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Updated: Oct 28, 2025

Perspectives on Neuroscience

Perspectives on Neuroscience

Published on: July 31, 2007

Understanding scientific progress: the noetic account.

Finnur Dellsén^1,2

¹Faculty of History and Philosophy, University of Iceland, 101 Reykjavík, Iceland.

|July 19, 2021

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Scientific progress involves cognitive change. This occurs when research is publicly shared, enabling broader understanding and improvement in scientific knowledge.

Keywords:

Dependence relations Knowledge Scientific progress The noetic account Truthlikeness Understanding

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Area of Science:

Philosophy of Science
Epistemology

Background:

Defining scientific progress is a key challenge in the philosophy of science.
Existing accounts often focus on truthlikeness or knowledge accumulation.

Purpose of the Study:

To propose and defend a novel interpretation of scientific progress.
To define scientific progress in terms of cognitive change and public accessibility of results.

Main Methods:

Conceptual analysis of scientific progress.
Comparison of the proposed account with rival theories (truthlikeness, knowledge accumulation).

Main Results:

Scientific progress is best understood as a cognitive change facilitated by public accessibility of scientific findings.
This account offers advantages over those based solely on truthlikeness or knowledge accumulation.

Conclusions:

Public availability of scientific results is crucial for genuine scientific improvement.
The proposed cognitive change model offers a more robust framework for understanding scientific advancement.