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Justifying the Special Theory of Relativity with Unconceived Methods

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Abstract

Many realists argue that present scientific theories will not follow the fate of past scientific theories because the former are more successful than the latter. Critics object that realists need to show that present theories have reached the level of success that warrants their truth. I reply that the special theory of relativity has been repeatedly reinforced by unconceived scientific methods, so it will be reinforced by infinitely many unconceived scientific methods. This argument for the special theory of relativity overcomes the critics’ objection, and has advantages over the no-miracle argument and the selective induction for it.

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Notes

  1. In this paper, ‘some’ expresses a smaller quantity than ‘most’.

  2. I drop the qualifier ‘approximately’ for the sake of simplicity in this paper.

  3. Putnam’s no-miracles argument ranges over all successful theories.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of General Studies, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Ulju-gun, Ulsan, 689-798, Republic of Korea

    Seungbae Park

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  1. Seungbae Park
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Correspondence to Seungbae Park.

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Park, S. Justifying the Special Theory of Relativity with Unconceived Methods. Axiomathes 28, 53–62 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-017-9336-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-017-9336-4

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