Critique of Nicolas Maxwell’s Aim-Oriented Empiricism

Critique of Nicolas Maxwell’s Aim-Oriented Empiricism In his paper, “Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos and Aim-Oriented Empiricism,” Nicholas Maxwell proposes the latest version of his conception of natural science, which he calls aim-oriented empiricism (AOE). Maxwell states that AOE “is a kind of synthesis of the views of Popper, Kuhn, and Lakatos, but is also an improvement over the views of all three.”(181) It is Maxwell’s conception of aim-oriented empiricism (hereafter referred to as AOE) that this paper is addressed to. There are two central reasons for Maxwell’s conception of AOE. First is his claim that physics has an implicit, persistent assumption about the universe, “that the universe is such that no seriously disunified, ad hoc theory is true.” (181) Second is Maxwell’s assertion that “the assumption is pure conjecture, substantial and influential but bereft of any kind of justification.” (182) One of the problems that Maxwell states that his conception of AOE is designed to solve is ”how can rival versions of the assumption be rationally assessed, so that what is accepted by physics can be improved.” (182) The rational for the conception of AOE is predicated on the assertion that there is no justification for the current assumption that theories should be unified and universal, “and thus (the assumption is) all too likely to be false.” (182) I will argue that there is justification for the assumption that theories should be unified and universal rather than disunified and ad hoc. Maxwell begins making his case for AOE by noting the bias in theoretical physics for unified theories over disunified, ad hoc rival theories, even if the ad hoc theories are equally successful at predicting empirical observations (181). He claims that this means physics makes an untestable metaphysical assumption about the universe, that no disunified, ad hoc theory can be true. (181) He further claims that this implicit assumption is “substantial,

References: Baggini J., Fosl P., The philosopher’s toolkit (2003), Malden, MA, Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Maxwell Nicholas, (2005), Popper, kuhn, lakatos and aim-oriented empiricism. Philosophia Vol. 32, (1-4), p., 181-235. Merriam-Webster Online, accessed on Dec. 9, 2006 at <http://www.m-w.com/ >