What is the Problem of Ad Hoc Hypotheses?

Bamford, Greg (1999) What is the Problem of Ad Hoc Hypotheses?. Science & Education, 8 4: 375-386.


Author Bamford, Greg
Title What is the Problem of Ad Hoc Hypotheses?
Journal name Science & Education   Check publisher's open access policy
Publication date 1999-07-01
DOI 10.1023/A:1008633808051
Volume number 8
Issue number 4
ISSN 0926-7220
Start page 375
End page 386
Total pages 12
Editor M. Matthews
Place of publication Dordrecht
Publisher Kluwer Academic Publishers
Collection year 1999
Subject 210000 Science - General
440106 Logic
440100 Philosophy
440105 History of Philosophy and History of Ideas
C1
370601 History and Philosophy of Science and Technology
780199 Other
Abstract The received view of an ad hoc hypothesis is that it accounts for only the observation(s) it was designed to account for, and so non-adhocness is generally held to be necessary or important for an introduced hypothesis or modification to a theory. Attempts by Popper and several others to convincingly explicate this view, however, prove to be unsuccessful or of doubtful value, and familiar and firmer criteria for evaluating the hypotheses or modified theories so classified are characteristically available. These points are obscured largely because the received view fails to adequately separate psychology from methodology or to recognise ambiguities in the use of 'ad hoc'.
Keyword ad hoc
ad hoc hypothesis
ad hoc modification
Karl Popper
philosophy of science
scientific method
evidence
Neptune
Uranus
J. J. Leverrier
J. C. Adams
Bayesian probability
fallacy
criteria for theory selection
Q-Index Code C1

 
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Created: Fri, 27 Apr 2007, 10:52:38 EST by Greg Bamford on behalf of Marketing, Outreach and Corporate Services