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Life of Larry Laudan
Larry Laudan was born on October 16, 1941, in Austin, TX, and is an American philosopher most famously known for his views on positivism, realism, and relativism. His most famous contributions include his books Progress and its Problems, Science and Values, Science and Relativism, and Beyond Positivism and Relativism. Today, he lectures law and philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin.
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Progress and its Problems
In 1977, Larry Laudan wrote his most famous and influential book, Progress and its Problems, where he suggests that modern history must be challenged through problem-solving and emphasizing the importance of paradigm shifts rather than "sticking to tradition". -
Science and Values
Laudan forms an 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 criticizes 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. -
Beyond Positivism and Relativism
Laudan felt relativism was a particularly self-defeating form of neopositivism. The connections between these two approaches and clarifying the positions of such influential philosophers as Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend, Laudan lays the foundation for an account of science that rejects the errors of positivism without providing aid and comfort to the enemies of reason. He also takes a look at other central issues of scientific philosophy, including the science/non-science demarcation
