency with which practicing scientists use the terms 'knowledge' and 'understanding' when they talk about the aims or goals of scientific research in their published works.…”

“…Accordingly, Mizrahi (2020a) argues, these results can be construed as providing some empirical evidence in favor of the epistemic and the noetic accounts over the semantic account of scientific progress. However, Mizrahi (2020a) argues, these results "do not favor the epistemic account over the noetic account, or vice versa, for they reveal no significant differences between the frequency with which practicing scientists use the terms 'knowledge' and 'understanding' when they talk about the aims or goals of scientific research in their published works. "…”

“…In this paper, we seek to build on Mizrahi's (2020a) empirical study of philosophical accounts of scientific progress. In particular, using the same methods of text mining and corpus analysis used by Mizrahi (2020a), we test a philosophical account of scientific progress that Mizrahi (2020a) left out of his empirical study, namely, the so-called functional-internalist account of scientific progress.…”

“…In this paper, we seek to build on Mizrahi's (2020a) empirical study of philosophical accounts of scientific progress. In particular, using the same methods of text mining and corpus analysis used by Mizrahi (2020a), we test a philosophical account of scientific progress that Mizrahi (2020a) left out of his empirical study, namely, the so-called functional-internalist account of scientific progress. Bird (2008, p. 279) characterizes the functional-internalist account as follows: "An episode shows scientific progress precisely when it achieves a specific goal of science, where that goal is such that its achievement can be determined by scientists at that time (e.g.…”