BOOK REVIEW

Larry Laudan, Beyond Positivism and Relativism. Theory, Method, and

Evidence, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996, viii + 277 pp. ISBN
0-8133-2469-6 $22.95 (pbk) ISBN 08133-2468-8 $59.95 (cloth)

The essay I like most in this collection of 13 papers occurs towards the end
of the book, one of four thematically grouped under the heading “History
and Sociology of Science”. Laudan examines Judge Overton’s opinion in
the Arkansas creationism trial. The Judge supported the view that cre-
ationism cannot count as a science, by laying down squarely what science
is: “guided by natural law”, “explanatory by reference to natural law”,
nondogmatic, testable and falsifiable. Laudan is quick to point out (as Fey-
erabend has) that by these criteria many a scientific theory of the past does
not make the grade. Moreover, the charge that creationism is untestable
takes away the best argument to refute it. Man and animals created at
the same time? Well, why doesn’t the paleontological record show human
fossils side by side with the lower animals? Creationism makes empirical
claims, is testable, and turns out to be false. Laudable as the decision is not
to teach creationism alongside evolutionary theory in schools, the Judge’s
opinion is based, according to Laudan, on a stereotypical, dogmatic and
false view of what science is. The other essays deal effectively with Bloor’s
sociology of knowledge, Popper’s Demarcation Criterion and the idea of
universal methodological standards.
Laudan states and defends his account of scientific methodology in the
preceding six essays. He understands science, like Popper, as a problem-
solving activity and methodological rules as means to achieve certain
epistemic aims in science. The rules, contrary to Popper, do not have the
character of conventions or “decisions”. The adequacy of the means can be
tested empirically against data from the history of science. On this view the
methods of science and even the goals of science can change in the course of
history. Science, hence, has no “essence”, a view that has earned Laudan
the reputation of being a relativist in disguise. Does the violation of a
methodological rule in the pursuit of successful research discredit that rule?

Erkenntnis 47: 415–417, 1998.

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Does the sum of such cases from the history of the sciences undermine the
very idea of characterizing the rationality (or “progressiveness”) of science
through its methodology, as Paul Feyerabend charged? Not so, argues
Laudan, a rule is not invalidated by one or two exceptions. This is a plausible
reply, if only anyone knew how to quantify objectively the success, say, of
“Avoid ad hoc hypotheses”, in the short or long run. The forced toleration of
“exceptions” to many a stock rule turns scientific methodology into a lofty
affair. Notably absent from the book are discussions of “bootstrapping” and
Bayesianism, two more recent theories of confirmation. Both are hailed as
bridging the hiatus between formal confirmation theory and the practice of
science.
It is sometimes argued that rationality of theory choice cannot be
grounded in the data alone, because alternatives are frequently under-
determined by the evidence. The first two, and also the most recent, essays
in the book (one of them co-authored with J.Leplin) discuss this issue.
Underdetermination of theory by evidence is one of the most intriguing
and challenging problems facing epistemology and realism today. Laudan
is out to debunk the “myth” of underdetermination, focusing on Quine’s
version of the thesis. The criticism is blunted by an unsympathetic read-
ing of Quine, whose position in these matters Laudan classifies alongside
Thomas Kuhn’s. For one, Laudan takes the thesis to stand or fall with the
Duhem-Quine thesis. This is arguably not a premise Quine has in mind
(particularly in his later writings) when he argues for the underdetermi-
nation of our “system of the world”. Laudan is more on target when he
criticizes Quine’s “methodological minimalism” as the crucial premise for
the underdetermination thesis: the deduction of observation sentences is
not all there is in the evaluation of a theory. True, but this is not in dis-
pute. “Methodological minimalism” need not be understood as a dogma
concerning methodology. It is but a starting point in characterizing the
structure of theories. Quine sees scientists resolving occasional cases of
underdetermined pairs of theories by appeal to background information,
standards of simplicity, and the like. There is on this account in effect
no persistent underdetermination on the level of theories. The rules and
standards, going beyond methodological minimalism, are justified prag-
matically, being part and parcel of the evolving science. Laudan thinks of
the same methodological rules as warranted in a stronger sense, and appeals
to a notion of evidence that needs to be spelled out in more detail. What
Laudan does not appreciate is that now the burden of proof has shifted.
Quine’s concern meanwhile is with the deductive unterdetermination, by
“all possible evidence” of the compound of common sense truths and the
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accepted scientific lore including scientific norms, suitably reconstructed.

On Quine’s reading the thesis reflects on the nature of concept formation.

Manuscript received July 1, 1997

University of Pittsburgh, THOMAS BONK

Center for Philosophy of Science