Lexicon of Arguments

 

I 50
Expansion/Theory/Fraassen: seductive: that theories have hidden strenghts by allowing expansions to new phenomena.
Problem: then there can never be two empirically equivalent theories because they could be distinguished by possible expansions. >Additional hypotheses.
I 51
Expansion/Theory/Fraassen: e.g. suppose experiments would have shown (counterfactually) that also the center of the gravitation system for electromagnetic waves should have been at rest - then the mechanics would have been successfully extended to electromagnetism. >Experiments.
Problem: "victorious expansions", can be distinguished between empirically equivalent theories, because they always have the same resources to construct models for phenomena - i.e. when a theory gains a victory, then also all the theories which are empirically equivalent to it gain a victory.
Better: expansions through phenomena that do not fit into a theory - these cause a weakening.
>Strength of theories.