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The Empirical Character of Methodological Rules

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Warren Schmaus
Warren Schmaus*
Affiliation:
Illinois Institute of Technology
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Abstract

Critics of Laudan's normative naturalism have questioned whether methodological rules can be regarded as empirical hypotheses about relations between means and ends. Drawing on Laudan's defense that rules of method are contingent on assumptions about the world, I argue that even if such rules can be shown to be analytic in principle (Kaiser 1991), in practice the warrant for such rules will be empirical. Laudan's naturalism, however, acquires normative force only by construing both methods and epistemic goals as instrumental to practical concerns, and issues only in context-specific and not general methodological principles.

Information

Type
Methodology Naturalized and Contextualized
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 63 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1996 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers Sep., 1996. , 1996, pp. S98 - S106
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1996

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Footnotes

†

I wish to thank Michael Davis, Rachana Kamtekar, Robert Ladenson, George Reisch, Jack Snapper, and Vivian Weil for their helpful comments.

‡

Department of Humanities, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL 60616.

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