I review critically several accounts of scientific progress and discuss in some detail the most recent one, which I call the ‘knowledge-accumulation’ account. While I am sympathetic to it, I argue that it leaves out an important component of the notion of progress, namely the role of scientific understanding. A sketch of a complementary account (‘understanding-accumulation’) is offered, which construes understanding in terms of unification.
CITATION STYLE
Bangu, S. (2015). Scientific Progress, Understanding and Unification. In Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science (Vol. 313, pp. 239–253). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16655-1_15
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