Larry Laudanın Bilimsel İlerleme Anlayışı

This study addresses scientific progress, which has an important place in terms of the history and philosophy of science and has been one of the prominent issues regarding the nature of knowledge in recent centuries. It attempts to outline how scientific progress is generally addressed by contemporary philosophers of science, and in particular Larry Laudans understanding of scientific progress, based on his work Progress and Its Problems. Laudans understanding of theory, his definition and classification of scientific problems, and the basic views of the model he proposed for the formation of a theory of scientific progress come to the fore. In other words, Laudan, who argues that the only cognitive purpose of science in the most general sense is problem-solving, shows how the nature of scientific progress can be addressed in a completely useful way in terms of problem-solving, which is a problem- centered model. Accordingly, rationality and scientific progress are not equivalent to each other, and both concepts should be distinguished from each other. He wants to change the general view that sees progress as approximation in itself and gradually reaching accuracy over time in a self-correcting process. Laudan attempts to completely change this general understanding by showing that rationality was formed by being added to progressivism later on. Laudan, while developing this model of the theory of progress, which he calls research traditions, on the one hand, towards becoming a theory of progress, on the other hand, brings the concept of progress to the agenda by showing the deficiencies and problems of different conceptual frameworks such as Kuhns paradigm and Lakatos scientific research program methodology, which are contemporary with him, and the theories of progress proposed by these frameworks. Keywords: Larry Laudan; Research traditions; Science; Scientific; Scientific progress