Scientific progress with an institutional aim

Abstract

Darrell Rowbottom has been an active participant in debates about scientific progress. In his recent work, Scientific Progress (2023), he gives a critical summary of the rival proposals and arguments during the last 15 years. But, more interestingly, Rowbottom explains the lack of consensus among philosophers of science by questioning the mainstream view that science is progressive by objective standards. Inspired by J. L. Mackie’s error theory in meta-ethics, he challenges the thesis that science has overarching shared or corporate aims, concluding that the criteria of scientific progress are ultimately local and subjective. This paper evaluates Rowbottom’s argument by defending an institutional account of the aim of science and by separating the aims of science from the standards of its progress.