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Education and Employment
Larry Laudan received his B.A. in Physics in 1962 and his Ph.D. in Philosophy in 1965. He has held many positions in teaching such as a lecturer, associate professor, professor, researcher in many different subject areas ranging from philosophy of physics to senior investigator at a foreign learning institution.
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Contributions to Science
In Laudan's work, Progress and Its Problems he rejects several time-honored assumptions of previous philosophy of science, including the notions that scientific progress requires a fixed methodology; the cumulative retention of the successes of earlier theories; and a convergence on "the truth." He argues that since we have no way of determining to what extent our scientific theories about unobservable entities are correct, it is irrational to believe that our theories are even partially true. -
Pessimistic Induction
Larry Laudan is well known for his argument in pessimistic induction, in which he believes that if past successful and accepted scientific theories were found to be false, we have no reason to believe the scientific realist's claim that our currently successful theories are approximately true. If certains parts of a theory remain unobservable, then how can we believe any of it is truth?
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Laudan on Convergent Epistemic Realism
A short video better explaining Laudan's view on Convergent Epistemic Realism.
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