ABSTRACT
This background assumption is challenged but not undermined by considerations raised in the work of the historian and philosopher of science, Thomas Kuhn (see Kuhn 1970). Kuhn makes a case against the ‘critical’ view of the selection of scientific theories sponsored by Sir Karl Popper and in order to understand his claims we must look briefly at that view. Popper’s methodology is purportedly anti-inductive, the justification of theories via a (probabilistic) measure of their evidential support being deemed to be both impossible and undesirable. The impossibility thesis need not concern us, the undesirability claim, which does, is based on the supposed affinity of ‘inductivism’ to dogmatism.1 ‘Inductivists’ are indicted by Popper from their ability to sustain the credibility of ‘bad’ theories by looking for, and finding, confirmation of those theories. The apparent ease with which theories can be inductively ‘confirmed’ allows the inductivist, allegedly, to maintain support for a theory which, on Popperian grounds, should be rejected.
