Paradox has always been one of the great pressure tests in philosophy of science. Science is often associated with clarity, measurement, replication, and disciplined inference, so when paradox appears, it can feel like a threat to the whole enterprise. Yet paradox has repeatedly done something more constructive. It has exposed hidden assumptions, revealed scope limits, […]

Philosophy of science debates can become tangled quickly because participants often move across several layers at once: empirical evidence, model construction, confirmation standards, explanation, realism, and interpretation. A person may think they are arguing about data when they are actually arguing about what counts as explanation. Another may think they are arguing about realism when […]

Underdetermination is one of the most important debates in philosophy of science because it challenges a familiar picture of scientific reasoning. On the familiar picture, scientists gather evidence, compare theories, and then the evidence points to one uniquely justified conclusion. Underdetermination argues that this picture is often too simple. In some cases, more than one […]

Philosophy of science is sometimes treated as a static debate between “realists” and “anti-realists.” But the field has repeatedly shifted as scientific practice changed and as philosophers noticed new puzzles. What counts as evidence, explanation, and scientific success has not remained fixed. A short history can be told as four shifts. Each shift changes: Continue […]

People often treat “evidence” in science as if it were self-explanatory: data arrives, and the truth follows. In reality, evidence is interpreted through concepts, models, instruments, and standards. Two people can see the same data and disagree because they disagree about what counts as a good explanation, which idealizations are acceptable, or what the data […]

Philosophy of science is often mistaken for commentary on science from the sidelines. In reality, it investigates questions that science itself presupposes but does not always settle by experiment alone: What counts as evidence? What makes a hypothesis explanatory rather than merely convenient? What is a scientific law, and how is it different from an […]