7 - Falsification & Popper

Karl Popper (1902-94) was strongly critical of positivists

Critical Rationalism

'Wittgenstein is a dogmatist'

No theory is ever verified

dogmatic theory; theory is not affected by empirical facts

Falsificationism; the best option to distinguish science from non-science

Some theories are impossible to refute, like false consciousness in marxism

Verifiability is too strict; logically impossible and failing to acknowledge e.g. scientific value of newton

Confirmability is too weak; favouring tautology over menaingful statements

Falsifiability is the best; it must be possible to prove that a theory is wrong

Theories should not be verified or confirmed

They can be corroborated which means that attempts to falsify them have failed so far

Only theories that can be falsified are informative

they become specific and informative if falsifiable

Humans will always be looking for absolute knowledge

what we can do is to locate, remove and correct our mistakes

Knowledge grows through conjectures and refutations, trial and error

Unlike induction, deduction is logically valid

Deduction is the only way to advance science

Risky predictions are necessary

These predictions need to be tested under the severest possible circumstances

Agrees with Kant on that we can only know phenomenal world through theories

Social science are trends, not laws, because of the difficulty with finding accuracy