Konfikt teorii z doświadczeniem. O stanowiskach flozofów nauki wobec dictum „Tym gorzej dla faktów!”

Abstract

The main topic of the author’s comments is a methodological problem connected with the discrepancies between the forecasts (predictions) referring to some theories and the state of matters (referred to as an “empirical fact” too, or abbreviated as “facts;” “experiments;” “observations”) observed and expressed in some tongue, which appeared in empirical researches. In reality, but one fact of the contradiction existing between a prediction corresponding to the assumed theory and the experiment suffces to state that the confict exists indeed. The problem seized in such general terms is the classical problem of the modern theory of empirical science. In many circles of empiricists, the alleged confict used to be considered banal; a question to be possibly provided with a short commentary which left no doubts as to the unequivocal character of the methodological conclusions formulated in a given situation. The author proposes a survey of typical concepts and methodological assessments of the confict possibly existing between the empirical predictions corresponding to an elaborated theory on the one side, and the real effects of experiments; the (observed) facts on the other. A scale is presented on which some more important and better known in the Polish tradition solutions of the problem are located. Two genera of radical solutions have been located at the opposite sides of the spectrum of the discussed methodological stances: those interpreting the situation in the terms of the unquestionable primacy of the fact(s) over theories, and, on the other, the frm primacy of the theory over “crude” facts, or, in other words, the awkward effects of experiments and observations.