Books by Larry Laudan

Laudan constructs a fresh approach to a longtime problem for the philosopher of science: how to explain the simultaneous and widespread presence of both agreement and disagreement in science. Laudan critiques the logical empiricists and the post-positivists as he stresses the need for centrality and values and the interdependence of values, methods, and facts as prerequisites to solving the problems of consensus and dissent in science.

Beginning with the premise that the principal function of a criminal trial is to find out the truth about a crime, Larry Laudan examines the rules of evidence and procedure that would be appropriate if the discovery of the truth were, as higher courts routinely claim, the overriding aim of the criminal justice system. Laudan mounts a systematic critique of existing rules and procedures that are obstacles to that quest. He also examines issues of error distribution by offering the first integrated analysis of the various mechanisms - the standard of proof, the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of innocence and the burden of proof - for implementing society's view about the relative importance of the errors that can occur in a trial.

Why have many members of the intellectual community embraced a radical relativism where knowledge in general and scientific knowledge in particular are concerned? Have Kuhn, Quine, and Feyerabend knocked the traditional picture of scientific knowledge into a cocked hat? Is philosophy of science, or mistaken impressions of it, responsible for the rise of relativism? In Science and Relativism, Larry offers a trenchant, wide-ranging critique of cognitive relativism and a thorough introduction to majorissues in the philosophy of knowledge.

Offers a critique and substantial revision of the historic theories of scientific rationality and progress. This book focuses on contextual problem solving effectiveness as a criterion for progress, and expands the notion of 'paradigm' to a 'research tradition,' thus providing a meta-empirical basis for the commensurability of competing theories.