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Falsifiability is a deductive standard of evaluation of scientific theories and hypotheses, introduced by the philosopher of science Karl Popper in his book The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934). A theory or hypothesis is falsifiable if it can be logically contradicted by an empirical test.
Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices, by studying their history, that is, by studying the process by which they came about. The term is widely used in philosophy, anthropology, and sociology.
Sir Karl Raimund Popper was an Austrian-British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the classical inductivist views on the scientific method in favour of empirical falsification. According to Popper, a theory in the empirical sciences can never be proven, but it can be falsified, meaning that it can be scrutinised with decisive experiments. Popper was opposed to the classical justificationist account of knowledge, which he replaced with critical rationalism, namely "the first non-justificational philosophy of criticism in the history of philosophy".
Dialectic, also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to establish the truth through reasoned argumentation. Dialectic resembles debate, but the concept excludes subjective elements such as emotional appeal and rhetoric. Dialectic may thus be contrasted with both the eristic, which refers to argument that aims to successfully dispute another's argument, and the didactic method, wherein one side of the conversation teaches the other. Dialectic is alternatively known as minor logic, as opposed to major logic or critique.
The Logic of Scientific Discovery is a 1959 book about the philosophy of science by the philosopher Karl Popper. Popper rewrote his book in English from the 1934 German original, titled Logik der Forschung. Zur Erkenntnistheorie der modernen Naturwissenschaft, which literally translates as, "Logic of Research: On the Epistemology of Modern Natural Science"'.
First formulated by David Hume, the problem of induction questions our reasons for believing that the future will resemble the past, or more broadly it questions predictions about unobserved things based on previous observations. This inference from the observed to the unobserved is known as "inductive inferences", and Hume, while acknowledging that everyone does and must make such inferences, argued that there is no non-circular way to justify them, thereby undermining one of the Enlightenment pillars of rationality.
Scientific evidence is evidence that serves to either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis, although scientists also use evidence in other ways, such as when applying theories to practical problems. Such evidence is expected to be empirical evidence and interpretable in accordance with the scientific method. Standards for scientific evidence vary according to the field of inquiry, but the strength of scientific evidence is generally based on the results of statistical analysis and the strength of scientific controls.
Critical rationalism is an epistemological philosophy advanced by Karl Popper on the basis that, if a statement cannot be logically deduced, it might nevertheless be possible to logically falsify it. Following Hume, Popper rejected any inductive logic that is ampliative, i.e., any logic that can provide more knowledge than deductive logic. In other words if we cannot assert it logically, we should at the least try to logically falsify it, which led Popper to his falsifiability criterion.
The principle of rationality was coined by Karl R. Popper in his Harvard Lecture of 1963, and published in his book Myth of Framework. It is related to what he called the 'logic of the situation' in an Economica article of 1944/1945, published later in his book The Poverty of Historicism. According to Popper’s rationality principle, agents act in the most adequate way according to the objective situation. It is an idealized conception of human behavior which he used to drive his model of situational analysis.
The Open Society and Its Enemies is a work on political philosophy by the philosopher Karl Popper, in which the author presents a "defence of the open society against its enemies", and offers a critique of theories of teleological historicism, according to which history unfolds inexorably according to universal laws. Popper indicts Plato, Hegel, and Marx for relying on historicism to underpin their political philosophies.
Originally, fallibilism is the philosophical principle that propositions can be accepted even though they cannot be conclusively proven or justified, or that neither knowledge nor belief is certain. The term was coined in the late nineteenth century by the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, as a response to foundationalism. Theorists, following Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper, may also refer to fallibilism as the notion that knowledge might turn out to be false. Furthermore, fallibilism is said to imply corrigibilism, the principle that propositions are open to revision. Fallibilism is often juxtaposed with infallibilism.
Verificationism, also known as the verification principle or the verifiability criterion of meaning, is the philosophical doctrine which asserts that a statement is meaningful only if it is either empirically verifiable or a truth of logic.
In epistemology, and more specifically, the sociology of knowledge, reflexivity refers to circular relationships between cause and effect, especially as embedded in human belief structures. A reflexive relationship is multi-directional when the causes and the effects affect the reflexive agent in a layered or complex sociological relationship. The complexity of this relationship can be furthered when epistemology includes religion.
The positivism dispute was a political-philosophical dispute between the critical rationalists and the Frankfurt School in 1961, about the methodology of the social sciences. It grew into a broad discussion within German sociology from 1961 to 1969. The naming itself is controversial, since it was the Frankfurt School proponents who accused the critical rationalists of being positivists—while the latter considered themselves to be opponents of positivism.
Historism is a philosophical and historiographical theory, founded in 19th-century Germany and especially influential in 19th- and 20th-century Europe. In those times there was not a single natural, humanistic or philosophical science that would not reflect, in one way or another, the historical type of thought. It pronounces the historicity of humanity and its binding to tradition.
The propensity theory of probability is a probability interpretation in which the probability is thought of as a physical propensity, disposition, or tendency of a given type of situation to yield an outcome of a certain kind, or to yield a long-run relative frequency of such an outcome.
Logic as a Positive Science is one of the major works of Italian Marxist philosopher Galvano Della Volpe. It was first published in 1950 as Logica come Scienza positiva. A second edition appeared in 1956 and according to translator, Jon Rothschild, Della Volpe was reportedly working on a third edition at the time of his death in 1968 which was never completed. The definitive, enlarged edition was published posthumously in 1969 under the slightly different title Logica Come Scienza Storica. Jon Rothschild translated the book into English for New Left Books, and was first published by them as Logic as a Positive Science in 1980.
The Poverty of Historicism is a 1944 book by the philosopher Karl Popper, in which the author argues that the idea of historicism is dangerous and bankrupt.
Noretta Koertge is an American philosopher of science noted for her work on Karl Popper and scientific rationality.
The Kuhn-Popper debate was a philosophical debate about research methodologies and the growth of knowledge that happened over a series of essays during the 1965 International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science at the University of London. The debate had three major areas of contention: the existence of a scientific method, the specific actions and practices of scientists, and the differentiation between scientific knowledge and other forms of knowledge. Initially sparked by a disagreement about the role of the normal scientist, Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper both had equally valid arguments: one prescriptive, and one realistic. Thomas Kuhn proposed a sociological model of normal science and revolutionary science to represent how research progresses under paradigms and paradigm shifts, a model that Karl Popper rejected for its deterministic implications. Popper instead proposed that science should aim to follow the hypothetico-deductive model at all times, contending that 'normality' should never be an accepted standard for scientific research. This counter-proposal sparked the debate.
References
- ↑ Boumans, M. and Davis, John B. (2015), Economic Methodology: Understanding Economics as a Science, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 92.
- ↑ Popper, Karl (2013), The Poverty of Historicism, Routledge, p. 141.
- ↑ Koertge, N. (1975), "Popper's Metaphysical Research Program for the Human Sciences", Inquiry, 18 (1975), 437–62.
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