On the Success of Scientific Theories

[JuliaL]

I notice that you haven't defined what it means for a theory to be false. I imagine theories that are empirically adequate may form a hierarchy of lesser and lesser demonstrability, but I don't know what it would mean to say a theory is false. If lack of accuracy defines falsehood, then all (past and present) theories end up being false. Perhaps this points to a deeper problem in that the binary values true and false tend to gut anything we can say about actual theories because accuracy of predictions (demonstration) is a gradated property, not a binary one.

Seems to me 'false' is just 'not true.'
But I haven't yet seen (other than my own) a functional definition of 'truth' here.


Using the definition of 'truth correctly predicts future events' then everything remains unproven in the present.
Using 'truth is whatever is consistent with prior experience' means that 'false' is whatever doesn't conform with the past. Degrees of falsehood would then be proportional to that lack of conformity.

Is there another?