Against external validity

Reiss, J

Abstract

Francesco Guala once wrote that ‘The problem of extrapolation (or external validity as it is sometimes called) is a minor scandal in the philosophy of science’. This paper agrees with the statement, but for reasons different from Guala’s. The scandal is not, or not any longer, that the problem has been ignored in the philosophy of science. The scandal is that framing the problem as one of external validity encourages poor evidential reasoning. The aim of this paper is to propose an alternative—an alternative which constitutes much better evidential reasoning about target systems of interest, and which makes do without (much) consideration of external validity.

Citation

Reiss, J. (2019). Against external validity. Synthese, 196(8), 3103-3121. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-1796-6

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 27, 2018
• Online Publication Date: May 19, 2018
• Publication Date: Aug 31, 2019
• Deposit Date: May 24, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: May 25, 2018
• Journal: Synthese
• Print ISSN: 0039-7857
• Electronic ISSN: 1573-0964
• Publisher: Springer
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 196
• Issue: 8
• Pages: 3103-3121
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-1796-6