Towards an Appraisal of Methodological Theories: Some Representative Approaches

Abstract

There are three kinds of scientific level. First level contains the historical sequences of substantive scientific theories that have been proposed concerning each domain of phenomena. Second-order traditions (level II) comprise theories of scientific method or methodologies of science. Third-order traditions or meta-methodologies (level III) comprise one or more distinct rules or principles for adjudicating between rival level II methodologies. In our paper we are concerned with three types of meta-methodology: Popper's, Lakatos' and Laudan's. These three kinds of meta-methodological theories are in various perspectives discussed. These perspectives can be reduced in principle to fact-value perspective. For this one relevant is the relation between philosophy of science and other (the so called humanistic) metasciences.