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Laurens Lynn "Larry" Laudan (; October 16, 1941 – August 23, 2022) was an American
philosopher of science Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
and epistemologist. He strongly criticized the traditions of
positivism Positivism is a philosophical school that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positivemeaning '' a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. Gerber, ''Soci ...
, realism, and
relativism Relativism is a family of philosophical views which deny claims to absolute objectivity within a particular domain and assert that valuations in that domain are relative to the perspective of an observer or the context in which they are assess ...
, and he defended a view of science as a privileged and progressive institution against challenges. Laudan's philosophical view of "research traditions" is seen as an important alternative to Imre Lakatos's "research programs".


Life and career

Laudan earned his B.A. in Physics from the
University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...
and his PhD in Philosophy from
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
. He then taught at
University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...
and, for many years, at the
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...
. Subsequently, he taught at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University,
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa The University of Hawaii at Mānoa is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Hawaiʻi system and houses the main offic ...
and the
National Autonomous University of Mexico The National Autonomous University of Mexico (, UNAM) is a public university, public research university in Mexico. It has several campuses in Mexico City, and many others in various locations across Mexico, as well as a presence in nine countri ...
. Despite his official retirement, Laudan continued lecturing at the University of Texas, Austin. His later work was on legal epistemology. He was the husband of food historian Rachel Laudan.


Philosophical work

Laudan's most influential book is ''Progress and Its Problems'' (1977), in which he charges philosophers of science with paying lip service to the view that "science is fundamentally a problem-solving activity" without taking seriously the view's implications for the history of science and its philosophy, and without questioning certain issues in the historiography and methodology of science. Against notions of "genuine
progress Progress is movement towards a perceived refined, improved, or otherwise desired state. It is central to the philosophy of progressivism, which interprets progress as the set of advancements in technology, science, and social organization effic ...
", represented by
Karl Popper Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian–British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the ...
, and " revolutionism," represented by
Thomas Kuhn Thomas Samuel Kuhn (; July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American History and philosophy of science, historian and philosopher of science whose 1962 book ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' was influential in both academic and ...
, Laudan maintained in ''Progress and Its Problems'' that science is an evolving process that accumulates more empirically validated evidence while solving conceptual anomalies at the same time. Mere evidence collecting or empirical confirmation does not constitute the true mechanism of scientific advancement; conceptual resolution and comparison of the solutions of anomalies provided by various theories form an indispensable part of the evolution of science. Laudan is particularly well known for his pessimistic induction argument against the claim that the cumulative success of science shows that science must truly describe reality. Laudan famously argued in his 1981 article "A Confutation of Convergent Realism" that "the history of science furnishes vast evidence of empirically successful theories that were later rejected; from subsequent perspectives, their unobservable terms were judged not to refer and thus, they cannot be regarded as true or even approximately true." In ''Beyond Positivism and Relativism'' (1996), Laudan wrote that "the aim of science is to secure theories with a high problem-solving effectiveness" and that scientific progress is possible when empirical data is diminished. "Indeed, on this model, it is possible that a change from an empirically well-supported theory to a less well-supported one could be progressive, provided that the latter resolved significant conceptual difficulties confronting the former." Finally, the better theory solves more conceptual problems while minimizing empirical anomalies. Laudan has also written on
risk management Risk management is the identification, evaluation, and prioritization of risks, followed by the minimization, monitoring, and control of the impact or probability of those risks occurring. Risks can come from various sources (i.e, Threat (sec ...
and the subject of
terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...
. He has argued that "moral outrage and compassion are the proper responses to terrorism, but fear for oneself and one's life is not. The risk that the average American will be a victim of terrorism is extremely remote." He wrote ''The Book of Risks'' in 1996, which details the relative risks of various
accident An accident is an unintended, normally unwanted event that was not deliberately caused by humans. The term ''accident'' implies that the event may have been caused by Risk assessment, unrecognized or unaddressed risks. Many researchers, insurers ...
s.


Selected writings

*1977
''Progress and Its Problems: Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth''
*1981. ''Science and Hypothesis'' *1983. ''The Demise of the Demarcation Problem'' *1984

*1990. ''Science and Relativism: Dialogues on the Philosophy of Science'', *1995. ''The Book of Risks'' *1996. ''Beyond Positivism and Relativism'', *1997. ''Danger Ahead'' *2006. ''Truth, Error and Criminal Law: An Essay in Legal Epistemology'' *2016. ''The Law's Flaws: Rethinking Trials and Errors?''


References


External links


Larry Laudan
(www.larrylaudan.com)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Laudan, Larry 1941 births 2022 deaths 20th-century American philosophers 21st-century American philosophers American philosophers of science University of Kansas alumni Princeton University alumni Academics of University College London Academic staff of the National Autonomous University of Mexico Larry Laudan (Philosopher of Science) University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa faculty Virginia Tech faculty University of Texas School of Law faculty American epistemologists American philosophers of law Writers from Austin, Texas