Proofs and Refutations¶
Lakatos, I., edited by Worrall, J., & Zahar, E. (1976). Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery. Cambridge University Press.
Cited by¶
2 citations across 2 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- No True Scotsman
- In scientific and pseudoscientific theory defense, ad-hoc rescue and monster-barring quietly tighten a theory's auxiliary definitions to exclude a recalcitrant result, preserving the universal claim by reducing its empirical content.
This sourceEdited by John Worrall and Elie Zahar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. Introduces "monster-barring" and the analysis of ad-hoc concept-redefinition to protect a theorem or theory from a recalcitrant case.
Supported in partVerified against the publisher's abstract
Lakatos's own abstract supports the general frame of conjectures improved through proof-attempts and criticism, but says nothing of monster-barring, auxiliary-definition tightening, or loss of empirical content.
“He shows that mathematics grows instead through a richer, more dramatic process of the successive improvement of creative hypotheses by attempts to 'prove' them and by criticism of these attempts: the logic of proofs and refutations.”
- In scientific and pseudoscientific theory defense, ad-hoc rescue and monster-barring quietly tighten a theory's auxiliary definitions to exclude a recalcitrant result, preserving the universal claim by reducing its empirical content.
Mechanisms¶
- Exception Classification
- It is the guard against monster-barring — redefining the rule on the fly
This sourceDefines monster-barring as an ad hoc redefinition that excludes an inconvenient counterexample from the relevant class.
- It is the guard against monster-barring — redefining the rule on the fly
Verification¶
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Registry ID ref:fe2ffbcc0128 · see in the full table