Popper: Epistemology, Misc

This paper discusses Agassi’s critique of Popper’s theory of the “empirical basis”. It argues that Popper’s theory should be interpreted with emphasis on its realism and anti-subjectivism, and as stressing a tentative inter-subjective consensus as to what is observed when tests are made. It agrees with Agassi’s critique of “sensationalism”, disagrees that there are residues of “sensationalism” in Popper’s approach, and argues that Popper’s view should be supplemented by a tentative realist metaphysics.

This paper discusses Agassi’s critique of Popper’s theory of the “empirical basis”. It argues that Popper’s theory should be interpreted with emphasis on its realism and anti-subjectivism, and as stressing a tentative inter-subjective consensus as to what is observed when tests are made. It agrees with Agassi’s critique of “sensationalism”, disagrees that there are residues of “sensationalism” in Popper’s approach, and argues that Popper’s view should be supplemented by a tentative realist metaphysics.

This paper discusses Agassi’s critique of Popper’s theory of the “empirical basis”. It argues that Popper’s theory should be interpreted with emphasis on its realism and anti-subjectivism, and as stressing a tentative inter-subjective consensus as to what is observed when tests are made. It agrees with Agassi’s critique of “sensationalism”, disagrees that there are residues of “sensationalism” in Popper’s approach, and argues that Popper’s view should be supplemented by a tentative realist metaphysics.

This paper discusses Agassi’s critique of Popper’s theory of the “empirical basis”. It argues that Popper’s theory should be interpreted with emphasis on its realism and anti-subjectivism, and as stressing a tentative inter-subjective consensus as to what is observed when tests are made. It agrees with Agassi’s critique of “sensationalism”, disagrees that there are residues of “sensationalism” in Popper’s approach, and argues that Popper’s view should be supplemented by a tentative realist metaphysics.

‘Situational Analysis’ constitutes Popper's methodological proposal for the social sciences. There is an apparent inconsistency in the fact that, on the one hand, Popper maintains that we lear...

Entender algo sobre un mundo que se nos presenta de modo desordenado e incompleto constituye buena parte de la tarea de la filosofía y de la ciencia. La racionalidad, los modelos, y el mundo social introducen preocupaciones propias de la filosofía de la ciencia en general y de la epistemología de la economía en particular. Los aportes de Popper, Lawson, Mäki, Hayek y Cartwright se expresan en estos trazos como intentos abiertos para alcanzar a comprender nuestro mundo.

Karl Popper presenta al realismo como su posición acerca del conocimiento, distinguiéndola del instrumentalismo y del esencialismo. Ataca del primero la consideración meramente instrumental de las teorías científicas. Del segundo, critica que sostenga la posibilidad de establecer la verdad definitiva de las teorías, y que éstas describen esencias. El instrumentalismo coincide con Popper en que no hay conocimiento de esencias a través de las teorías científicas, pero de ello infiere que las teorías son meros instrumentos. Popper señala que el carácter (...) meramente instrumental de las teorías las vuelve irrefutables. Porque un instrumento de predicción no puede ser refutado (cf. Popper (1972a, p. 149)). Además, el instrumentalismo no puede explicar el interés del científico por la verdad. Su esencialismo modificado, toma del esencialismo que “el científico aspira a una verdadera descripción del mundo o de algunos de sus aspectos, y a una explicación verdadera de los hechos observables” (Popper, 1972a, p. 150). Pero agrega que no es posible saber con certeza si sus hallazgos son verdaderos. Resaltar el carácter conjetural de las teorías científicas no implica disminuir la aspiración del científico a describir algo real. (shrink)

In this chapter, I argue that Karl Popper was a communitarian philosopher. This will surprise some readers. Liberals often tout Popper as one of their champions. Indeed, there is no doubt that Popper shared much in common with liberals. However, I will argue that Popper rejected a central, though perhaps not essential, pillar of liberal theory, namely, individualism. This claim may seem to contradict Popper's professed methodological individualism. Yet I argue that Popper was a methodological individualist in name only. In (...) fact, methodological individualism faded from Popper's vocabulary as he moved institutions and situational analysis more firmly to centre-stage. Popper's focus on institutions and situations constitutes what I call his communitarianism. If my interpretation is correct, then theorists in the socio logy of scientific knowledge and communitarian epistemology should reconsider their long-standing distrust of Popper's philosophy. Indeed, they may have much to gain by treating Popper as a friend rather than a foe. (shrink)

We ordinarily assume that we have reliable knowledge of our immediate surroundings, so much so that almost all the time we entrust our lives to the truth of what we take ourselves to know, without a moment’s thought. But if, as Karl Popper and others have maintained, all our knowledge is conjectural, then this habitual assumption that our common sense knowledge of our environment is secure and trustworthy would seem to be an illusion. Popper’s philosophy of science, in particular, fails (...) to do justice to the distinction we ordinarily draw between secure knowledge and mere conjecture. But Popper’s philosophy of science, in particular his attempted solution to the problem of induction, is defective. It fails to take into account that physics, in only accepting unified theories, even though endlessly empirically more successful disunified rivals are always available, makes the persistent metaphysical assumption that all disunified theories are false. Once this point is acknowledged, it becomes clear that a new conception of scientific method is required which sees science as making a hierarchy of metaphysical assumptions concerning the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe. This provides a framework of relatively unproblematic assumptions and associated methods of science within which much more problematic assumptions and associated methods can be critically assessed and improved. This hierarchical view seems at first to intensify the problem of distinguishing certainty from conjecture, in that it emphasizes that scientific knowledge, and even humble common sense knowledge, contain usually unacknowledged cosmological conjectures. But actually it explicates the basis we have for drawing the distinction between trustworthy knowledge and mere conjecture, and even goes some way towards providing a rationale for this distinction, in so far as one exists. (shrink)

After Hegel's death, with the crisis of idealism and the triumphs of science, philosophy began to suffer an identity crisis, the legacy of which characterises 20th century epistemology. Against this background, the positions interpreted and compared in this study are distinguished by their innovative approaches to a solution: the rehabilitation, re-establishment and interdisciplinary expansion of epistemology, the reclaiming of its role of justifying orientation in everyday life and knowledge instead of its development as a narrow and specialised academic discipline. These (...) approaches provide a common reminder and challenge to contemporary philosophy not to bury the problematic dimensions of epistemology, including the means of justifcation. (shrink)

The idea that we acquire knowledge by trial and error has been one of the truly great ideas of the twentieth century. As no reader of his philosophical and autobiographical work could have failed to notice, Karl Popper credits himself for having invented this idea. The theory of trial and error or, in Popper's words, the Searchlight theory of knowledge and mind, is not just a part of Popper's comprehensive philosophy but rather one of its key features. It is at (...) the bottom of some of his most spectacular achievements in methodology, epistemology, the philosophy of biology, and even political philosophy. Indeed, it is put forward at once as a model for the growth of individual knowledge (both human and animal), the growth of life (Darwin's theory of evolution), and the growth of scientific knowledge (philosophy of science). As happens so often with innovative ideas, the Searchlight theory derives much of its glamour from the theory it rejects: the view of the mind being a tabula rasa and sense perception the origin of all (human) knowledge. Popper nicknames this empiricists' view as the Bucket theory since it conceives of the mind as nothing but the conduit for sense-impressions, an empty bucket to be filled by the accumulation and storage of information. 1 In his hands the Bucket theory collapses under the strain of philosophical arguments and scientific facts and is replaced by a theory which maintains that our knowledge of the physical world is drawn from our mind and constructed from the repertoire of knowledge dispositions we already possess. Acquiring dispositions proceeds according to the method of trial and error elimination. This method, Popper contends, consists essentially of three stages: forming a problem or expectation, trying out a number of solutions of the problem, and eliminating or discarding false solutions as erroneous. 2 A key feature of Popper's theory of trial and error elimination, and the reason for speaking of a Searchlight theory of knowledge and mind, is his insistence that problems or expectations take precedence over observations. Observations are always preceded by expectations, points of view, questions or problems which, as a searchlight, illuminate a certain area, thereby enabling the organism or the scientist to know what to observe in the first place. -/- The question arises how and when did Popper come to this theory of the growth of knowledge and mind which was to have such radical implications for the philosophy of science, epistemology, and the philosophy of psychology? My aim in this article is to trace the roots of his theory of the Searchlight. The earliest traces of the theory are to be found in his unpublished dissertation, Zur Methodenfrage der Cognitive psychology (1928). Here I will focus upon this "hasty last minute affair" written in the tradition of early German cognitive psychology and supervised by one of its most outstanding proponents, Karl Bühler. Scrutiny of this manuscript, however, reveals not so much the formative influence of Bühler as that of Otto Selz. Indeed, I will argue that Popper borrowed his crucially important Searchlight theory from Selz. Thus having found the origin of the key notion of his epistemology in psychology, the relation between psychology and philosophy in Popper's work, always fraught with tension, is up for thorough reconsideration. (shrink)

The relevance of the Popperian heritage to the internalism-externalism issue is explored. First, the nature of the controversy between Popper and his disciples, Watkins and Zahar, about basic statements is discussed. Popper's resistance to Watkins' and Zahar's elaborations is suggested to be motivated by his implicit antiinternalist attitude that is misnamed by him as antipsychologism. Next, instead of a conventionalist, an externalist reading of Popper's mention about the role of a „scientific jury” in accepting basic statements is offered. It is (...) doubtful, however, whether Popper can be considered an externalist, for he rejects the concept of justified belief altogether. Still, it is suggested that future elaboration of his ideas may help to explain away the circularity apparent in Goldman's reliabilism and arrive at a more tenable form of externalism. (shrink)

The Myth of the Framework, Popper attacks the doctrine that truth is relative to one's intellectual background. The same collection refers to his "situational analysis." This article explores the implications of both for spatial planning. Spatial planners have to justify proposals. The article first summarizes earlier work on planning methodology evolving around the rationality principle and the implications for it of Popper's work for how to do this. It then discusses the notion of the definition of the decision situation, which (...) flows from this principle. This, of course, implies taking a leaf out of Popper's book where he discusses situational analysis. The article then gives an account of the author's work on Dutch planning doctrine, relating it to the definition of decision situations in planning and confronting it with Popper's strictures against The Myth of the Framework. The conclusion is that, whereas in the sciences that are after explain ing reality in terms of universal laws, Popper's argument holds, in planning it does not. Planning is about the search for the right course of action. In it, Popper's concern with fighting relativism and what he calls "justification" is misplaced. The quality of decisions depends on the position and the concerns of the decision taker. Relativism is in-built and so is the need to justify decisions. (shrink)

Scholars Karl R. Popper and Thomas S. Kuhn developed new frameworks that helped shape practical science policies and contributed to a greater understanding of the power and limitations of science. Popper did not accept induction as a method of arriving at scientific conclusions and rejected the justification of scientific theories and hypotheses. On the other hand, Kuhn advocated the progress of science and accepted some principles of scientific practices, including law, theory, instrumentation and application. -/- .

Karl Popper attempted to give an account of scientific research as the rational pursuit of the truth about nature without any appeal to what he took to be the fictitious notion of non-demonstrative or inductive support. Deductive inference can be seen to be inference enough for science, he claimed, once we appreciate the power of data to refute theory. Many of the standard objections to Popper's account purport to show that his deductivism actually entails a radical scepticism about the possibility (...) of scientific knowledge. Some of these objections appear unanswerable in the context of the traditional analysis of knowledge as justified true belief; but this is neither a conception of knowledge that Popper himself accepted nor one that is currently in fashion. Reliabilism, the view that knowledge is a true belief generated by a reliable method, is now a popular replacement for the traditional analysis and one that is closer to Popper's own conception of knowledge. My aim in this essay is to consider in brief compass the prospects of a reliabilist reading of Popper's account of science. Such a reading makes it possible to turn some of the standard objections and helps to show which of Popper's views should be accepted and which rejected. (shrink)

The question of objectivity asks how we can bridge the gap between ourselves and the world outside us. It is the epistemological manifestation of the problem of alienation. This dissertation is in two parts. The first part develops a notion of basic objectivity using the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. The second part attempts to show the relationship between this notion of objectivity and the contemporary scientific methodology and world view, as interpreted in the works of Karl Popper. ;The key to (...) a basic objectivity lies in an experiential recognition that at the most fundamental level the self and the world are indistinguishable. The true "critical" question concerns, not bridging the gap, but an examination of the grounds for maintaining such a distinction. It terms of Thomistic psychology, objectivity can be considered a habit or disposition by which the self measures and is measured by the world in the mode of their common being. ;Many of the differences between Aquinas and Popper are terminological, historical, or due to different emphases of interest. A common language can best be established at the level of formal logic. Popper has worked his way out of many of the positions characteristic of the modern period and in fact, on several issues, stands closer to Aquinas than to most of his contemporaries. As compared to Aquinas, Popper's greatest deficiencies are poor technique in the art of defining, and the lack of a systematic utilization of the notion of principles. His main contributions are his emphasis on theory and on a methodology for the growth of conjectural knowledge. (shrink)

Karl Popper’s Objective Knowledge stands at the threshold of his last major philosophical phase, the period from his retirement from the London School of Economics in 1969 until his death in 1994. The two great books that he wrote before he came to London, Logik der Forschung and The Open Society and Its Enemies, contain much more than the innovations in the theory of scientific method and the theory of democracy for which they are famous. Logik der Forschung, translated into (...) English as The Logic of Scientific Discovery, is by no means just a tract, even a revolutionary one, on the methods of science, since about one third of the text is devoted to searchingly original treatments of the frequency theory of probability and of the interpretation of quantum mechanics, whilst the unpublished manuscript on which the book was based, Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie, at whose content it often hints, presents a wealth of significant material on the psychology of human learning and its biological context. Popper had, after all, been a student of Karl B¨uhler, and had absorbed the theories of problem solving developed within the W¨urzburg School. The Open Society and Its Enemies, for its part, is not so much a book defending democratic liberalism as a defence of democratic liberalism nestling within a book that discusses every other topic under the sun. It offers profound and provocative studies of the thought of Plato and Marx, an abundance of scholarly, if often controversial, historical interpretations of the work of Heraclitus, Aristotle, Hegel, J. S. Mill, Wittgenstein, Mannheim, and others, the elements of a new theory of rationality, and many elucidations of the workings of science that go beyond what is explicit in Logik der Forschung. One insight worth mentioning, since it is little known, is the clear recognition in section II of Chapter 11 that most important advances in science are revolutionary, not cumulative; a commonplace today perhaps, but one that many philosophers attribute to Kuhn. Another insight, also often forgotten, is the emphasis in Chapter 23 on the social character of science, which acts as the main custodian of its claim to objectivity. (shrink)