Scientific Progress and the Search for Truth

Abstract

Scientific progress is popularly conceived in teleological terms. The goal is to find the complete true story about nature, or, perhaps more sensibly, the complete truth about the fundamental structure of nature. I argue that scientific progress is better understood as pragmatic progress, “progress from” rather than “progress to.” It consists in overcoming the difficulties and the limits of the current situation. This approach, pioneered by Thomas Kuhn and Larry Laudan, should be elaborated through explicit recognition of the role the sciences play in human life. Although we normally defer to scientific communities, trusting them to single out problems that are worth tackling (significant questions), judgments of significance are always subject to evaluation. Ethical values inevitably frame and constrain the progress of the sciences. As many writers have suspected, an approach of this kind emphases the practical deliverances of scientific inquiry. Does it leave a place for “pure” (or “basic”) research? I address this question in two ways. First, everyone should agree that the route to practical success often runs through studies with no pragmatic payoff. More importantly, we should recognize how the idea of any “disinterested search for the truth” comes very late in the history of inquiry. I deploy a speculative genealogy to show how it might have emerged, using my conjectural history to illuminate the supposed ideal of “contemplating the truth about nature.” Such reflection, I argue, does not focus on the structure of nature as it is, independently of human cognition and action, but on the organization of a world largely shaped by human goals and values.