Ad Hoc Auxiliary Hypotheses and Falsificationism

@article{Grnbaum1976AdHA,
  title={Ad Hoc Auxiliary Hypotheses and Falsificationism},
  author={Adolf Gr{\"u}nbaum},
  journal={The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science},
  year={1976},
  volume={27},
  pages={329 - 362}
}
  • A. Grünbaum
  • Published 1 December 1976
  • Psychology
  • The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
In the history of science, there are various instances of theory-modification by auxiliary hypotheses, as distinct from wholesale theory-replacement. And these instances include familiar episodes in which the new auxiliaries prompted cries of ad hoc, epistemic caveats or at least a clear appreciation of considerable epistemic risk from some segments of the scientific community. In each such episode, a modifying collateral assumption H repaired a troubled major theory T1 by then enabling the… 
View on U Chicago Press
56 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
3
Background Citations
13
Methods Citations
1

56 Citations

Ad Hoc Hypothesis Generation as Enthymeme Resolution
To date there seems to be no disciplined way of distinguishing between ad hoc hypotheses and legitimate auxiliary hypotheses. This is embarrassing not just for Popperian falsificationist scientific…
Ad Hoc Hypotheses and the Monsters Within
TLDR
The focus of this essay is one such less-than-transparent methodological rule, the rule that ad hoc hypotheses ought to be spurned, which is called the ‘monstrousness’ of a hypothesis.
Popper's Explications of Ad Hocness: Circularity, Empirical Content, and Scientific Practice
  • Greg Bamford
  • Philosophy
    The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
  • 1993
Karl Popper defines an ad hoc hypothesis as one that is introduced to immunize a theory from some (or all) refutation but which cannot be tested independently. He has also attempted to explicate ad…
The Assessment of Auxiliary Hypotheses
  • J. Leplin
  • Psychology
    The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
  • 1982
In each case a developed, successful theory confronted by an empirical anomaly was modified so as to incorporate consistently a new hypothesis which removed the anomaly. And each new hypothesis…
Chapter 18 Ad Hoc Hypotheses and the Monsters Within
Science is increasingly becoming automated. Tasks yet to be fully automated include the conjecturing, modifying, extending and testing of hypotheses. At present scientists have an array of methods to…
What is the Problem of Ad Hoc Hypotheses?
The received view of an ad hochypothesis is that it accounts for only the observation(s) it was designed to account for, and so non-ad hocness is generally held to be necessary or important for an…
The hypothesis that saves the day: ad hoc reasoning in pseudoscience
What is wrong with ad hoc hypotheses? Ever since Popper’s falsificationist account of adhocness, there has been a lively phil osophical discussion about what constitutes adhocness in scientific e…
Corroboration and auxiliary hypotheses: Duhem’s thesis revisited
This paper argues that Duhem’s thesis does not decisively refute a corroboration-based account of scientific methodology (or ‘falsificationism’), but instead that auxiliary hypotheses are themselves…
With Friends Like These ..., or What is Inductivism and Why is it Off the Agenda?
There was a celebrated philosophical dispute. It was the very model of a philosophical dispute: protracted, much at cross purposes, confused, inconclusive. On one side, indisputably, was Karl Popper.…
EXPLANATIONS IN SCIENCE AND THE LOGIC OF WHY-QUESTIONS: DISCUSSION OF THE HALONEN–HINTIKKA-APPROACHAND ALTERNATIVE PROPOSAL
TLDR
This paper focuses on why-explanations – explanations of why a phenomenon, the so-called explanandum, has occurred, and other kinds of explanations, such as how-possible explanations, functional explanations, and explanations-about will be neglected.
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 20 REFERENCES
Contextual Falsification and Scientific Methodology
  • J. Leplin
  • Philosophy, Psychology
    Philosophy of Science
  • 1972
Recent discussion of the problem of the conclusive falsification of scientific hypotheses has generally regarded the Duhemian Thesis (D-Thesis) as both true and interesting [10] but has dismissed the…
THE FALSIFIABILITY OF THE LORENTZ-FITZGERALD CONTRACTION HYPOTHESIS: A REJOINDER TO PROFESSOR DINGLE
  • A. Grūnbaum
  • Philosophy
    The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
  • 1960
PROFESSOR Dingle's reply x to my refutation * of Popper's ad hoc charge against the original Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction hypothesu makes the following three claims: (i) ' The [Lorentz-Fitzgerald]…
Is the Method of Bold Conjectures and Attempted Refutations Justifiably the Method of Science?*
  • A. Grünbaum
  • Philosophy
    The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
  • 1976
(a) Preliminary Considerations. (b) Propositions P and P0 vis-h-vis Qualitative Verisimilitude (i) Formal Considerations (ii) Can the Conjectures BF A, and EF ~ N, be Warranted by Popperian…
The Edinburgh phrenology debate: 1803-1828.
TLDR
In the late 1810s and 1820s the Edinburgh phrenologists were largely concerned with trying to establish phrenology as the true science of mind, which involved a wide range of contentious theological, philosophical, scientific and methodological issues.
THE FAISIFIABILITY OF THE LORENTZ-FITZGERALD CONTRACTION HYPOTHESIS
  • H. Dingle
  • Psychology
    The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
  • 1959
PBOFEUOB A. Grunoaum's ' correction' of Professor EL R. Popper's assertion of the nrm-fekffiaKiHiy of the Lorcntz-HtzGerald contraction hypothesis*, though it has been accepted by the latter, is…
Einstein, Michelson, and the "Crucial" Experiment
THE HIGHEST ACHIEVEMENTS in science are of quite different kinds: the bold theoretical generalization, breathtaking by virtue of its sweeping synthetic power, and the ingenious experiment, sometimes…
Leverrier: The Zenith and Nadir of Newtonian Mechanics
U. J. J. Leverrier was a colossus of nineteenth-century science. But for philosophers and historians his work has lain largely undiscovered; a suboceanic mountain beneath the scientific sea. We have…
Is Falsifiability the Touchstone of Scientific Rationality? Karl Popper Versus Inductivism
There is already a sizeable literature in which the question posed in the title of this essay is answered in the negative. That literature includes the writings of Imre Lakatos.
History of Astronomy
IN this small volume Prof. Forbes describes the evolution of astronomical knowledge under three periods—the geometrical, the dynamical, and the physical. In addition, in book iii. he also describes…
The discovery of Neptune
...
...