Abstract This paper deals with Larry Laudan's attack on the symmetry thesis of Bloor's ?strong programme?. It will be shown that Laudan's argumentation is fallacious and, therefore, his attempt at refuting the symmetry thesis has failed.

Proceedings of the First Conference of the International Society for Hermeneutics and Science.

In this contribution I intend to reconstruct and evaluate one of Galileo's famous arguments given in the Discorsi against a well‐entrenched thesis of Aristotelian physics. It will be shown that Galileo's reduction‐to‐the‐absurd type of counterargument is, although seemingly cogent, after all fallacious. I ascribe Galileo's committing of this fallacy to his looking at the Aristotelian physics through the (Kuhnian type) paradigmatic “spectacles” of his own new physics.

(1986). The method of analysis‐synthesis and the structure of causal explanation in Newton. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 60-84.

Abstract The role accorded to the public by scientists and philosophers of science has undergone an essential historical change in the last three centuries. Public participation in (witnessing of) scientific experiments was considered an important requirement for 17th century experimenters (e.g. for Boyle or Pascal). The cognitive role played by lay persons was later substantially downgraded; witnessing went out of fashion, while science became more and more esoteric and a matter for experts only. Part of this process was that all (...) scientific disciplines became intensively compartmentalized and in consequence a rather puzzling or even paradoxical situation appeared: that the scientists themselves were and are being reduced epistemically to the status of lay persons, outside of their proper field of expertise (as was pointed out by J. Hardwig). The paper deals with some cognitive aspects of this historical process. (shrink)