Search Foundations by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-08-20T00:00:00+00:00

4.4.5 Expanding the Notion of Progressive Change

For Lakatos, there are three types of progressive change, including the two types of progressive problemshift discussed above, that must be modified for the IR&S case. First, there is the case of theoretically progressive problemshift. This is when successive theories suggest excess empirical content. In Lakatos’s case (that of predictive theories), this is when later theories predict whatever prior theories predicted and some more. This excess corresponds to one or more novel facts.14 Second, there is the case of empirical problemshift, wherein the novel facts predicted by theoretical progress are also empirically corroborated (i.e., verified or supported). Finally, there is the idea of a progressive research program, which is when each successive theory in a program corresponds to a theoretically progressive problemshift, and when at least some of these shifts are also corroborated or correspond to empirically progressive problemshifts. These three types of progressive change could be adapted as follows:

In the IR&S case, the equivalent to theoretical problemshift would be to say that a progressive problemshift (or progressive problem resolution) occurs when successive discourse bits suggest new or extra content. Whether this content is empirical or otherwise, when combined with existing content (the existing sequence of discourse bits), it can be understood to form an overall better solution to a problem shared between these bits. This is the problem that acts as a principle of continuity in that sequence. Hence, this extra suggested content works to improve the problem-solving ability of the sequence. For example, the latter bits in the sequence could explain or interpret something that the prior bits left unexplained or could suggest a system design that exemplifies the value of prior interpretations of user behavior. The extra content that successive bits provide (i.e., the generated propositions as opposed to the generative construct that produces them) correspond to Lakatos’s novel facts. In this case, they are novel propositions. That the latter bits work with the prior bits is a way of generalizing Lakatos’s idea that successive theories build on prior ones. The key difference is that for Lakatos, there is a steady accumulation of predicted novel facts, but in the IR&S case, there is a steady accumulation of propositions that have variegated functions and work to improve their predecessor bits in a way possibly different than how the prior new bit improved its own predecessor bit.

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