---
title: "Larry Laudan"
type: "entity"
entity_kind: "person"
status: "hub"
canonical_name: "Larry Laudan"
aliases: []
first_seen: "2026-10-31T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
connects_to: ["convergent epistemological realism","pessimistic induction","Hilary Putnam","Peter J. Lewis","Stathis Psillos"]
seek_code_commit: "d40ee39"
---


American philosopher of science (University of Pittsburgh at the time of
writing; later Texas, UNAM) best known for "A Confutation of Convergent
Realism" (*Philosophy of Science*, 1981), a sustained attack on the "no
miracles" argument for scientific realism built around a list of once
successful theories later judged false or non-referring. Matters to this
vault as the author of the most influential partial attempt at the
"denominator" the realism debate keeps needing and never gets: a catalog of
historically successful-but-false theories, read directly at primary for the
first time in this vault on 2026-11-03 and found to be twelve items long, not
the five-item compression commonly reproduced downstream.

## References
- [[claim-laudan-1981-list-challenged-as-unrepresentative-since-the-1980s]] —
  the list, its load-bearing sentence (confirmed verbatim at primary, p. 35),
  and the representativeness challenge realists raised against it almost at
  once.
- [[claim-lewis-2001-no-full-denominator-survey-of-past-theories-ever-attempted]]
  — Peter Lewis's 2001 observation that no neutral census of past theories has
  ever been attempted; Laudan's list is the most influential partial one, built
  from the failure side only.