Against external validity

Synthese 196 (8):3103-3121 (2019)
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Abstract

Francesco Guala once wrote that ‘The problem of extrapolation 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 consideration of external validity.

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References found in this work

Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference.William R. Shadish - 2001 - Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Edited by Thomas D. Cook & Donald Thomas Campbell.
How Scientists Explain Disease.Paul Thagard - 1999 - Princeton University Press.
Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for research.Donald Thomas Campbell - 1966 - Chicago,: R. McNally. Edited by Julian C. Stanley & N. L. Gage.

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