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1.А.Г. Спиркин "

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1.А.Г. Спиркин "Философия"
2.Sylvian Gibangu "Karl Popper and the Social Sciences"
3. К.Поппер "Логика Научного знания"
4.М.Ривет "Критический рационализм и 'действительная наука'"
5.John Wettersten "Корни критического рационализма"
6. Что может считаться фальсифицируемой и не фальсифицируемой гипотезой: https://courses.vcu.edu/PHY-rhg/astron/html/mod/006/index.html
7. Философская методология:
https://research-methodology.net/research-philosophy/
8. Энциклопедия Философии университета Standford "К.Поппер"
9. Поппер, теория фальсификации
https://www.simplypsychology.org/Karl-Popper.html

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Критический рационализм представил нам методологию, которая помогла бы нам принимать лишь разумные и рациональные решения. Через ее методологию, нам дается возможность определить грань между настоящими науками и псевдо-науками, то есть тем самым происходит решение проблемы демаркации. Однако существует значительный минус того, что, принимая данную методологию, мы признаем, что в науке нет ничего абсолютно достоверного. То есть любое знание носит лишь гипотетический характер. Следовательно, данная методология также не может быть универсальной и применимой ко всему, ведь существуют определенные положения, которые не требуют доказательств (возьмем те же различные аксиомы геометрии про свойства фигур). Но в то же время не стоит отрицать вклад критического рационализма как метод познания чего-либо. Рост научного знания происходит через выдвижение все новых и новых смелых предположений, гипотез и их опровержении. Так мы и решаем научные проблемы.

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Критический рационализм и "действительная наука" - М.Ривет

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Критический рационализм и "действительная наука" - М.Ривет

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Логика научного исследования - К.Поппер

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Логика научного исследования - К.Поппер

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Принцип фальсифицируемости 

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Принцип фальсифицируемости 

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«Логика научного исследования» является одной из главных работ Поппера, признанной во всем мире. В ее первой части Портер представил принцип фальфицируемости, который представляет собой способность опровергнуть выдвигаемое утверждение, гипотезу, теорию всевозможными доказательствами. Предлагая данный метод, Поппер подразумевал, что решит тем самым проблему демаркации (разделение науки и псевдо-науки) и проблему индукции (обобщения о свойствах одного класса объектов на основе некоторого числа наблюдений отдельных экземпляров этого класса). Выдвигая такой способ решения, Поппер стал задумываться над тем, подошел ли бы данный принцип социальным наукам.

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Карл Поппер и социальные науки

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Карл Поппер и социальные науки

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Социальные науки - эмпиричны или же нет?

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Социальные науки - эмпиричны или же нет?

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До сих пор нет точного ответа на вопрос: социальные науки – эмпиричны или не эмпиричны. Поппер классифицировал их как эмпиричными. Для Поппера существовал один существенный фактор, который представляет собой эмпирический подход. В традиционном понимании, эмпирические науки – науки, которые имеют дело с экспериментом и наблюдением, используя индукцию как свой единственный метод анализа. Как нам известно, в индукции мы идем от общего к частному. Поппер же считал, что эмпирические науки в своей методологии выходят за рамки ограничений индукции

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Какая методология должна быть у социальных наук?

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Какая методология должна быть у социальных наук?

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Поппер считал, что так как фундаментальная проблема социальных наук связана с объяснением объяснять и понимать события с точки зрения действия человека и социальных ситуации. Большое значение, акцент делается именно на социальных ситуации». Исходя из этого, Поппер считает, что методология, на которую должны опереться социальные науки должно стать слияние индукции и дедукции.

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Применение принципа фальсифицируемости на теории экономики (кривая Филипса)

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Применение принципа фальсифицируемости на теории экономики (кривая Филипса)

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По кривой Филипса безработица обратно пропорциональна показателю инфляции. Такая гипотеза была выдвинута на основе того, что во время экономического роста существует высокая занятость, рост з/п, цен. В то время как спады обычно характеризуются безработицей, низким ростом заработной платы (ее снижением), идеальным примером является Первый Мировой Экономический Кризис ("Великая депрессия"). Так и было, пока не наступила "стагфляция" (существовании стагнации экономики одновременно с инфляцией). Теория Филипса имела место быть, так как на занятость в большей степени повлияла неожиданная инфляция, но, когда инфляция была ожидаема, предприятия ее уже учитывали при планировании своей деятельности (то есть уровень занятости не так сильно зависел от нее). Таким образом теория Филипса была опровергнута, имеет право называться научной.

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Фальсифицируемость и психология

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Фальсифицируемость и психология

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Основы психоанализа Фрейда: существуют такие понятие как ЭГО (Я), Супер-ЭГО (Сверх-я), Ид (Оно). Т.е. существует разум (ЭГО), которое является синтезом конфликта между обществом (супер-ЭГО) и бессознательной части психики человека (Оно). Ни один из данных объектов не находились под наблюдением. По определению, это нельзя наблюдать. Таким образом, невозможно сделать никаких наблюдений, которые могли бы доказать неправоту Фрейда, то есть она не фальсифицируема. Следовательно, она не может быть названа научной.

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Некоторые примеры фальсифицируемых и нефальсифицируемых гипотез

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Некоторые примеры фальсифицируемых и нефальсифицируемых гипотез

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1. Life

Karl Raimund Popper was born on 28 July 1902 in Vienna, which at that time could make some claim to be the cultural epicentre of the western world. His parents, who were of Jewish origin, brought him up in an atmosphere which he was later to describe as 'decidedly bookish'. His father was a lawyer by profession, but he also took a keen interest in the classics and in philosophy, and communicated to his son an interest in social and political issues which he was to never lose. His mother inculcated in him such a passion for music that for a time he seriously contemplated taking it up as a career, and indeed he initially chose the history of music as a second subject for his Ph.D. examination. Subsequently, his love for music became one of the inspirational forces in the development of his thought, and manifested itself in his highly original interpretation of the relationship between dogmatic and critical thinking, in his account of the distinction between objectivity and subjectivity, and, most importantly, in the growth of his hostility towards all forms of historicism, including historicist ideas about the nature of the 'progressive' in music. The young Karl attended the local Realgymnasium, where he was unhappy with the standards of the teaching, and, after an illness which kept him at home for a number of months, he left to attend the University of Vienna in 1918. However, he did not formally enroll at the University by taking the matriculation examination for another four years. 1919 was in many respects the most important formative year of his intellectual life. In that year he became heavily involved in left-wing politics, joined the Association of Socialist School Students, and became for a time a Marxist. However, he was quickly disillusioned with the doctrinaire character of the latter, and soon abandoned it entirely. He also discovered the psychoanalytic theories of Freud and Adler (he served briefly as a voluntary social worker with deprived children in one of the latter's clinics in the 1920s), and listened entranced to a lecture which Einstein gave in Vienna on relativity theory. The dominance of the critical spirit in Einstein, and its total absence in Marx, Freud and Adler, struck Popper as being of fundamental importance: the pioneers of psychoanalysis, he came to think, couched their theories in terms which made them amenable only to confirmation, while Einstein's theory, crucially, had testable implications which, if false, would have falsified the theory itself.

Popper had a rather melancholic personality and took some time to settle on a career; he trained as a cabinetmaker, obtained a primary school teaching diploma in 1925 and qualified to teach mathematics and physics in secondary school in 1929. He undertook a doctoral programme with the department of psychology at the University of Vienna the under the supervision of Karl Bühler, who, with Otto Külpe, was one of the founder members of the Würzburg school of experimental psychology. Popper's project was initially designed as a psychological investigation of human memory, on which he had conducted initial research. However, the subject matter of a planned introductory chapter on methodology assumed a position of increasing pre-eminence and this resonated with Bühler, who, as a distinguished Kantian scholar, a professor of philosophy as well as psychology, had famously addressed the issue of the contemporary 'crisis in psychology'. This 'crisis', for Bühler, related to the question of the unity of psychology and had been generated by the proliferation of then competing paradigms within psychology which had undermined the hitherto dominant associationist one and problematized the question of method. Accordingly, under Bühler's direction, Popper switched his topic to the methodological problem of cognitive psychology and received his doctorate in 1928 for his dissertation "Die Methodenfrage der Denkpsychologie". In extending Bühler's Kantian approach to the crisis in the dissertation, Popper critiqued Moritz Schlick's physicalist programme for a scientific psychology based ultimately upon the transformation of psychology into a science of brain processes. This latter ideal, Popper argued, was misconceived, but the issues raised by it ultimately had the effect of refocusing his attention from Bühler's question of the unity of psychology to that of its scientificity, and this philosophical focus on questions of method, objectivity and claims to scientific status was to become a principal life-long concern for him. This also brought the orientation of his thought into line with that of such contemporary 'analytic' philosophers as Frege and Russell as well as that of many members of the Vienna Circle and led him to effectively abandon psychology for philosophy of science.

Popper married Josephine Anna Henninger ('Hennie') in 1930, and she oversaw his welfare with unflagging support and devotion, serving additionally as his amanuensis until her death in 1985. At an early stage of their marriage they decided that they would never have children, a decision which Popper was able to look back on in later life with apparent equanimity. In 1937 Popper took up a position teaching philosophy at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, where he was to remain for the duration of the Second World War, though he had a rather tense relationship with his head of department. Additionally, Hennie had difficulty adapting to life away from her native Vienna and homesickness made her increasingly unhappy; this was exacerbated by the sheer relentlessness of Popper's personal work ethic, which they both found exhausting.

The annexation of Austria in 1938 became the catalyst which prompted Popper to refocus his writings on social and political philosophy and he published The Open Society and Its Enemies, his critique of totalitarianism, in 1945. In 1946 he moved to England to teach at the London School of Economics, and became professor of logic and scientific method at the University of London in 1949. From this point on his reputation and stature as a philosopher of science and social thinker grew enormously, and he continued to write prolifically-a number of his works, particularly The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959), are now widely seen as pioneering classics in the field. However, he combined a combative personality with a zeal for self-aggrandisement that did little to endear him to professional colleagues at a personal level. He was ill-at-ease in the philosophical milieu of post-war Britain which was, as he saw it, fixated with trivial linguistic concerns dictated by Wittgenstein, whom he considered to be his nemesis. Popper was a somewhat paradoxical man, whose theoretic commitment to the primacy of rational criticism was counterpointed by hostility towards anything that amounted to less than total acceptance of his own thought, and in Britain-as had been the case in Vienna-he became increasingly an isolated figure, though his ideas continued to inspire admiration.

In later years Popper came under philosophical criticism for his prescriptive approach to science and his emphasis on the logic of falsification. This was superseded in the eyes of many by the socio-historical approach taken by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), who-in arguing for the incommensurability of rival scientific paradigms-reintroduced the idea that change in science is essentially dialectical and is dependent upon the establishment of consensus within communities of researchers.

Popper was knighted in 1965, and retired from the University of London in 1969, though he remained active as a writer, broadcaster and lecturer until his death in 1994. (For more detail on Popper's life, cf. his Unended Quest).

2. Backdrop to his Thought

A number of biographical features may be identified as having a particular influence upon Popper's thought. In the first place, his teenage flirtation with Marxism left him thoroughly familiar with the Marxist view of economics, class-war, and history. Secondly, he was appalled by the failure of the democratic parties to stem the rising tide of fascism in his native Austria in the 1920s and 1930s, and the effective welcome extended to it by the Marxists. The latter acted on the ideological grounds that it constituted what they believed to be a necessary dialectical step towards the implosion of capitalism and the ultimate revolutionary victory of communism. This was one factor which led to the much feared Anschluss, the annexation of Austria by the German Reich, the anticipation of which forced Popper into permanent exile from his native country. The Poverty of Historicism (1944) and The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), his most impassioned and brilliant social works, are as a consequence a powerful defence of democratic liberalism as a social and political philosophy, and a devastating critique of the principal philosophical presuppositions underpinning all forms of totalitarianism. Thirdly, as we have seen, Popper was profoundly impressed by the differences between the allegedly 'scientific' theories of Freud and Adler and the revolution effected by Einstein's theory of relativity in physics in the first two decades of this century. The main difference between them, as Popper saw it, was that while Einstein's theory was highly 'risky', in the sense that it was possible to deduce consequences from it which were, in the light of the then dominant Newtonian physics, highly improbable (e.g., that light is deflected towards solid bodies-confirmed by Eddington's experiments in 1919), and which would, if they turned out to be false, falsify the whole theory, nothing could, even in principle, falsify psychoanalytic theories. These latter, Popper came to feel, have more in common with primitive myths than with genuine science. That is to say, he saw that what is apparently the chief source of strength of psychoanalysis, and the principal basis on which its claim to scientific status is grounded, viz. its capability to accommodate, and explain, every possible form of human behaviour, is in fact a critical weakness, for it entails that it is not, and could not be, genuinely predictive. Psychoanalytic theories by their nature are insufficiently precise to have negative implications, and so are immunised from experiential falsification.

The Marxist account of history too, Popper held, is not scientific, although it differs in certain crucial respects from psychoanalysis. For Marxism, Popper believed, had been initially scientific, in that Marx had postulated a theory which was genuinely predictive. However, when these predictions were not in fact borne out, the theory was saved from falsification by the addition of ad hoc hypotheses which made it compatible with the facts. By this means, Popper asserted, a theory which was initially genuinely scientific degenerated into pseudo-scientific dogma.

These factors combined to make Popper take falsifiability as his criterion for demarcating science from non-science: if a theory is incompatible with possible empirical observations it is scientific; conversely, a theory which is compatible with all such observations, either because, as in the case of Marxism, it has been modified solely to accommodate such observations, or because, as in the case of psychoanalytic theories, it is consistent with all possible observations, is unscientific. For Popper, however, to assert that a theory is unscientific, is not necessarily to hold that it is unenlightening, still less that it is meaningless, for it sometimes happens that a theory which is unscientific (because it is unfalsifiable) at a given time may become falsifiable, and thus scientific, with the development of technology, or with the further articulation and refinement of the theory. Further, even purely mythogenic explanations have performed a valuable function in the past in expediting our understanding of the nature of reality.

3. The Problem of Demarcation

As Popper represents it, the central problem in the philosophy of science is that of demarcation, i.e., of distinguishing between science and what he terms 'non-science', under which heading he ranks, amongst others, logic, metaphysics, psychoanalysis, and Adler's individual psychology. Popper is unusual amongst contemporary philosophers in that he accepts the validity of the Humean critique of induction, and indeed, goes beyond it in arguing that induction is never actually used in science. However, he does not concede that this entails the scepticism which is associated with Hume, and argues that the Baconian/Newtonian insistence on the primacy of 'pure' observation, as the initial step in the formation of theories, is completely misguided: all observation is selective and theory-laden-there are no pure or theory-free observations. In this way he destabilises the traditional view that science can be distinguished from non-science on the basis of its inductive methodology; in contradistinction to this, Popper holds that there is no unique methodology specific to science. Science, like virtually every other human, and indeed organic, activity, Popper believes, consists largely of problem-solving.

Popper accordingly repudiates induction and rejects the view that it is the characteristic method of scientific investigation and inference, substituting falsifiability in its place. It is easy, he argues, to obtain evidence in favour of virtually any theory, and he consequently holds that such 'corroboration', as he terms it, should count scientifically only if it is the positive result of a genuinely 'risky' prediction, which might conceivably have been false. For Popper, a theory is scientific only if it is refutable by a conceivable event. Every genuine test of a scientific theory, then, is logically an attempt to refute or to falsify it, and one genuine counter-instance falsifies the whole theory. In a critical sense, Popper's theory of demarcation is based upon his perception of the logical asymmetry which holds between verification and falsification: it is logically impossible to conclusively verify a universal proposition by reference to experience (as Hume saw clearly), but a single counter-instance conclusively falsifies the corresponding universal law. In a word, an exception, far from 'proving' a rule, conclusively refutes it.

Every genuine scientific theory then, in Popper's view, is prohibitive, in the sense that it forbids, by implication, particular events or occurrences. As such it can be tested and falsified, but never logically verified. Thus Popper stresses that it should not be inferred from the fact that a theory has withstood the most rigorous testing, for however long a period of time, that it has been verified; rather we should recognise that such a theory has received a high measure of corroboration. and may be provisionally retained as the best available theory until it is finally falsified (if indeed it is ever falsified), and/or is superseded by a better theory.

Popper has always drawn a clear distinction between the logic of falsifiability and its applied methodology. The logic of his theory is utterly simple: if a single ferrous metal is unaffected by a magnetic field it cannot be the case that all ferrous metals are affected by magnetic fields. Logically speaking, a scientific law is conclusively falsifiable although it is not conclusively verifiable. Methodologically, however, the situation is much more complex: no observation is free from the possibility of error-consequently we may question whether our experimental result was what it appeared to be.

Thus, while advocating falsifiability as the criterion of demarcation for science, Popper explicitly allows for the fact that in practice a single conflicting or counter-instance is never sufficient methodologically to falsify a theory, and that scientific theories are often retained even though much of the available evidence conflicts with them, or is anomalous with respect to them. Scientific theories may, and do, arise genetically in many different ways, and the manner in which a particular scientist comes to formulate a particular theory may be of biographical interest, but it is of no consequence as far as the philosophy of science is concerned. Popper stresses in particular that there is no unique way, no single method such as induction, which functions as the route to scientific theory, a view which Einstein personally endorsed with his affirmation that 'There is no logical path leading to [the highly universal laws of science]. They can only be reached by intuition, based upon something like an intellectual love of the objects of experience'. Science, in Popper's view, starts with problems rather than with observations-it is, indeed, precisely in the context of grappling with a problem that the scientist makes observations in the first instance: his observations are selectively designed to test the extent to which a given theory functions as a satisfactory solution to a given problem.

On this criterion of demarcation physics, chemistry, and (non-introspective) psychology, amongst others, are sciences, psychoanalysis is a pre-science (i.e., it undoubtedly contains useful and informative truths, but until such time as psychoanalytical theories can be formulated in such a manner as to be falsifiable, they will not attain the status of scientific theories), and astrology and phrenology are pseudo-sciences. Formally, then, Popper's theory of demarcation may be articulated as follows: where a 'basic statement' is to be understood as a particular observation-report, then we may say that a theory is scientific if and only if it divides the class of basic statements into the following two non-empty sub-classes: (a) the class of all those basic statements with which it is inconsistent, or which it prohibits-this is the class of its potential falsifiers (i.e., those statements which, if true, falsify the whole theory), and (b) the class of those basic statements with which it is consistent, or which it permits (i.e., those statements which, if true, corroborate it, or bear it out).

4. The Growth of Human Knowledge

For Popper accordingly, the growth of human knowledge proceeds from our problems and from our attempts to solve them. These attempts involve the formulation of theories which, if they are to explain anomalies which exist with respect to earlier theories, must go beyond existing knowledge and therefore require a leap of the imagination. For this reason, Popper places special emphasis on the role played by the independent creative imagination in the formulation of theory. The centrality and priority of problems in Popper's account of science is paramount, and it is this which leads him to characterise scientists as 'problem-solvers'. Further, since the scientist begins with problems rather than with observations or 'bare facts', Popper argues that the only logical technique which is an integral part of scientific method is that of the deductive testing of theories which are not themselves the product of any logical operation. In this deductive procedure conclusions are inferred from a tentative hypothesis. These conclusions are then compared with one another and with other relevant statements to determine whether they falsify or corroborate the hypothesis. Such conclusions are not directly compared with the facts, Popper stresses, simply because there are no 'pure' facts available; all observation-statements are theory-laden, and are as much a function of purely subjective factors (interests, expectations, wishes, etc.) as they are a function of what is objectively real.

How then does the deductive procedure work? Popper specifies four steps ( Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1.3, 9):

(a) The first is formal, a testing of the internal consistency of the theoretical system to see if it involves any contradictions.

(b) The second step is semi-formal, the axiomatising of the theory to distinguish between its empirical and its logical elements. In performing this step the scientist makes the logical form of the theory explicit. Failure to do this can lead to category-mistakes-the scientist ends up asking the wrong questions, and searches for empirical data where none are available. Most scientific theories contain analytic (i.e., a priori) and synthetic elements, and it is necessary to axiomatise them in order to distinguish the two clearly.

(c) The third step is the comparing of the new theory with existing ones to determine whether it constitutes an advance upon them. If it does not constitute such an advance, it will not be adopted. If, on the other hand, its explanatory success matches that of the existing theories, and additionally, it explains some hitherto anomalous phenomenon, or solves some hitherto unsolvable problems, it will be deemed to constitute an advance upon the existing theories, and will be adopted. Thus science involves theoretical progress. However, Popper stresses that we ascertain whether one theory is better than another by deductively testing both theories, rather than by induction. For this reason, he argues that a theory is deemed to be better than another if (while unfalsified) it has greater empirical content, and therefore greater predictive power than its rival. The classic illustration of this in physics was the replacement of Newton's theory of universal gravitation by Einstein's theory of relativity. This elucidates the nature of science as Popper sees it: at any given time there will be a number of conflicting theories or conjectures, some of which will explain more than others. The latter will consequently be provisionally adopted. In short, for Popper any theory \(X\) is better than a 'rival' theory \(Y\) if \(X\) has greater empirical content, and hence greater predictive power, than \(Y\).

(d) The fourth and final step is the testing of a theory by the empirical application of the conclusions derived from it. If such conclusions are shown to be true, the theory is corroborated (but never verified). If the conclusion is shown to be false, then this is taken as a signal that the theory cannot be completely correct (logically the theory is falsified), and the scientist begins his quest for a better theory. He does not, however, abandon the present theory until such time as he has a better one to substitute for it. More precisely, the method of theory-testing is as follows: certain singular propositions are deduced from the new theory-these are predictions, and of special interest are those predictions which are 'risky' (in the sense of being intuitively implausible or of being startlingly novel) and experimentally testable. From amongst the latter the scientist next selects those which are not derivable from the current or existing theory-of particular importance are those which contradict the current or existing theory. He then seeks a decision as regards these and other derived statements by comparing them with the results of practical applications and experimentation. If the new predictions are borne out, then the new theory is corroborated (and the old one falsified), and is adopted as a working hypothesis. If the predictions are not borne out, then they falsify the theory from which they are derived. Thus Popper retains an element of empiricism: for him scientific method does involve making an appeal to experience. But unlike traditional empiricists, Popper holds that experience cannot determine theory (i.e., we do not argue or infer from observation to theory), it rather delimits it: it shows which theories are false, not which theories are true. Moreover, Popper also rejects the empiricist doctrine that empirical observations are, or can be, infallible, in view of the fact that they are themselves theory-laden.

The general picture of Popper's philosophy of science, then is this: Hume's philosophy demonstrates that there is a contradiction implicit in traditional empiricism, which holds both that all knowledge is derived from experience and that universal propositions (including scientific laws) are verifiable by reference to experience. The contradiction, which Hume himself saw clearly, derives from the attempt to show that, notwithstanding the open-ended nature of experience, scientific laws may be construed as empirical generalisations which are in some way finally confirmable by a 'positive' experience. Popper eliminates the contradiction by rejecting the first of these principles and removing the demand for empirical verification in favour of empirical falsification in the second. Scientific theories, for him, are not inductively inferred from experience, nor is scientific experimentation carried out with a view to verifying or finally establishing the truth of theories; rather, all knowledge is provisional, conjectural, hypothetical -we can never finally prove our scientific theories, we can merely (provisionally) confirm or (conclusively) refute them; hence at any given time we have to choose between the potentially infinite number of theories which will explain the set of phenomena under investigation. Faced with this choice, we can only eliminate those theories which are demonstrably false, and rationally choose between the remaining, unfalsified theories. Hence Popper's emphasis on the importance of the critical spirit to science-for him critical thinking is the very essence of rationality. For it is only by critical thought that we can eliminate false theories, and determine which of the remaining theories is the best available one, in the sense of possessing the highest level of explanatory force and predictive power. It is precisely this kind of critical thinking which is conspicuous by its absence in contemporary Marxism and in psychoanalysis.

5. Probability, Knowledge and Verisimilitude

In the view of many social scientists, the more probable a theory is, the better it is, and if we have to choose between two theories which are equally strong in terms of their explanatory power, and differ only in that one is probable and the other is improbable, then we should choose the former. Popper rejects this. Science, or to be precise, the working scientist, is interested, in Popper's view, in theories with a high informative content, because such theories possess a high predictive power and are consequently highly testable. But if this is true, Popper argues, then, paradoxical as it may sound, the more improbable a theory is the better it is scientifically, because the probability and informative content of a theory vary inversely-the higher the informative content of a theory the lower will be its probability, for the more information a statement contains, the greater will be the number of ways in which it may turn out to be false. Thus the statements which are of special interest to the scientist are those with a high informative content and (consequentially) a low probability, which nevertheless come close to the truth. Informative content, which is in inverse proportion to probability, is in direct proportion to testability. Consequently the severity of the test to which a theory can be subjected, and by means of which it is falsified or corroborated, is all-important.

For Popper, all scientific criticism must be piecemeal, i.e., he holds that it is not possible to question every aspect of a theory at once. More precisely, while attempting to resolve a particular problem a scientist of necessity accepts all kinds of things as unproblematic. These things constitute what Popper terms the 'background knowledge'. However, he stresses that the background knowledge is not knowledge in the sense of being conclusively established; it may be challenged at any time, especially if it is suspected that its uncritical acceptance may be responsible for difficulties which are subsequently encountered. Nevertheless, it is clearly not possible to question both the theory and the background knowledge at the same time (e.g., in conducting an experiment the scientist of necessity assumes that the apparatus used is in working order).

How then can one be certain that one is questioning the right thing? The Popperian answer is that we cannot have absolute certainty here, but repeated tests usually show where the trouble lies. Even observation statements, Popper maintains, are fallible, and science in his view is not a quest for certain knowledge, but an evolutionary process in which hypotheses or conjectures are imaginatively proposed and tested in order to explain facts or to solve problems. Popper emphasises both the importance of questioning the background knowledge when the need arises, and the significance of the fact that observation-statements are theory-laden, and hence fallible. For while falsifiability is simple as a logical principle, in practice it is exceedingly complicated-no single observation can ever be taken to falsify a theory, for there is always the possibility (a) that the observation itself is mistaken, or (b) that the assumed background knowledge is faulty or defective.

Popper was initially uneasy with the concept of truth, and in his earliest writings he avoided asserting that a theory which is corroborated is true-for clearly if every theory is an open-ended hypothesis, as he maintains, then ipso facto it has to be at least potentially false. For this reason Popper restricted himself to the contention that a theory which is falsified is false and is known to be such, and that a theory which replaces a falsified theory (because it has a higher empirical content than the latter, and explains what has falsified it) is a 'better theory' than its predecessor. However, he came to accept Tarski's reformulation of the correspondence theory of truth, and in Conjectures and Refutations (1963) he integrated the concepts of truth and content to frame the metalogical concept of 'truthlikeness' or ' verisimilitude'. A 'good' scientific theory, Popper thus argued, has a higher level of verisimilitude than its rivals, and he explicated this concept by reference to the logical consequences of theories. A theory's content is the totality of its logical consequences, which can be divided into two classes: there is the ' truth-content' of a theory, which is the class of true propositions which may be derived from it, on the one hand, and the ' falsity-content ' of a theory, on the other hand, which is the class of the theory's false consequences (this latter class may of course be empty, and in the case of a theory which is true is necessarily empty).

Popper offered two methods of comparing theories in terms of verisimilitude, the qualitative and quantitative definitions. On the qualitative account, Popper asserted:

Assuming that the truth-content and the falsity-content of two theories \(t_1\) and \(t_2\) are comparable, we can say that \(t_2\) is more closely similar to the truth, or corresponds better to the facts, than \(t_1\), if and only if either:

(a) the truth-content but not the falsity-content of \(t_2\) exceeds that of \(t_1\), or

(b) the falsity-content of \(t_1\), but not its truth-content, exceeds that of \(t_2\). ( Conjectures and Refutations, 233).

Here, verisimilitude is defined in terms of subclass relationships: \(t_2\) has a higher level of verisimilitude than \(t_1\) if and only if their truth- and falsity-contents are comparable through subclass relationships, and either (a) \(t_2\)'s truth-content includes \(t_1\)'s and \(t_2\)'s falsity-content, if it exists, is included in, or is the same as, \(t_1\)'s, \(or\) (b) \(t_2\)'s truth-content includes or is the same as \(t_1\)'s and \(t_2\)'s falsity-content, if it exists, is included in \(t_1\)'s.

On the quantitative account, verisimilitude is defined by assigning quantities to contents, where the index of the content of a given theory is its logical improbability (given again that content and probability vary inversely). Formally, then, Popper defines the quantitative verisimilitude which a statement 'a' possesses by means of a formula:

\[ Vs(a) = Ct_T (a) - Ct_F (a), \]

where \(Vs(a)\) represents the verisimilitude of \(a\), \(Ct_T (a)\) is a measure of the truth-content of \(a\), and \(Ct_F (a)\) is a measure of its falsity-content.

The utilisation of either method of computing verisimilitude shows, Popper held, that even if a theory \(t_2\) with a higher content than a rival theory \(t_1\) is subsequently falsified, it can still legitimately be regarded as a better theory than \(t_1\), and 'better' is here now understood to mean \(t_2\) is closer to the truth than \(t_1\). Thus scientific progress involves, on this view, the abandonment of partially true, but falsified, theories, for theories with a higher level of verisimilitude, i.e., which approach more closely to the truth. In this way, verisimilitude allowed Popper to mitigate what many saw as the pessimism of an anti-inductivist philosophy of science which held that most, if not all scientific theories are false, and that a true theory, even if discovered, could not be known to be such. With the introduction of the new concept, Popper was able to represent this as an essentially optimistic position in terms of which we can legitimately be said to have reason to believe that science makes progress towards the truth through the falsification and corroboration of theories. Scientific progress, in other words, could now be represented as progress towards the truth, and experimental corroboration could be seen an indicator of verisimilitude.

However, in the 1970s a series of papers published by researchers such as Miller, Tichý, and Grünbaum in particular revealed fundamental defects in Popper's formal definitions of verisimilitude. The significance of this work was that verisimilitude is largely important in Popper's system because of its application to theories which are known to be false. In this connection, Popper had written:

Ultimately, the idea of verisimilitude is most important in cases where we know that we have to work with theories which are at best approximations-that is to say, theories of which we know that they cannot be true. (This is often the case in the social sciences). In these cases we can still speak of better or worse approximations to the truth (and we therefore do not need to interpret these cases in an instrumentalist sense). (Conjectures and Refutations, 235).

For these reasons, the deficiencies discovered by the critics in Popper's formal definitions were seen by many as critical, precisely because the most significant of these related to the levels of verisimilitude of false theories. In 1974, Miller and Tichý, working independently of each other, demonstrated that the conditions specified by Popper in his accounts of both qualitative and quantitative verisimilitude for comparing the truth- and falsity-contents of theories can be satisfied only when the theories are true. In the crucially important case of false theories, however, Popper's definitions are formally defective. For while Popper had believed that verisimilitude intersected positively with his account of corroboration, in the sense that he viewed an improbable theory which had withstood critical testing as one the truth-content of which is great relative to rival theories, while its falsity-content (if it exists) would be relatively low, Miller and Tichý proved, on the contrary, that in the case of a false theory \(t_2\) which has excess content over a rival theory false \(t_1\) both the truth-content and the falsity-content of \(t_2\) will exceed that of \(t_1\). With respect to theories which are false, therefore, Popper's conditions for comparing levels of verisimilitude, whether in quantitative and qualitative terms, can never be met.

Commentators on Popper, with few exceptions, had initially attached little importance to his theory of verisimilitude. However, after the failure of Popper's definitions in 1974, some critics came to see it as central to his philosophy of science, and consequentially held that the whole edifice of the latter had been subverted. For his part, Popper's response was two-fold. In the first place, while acknowledging the deficiencies in his own formal account ("my main mistake was my failure to see at once that ... if the content of a false statement \( a\) exceeds that of a statement \(b\), then the truth-content of \(a\) exceeds the truth-content of \(b\), and the same holds of their falsity-contents", Objective Knowledge, 371), Popper argued that "I do think that we should not conclude from the failure of my attempts to solve the problem [of defining verisimilitude] that the problem cannot be solved" ( Objective Knowledge, 372), a point of view which was to precipitate more than two decades of important technical research in this field. At another, more fundamental level, he moved the task of formally defining the concept from centre-stage in his philosophy of science, by protesting that he had never intended to imply "that degrees of verisimilitude ... can ever be numerically determined, except in certain limiting cases" ( Objective Knowledge, 59), and arguing instead that the chief value of the concept is heuristic and intuitive, in which the absence of an adequate formal definition is not an insuperable impediment to its utilisation in the actual appraisal of theories relativised to problems in which we have an interest. The thrust of the latter strategy seems to many to genuinely reflect the significance of the concept of verisimilitude in Popper's system, but it has not satisfied all of his critics.

6. Social and Political Thought-The Critique of Historicism and Holism

Given Popper's personal history and background, it is hardly surprising that he developed a deep and abiding interest in social and political philosophy. However, it is worth emphasising that his angle of approach to these fields is through a consideration of the nature of the social sciences which seek to describe and explicate them systematically, particularly history. It is in this context that he offers an account of the nature of scientific prediction, which in turn allows him a point of departure for his attack upon totalitarianism and all its intellectual supports, especially holism and historicism. In this context holism is to be understood as the view that human social groupings are greater than the sum of their members, that such groupings are 'organic' entities in their own right, that they act on their human members and shape their destinies, and that they are subject to their own independent laws of development. Historicism, which is closely associated with holism, is the belief that history develops inexorably and necessarily according to certain principles or rules towards a determinate end (as for example in the dialectic of Hegel, which was adopted and implemented by Marx). The link between holism and historicism is that the holist believes that individuals are essentially formed by the social groupings to which they belong, while the historicist-who is usually also a holist-holds that we can understand such a social grouping only in terms of the internal principles which determine its development.

These beliefs lead to what Popper calls 'The Historicist Doctrine of the Social Sciences', the views (a) that the principal task of the social sciences is to make predictions about the social and political development of man, and (b) that the task of politics, once the key predictions have been made, is, in Marx's words, to lessen the 'birth pangs' of future social and political developments. Popper thinks that this view of the social sciences is both theoretically misconceived (in the sense of being based upon a view of natural science and its methodology which is totally wrong), and socially dangerous, as it leads inevitably to totalitarianism and authoritarianism-to centralised governmental control of the individual and the attempted imposition of large-scale social planning. Against this Popper strongly advances the view that any human social grouping is no more (or less) than the sum of its individual members, that what happens in history is the (largely unplanned and unforeseeable) result of the actions of such individuals, and that large scale social planning to an antecedently conceived blueprint is inherently misconceived-and inevitably disastrous-precisely because human actions have consequences which cannot be foreseen. Popper, then, is an historical indeterminist, insofar as he holds that history does not evolve in accordance with intrinsic laws or principles, that in the absence of such laws and principles unconditional prediction in the social sciences is an impossibility, and that there is no such thing as historical necessity.

The link between Popper's theory of knowledge and his social philosophy is his fallibilism-just as we make theoretical progress in science by deliberately subjecting our theories to critical scrutiny, and abandoning those which have been falsified, so too, Popper holds, the critical spirit can and should be sustained at the social level. More specifically, the open society can be brought about only if it is possible for the individual citizen to evaluate critically the consequences of the implementation of government policies, which can then be abandoned or modified in the light of such critical scrutiny-in such a society, the rights of the individual to criticise administrative policies will be formally safeguarded and upheld, undesirable policies will be eliminated in a manner analogous to the elimination of falsified scientific theories, and differences between people on social policy will be resolved by critical discussion and argument rather than by force. The open society as thus conceived of by Popper may be defined as 'an association of free individuals respecting each other's rights within the framework of mutual protection supplied by the state, and achieving, through the making of responsible, rational decisions, a growing measure of humane and enlightened life' (Levinson, R.B. In Defense of Plato, 17). As such, Popper holds, it is not a utopian ideal, but an empirically realised form of social organisation which, he argues, is in every respect superior to its (real or potential) totalitarian rivals. But he does not engage in a moral defence of the ideology of liberalism; rather his strategy is the much deeper one of showing that totalitarianism is typically based upon historicist and holist presuppositions, and of demonstrating that these presuppositions are fundamentally incoherent.

7. Scientific Knowledge, History, and Prediction

At a very general level, Popper argues that historicism and holism have their origins in what he terms 'one of the oldest dreams of mankind-the dream of prophecy, the idea that we can know what the future has in store for us, and that we can profit from such knowledge by adjusting our policy to it.' ( Conjectures and Refutations, 338). This dream was given further impetus, he speculates, by the emergence of a genuine predictive capability regarding such events as solar and lunar eclipses at an early stage in human civilisation, which has of course become increasingly refined with the development of the natural sciences and their concomitant technologies. The kind of reasoning which has made, and continues to make, historicism plausible may, on this account, be reconstructed as follows: if the application of the laws of the natural sciences can lead to the successful prediction of such future events as eclipses, then surely it is reasonable to infer that knowledge of the laws of history as yielded by a social science or sciences (assuming that such laws exist) would lead to the successful prediction of such future social phenomena as revolutions? Why should it be possible to predict an eclipse, but not a revolution? Why can we not conceive of a social science which could and would function as the theoretical natural sciences function, and yield precise unconditional predictions in the appropriate sphere of application? These are amongst the questions which Popper seeks to answer, and in doing so, to show that they are based upon a series of misconceptions about the nature of science, and about the relationship between scientific laws and scientific prediction.

His first argument may be summarised as follows: in relation to the critically important concept of prediction, Popper makes a distinction between what he terms 'conditional scientific predictions', which have the form 'If \(X\) takes place, then \(Y\) will take place', and 'unconditional scientific prophecies', which have the form '\(Y\) will take place'. Contrary to popular belief, it is the former rather than the latter which are typical of the natural sciences, which means that typically prediction in natural science is conditional and limited in scope-it takes the form of hypothetical assertions stating that certain specified changes will come about if particular specified events antecedently take place. This is not to deny that 'unconditional scientific prophecies', such as the prediction of eclipses, for example, do take place in science, and that the theoretical natural sciences make them possible. However, Popper argues that (a) these unconditional prophecies are not characteristic of the natural sciences, and (b) that the mechanism whereby they occur, in the very limited way in which they do, is not understood by the historicist.

What is the mechanism which makes unconditional scientific prophecies possible? The answer is that such prophecies can sometimes be derived from a combination of conditional predictions (themselves derived from scientific laws) and existential statements specifying that the conditions in relation to the system being investigated are fulfilled. Schematically, this can be represented as follows:

\[ [\mathrm{C.P.} + \mathrm{E.S.}]= \mathrm{U.P.} \]

where \(\mathrm{C.P.} =\) Conditional Prediction; \(\mathrm{E.S.} =\) Existential Statement; \(\mathrm{U.P.} = \) Unconditional Prophecy. The most common examples of unconditional scientific prophecies in science relate to the prediction of such phenomena as lunar and solar eclipses and comets.

Given, then, that this is the mechanism which generates unconditional scientific prophecies, Popper makes two related claims about historicism: (a) That the historicist does not in fact derive his unconditional scientific prophecies in this manner from conditional predictions, and (b) the historicist cannot do so because long-term unconditional scientific prophecies can be derived from conditional predictions only if they apply to systems which are well-isolated, stationary, and recurrent (like our solar system). Such systems are quite rare in nature, and human society is most emphatically not one of them.

This, then, Popper argues, is the reason why it is a fundamental mistake for the historicist to take the unconditional scientific prophecies of eclipses as being typical and characteristic of the predictions of natural science-in fact such predictions are possible only because our solar system is a stationary and repetitive system which is isolated from other such systems by immense expanses of empty space. The solar system aside, there are very few such systems around for scientific investigation-most of the others are confined to the field of biology, where unconditional prophecies about the life-cycles of organisms are made possible by the existence of precisely the same factors. Thus one of the fallacies committed by the historicist is to take the (relatively rare) instances of unconditional prophecies in the natural science as constituting the essence of what scientific prediction is, to fail to see that such prophecies apply only to systems which are isolated, stationary, and repetitive, and to seek to apply the method of scientific prophecy to human society and human history. The latter, of course, is not an isolated system (in fact it's not a system at all), it is constantly changing, and it continually undergoes rapid, non-repetitive development. In the most fundamental sense possible, every event in human history is discrete, novel, quite unique, and ontologically distinct from every other historical event. For this reason, it is impossible in principle that unconditional scientific prophecies could be made in relation to human history-the idea that the successful unconditional prediction of eclipses provides us with reasonable grounds for the hope of successful unconditional prediction regarding the evolution of human history turns out to be based upon a gross misconception, and is quite false. As Popper himself concludes, "The fact that we predict eclipses does not, therefore, provide a valid reason for expecting that we can predict revolutions." ( Conjectures and Refutations, 340).

8. Immutable Laws and Contingent Trends

This argument is one of the strongest that has ever been brought against historicism, cutting, as it does, right to the heart of one of its main theoretical presuppositions. However, it is not Popper's only argument against it. An additional mistake which he detects in historicism is the failure of the historicist to distinguish between scientific laws and trends, which is also frequently accompanied by a simple logical fallacy. The fallacy is that of inferring from the fact that our understanding of any (past) historical event-such as, for example, the French Revolution-is in direct proportion to our knowledge of the antecedent conditions which led to that event, that knowledge of all the antecedent conditions of some future event is possible, and that such knowledge would make that future event precisely predictable. For the truth is that the number of factors which predate and lead to the occurrence of any event, past, present, or future, is indefinitely large, and therefore knowledge of all of these factors is impossible, even in principle. What gives rise to the fallacy is the manner in which the historian (necessarily) selectively isolates a finite number of the antecedent conditions of some past event as being of particular importance, which are then somewhat misleadingly termed 'the causes' of that event, when in fact what this means is that they are the specific conditions which a particular historian or group of historians take to be more relevant than any other of the indefinitely large number of such conditions (for this reason, most historical debates range over the question as to whether the conditions thus specified are the right ones). While this kind of selectivity may be justifiable in relation to the treatment of any past event, it has no basis whatsoever in relation to the future-if we now select, as Marx did, the 'relevant' antecedent conditions for some future event, the likelihood is that we will select wrongly.

The historicist's failure to distinguish between scientific laws and trends is equally destructive of his cause. This failure makes him think it possible to explain change by discovering trends running through past history, and to anticipate and predict future occurrences on the basis of such observations. Here Popper points out that there is a critical difference between a trend and a scientific law, the failure to observe which is fatal. For a scientific law is universal in form, while a trend can be expressed only as a singular existential statement. This logical difference is crucial because unconditional predictions, as we have already seen, can be based only upon conditional ones, which themselves must be derived from scientific laws. Neither conditional nor unconditional predictions can be based upon trends, because these may change or be reversed with a change in the conditions which gave rise to them in the first instance. As Popper puts it, there can be no doubt that "the habit of confusing trends with laws, together with the intuitive observation of trends such as technical progress, inspired the central doctrines of ... historicism." ( The Poverty of Historicism, 116). Popper does not, of course, dispute the existence of trends, nor does he deny that the observation of trends can be of practical utility value-but the essential point is that a trend is something which itself ultimately stands in need of scientific explanation, and it cannot therefore function as the frame of reference in terms of which anything else can be scientifically explained or predicted.

A point which connects with this has to do with the role which the evolution of human knowledge has played in the historical development of human society. It is incontestable that, as Marx himself observed, there has been a causal link between the two, in the sense that advances in scientific and technological knowledge have given rise to widespread global changes in patterns of human social organisation and social interaction, which in turn have led to social structures (e.g. educational systems) which further growth in human knowledge. In short, the evolution of human history has been strongly influenced by the growth of human knowledge, and it is extremely likely that this will continue to be the case-all the empirical evidence suggests that the link between the two is progressively consolidating. However, this gives rise to further problems for the historicist. In the first place, the statement that 'if there is such a thing as growing human knowledge, then we cannot anticipate today what we shall know only tomorrow' is, Popper holds, intuitively highly plausible. Moreover, he argues, it is logically demonstrable by a consideration of the implications of the fact that no scientific predictor, human or otherwise, can possibly predict, by scientific methods, its own future results. From this it follows, he holds, that 'no society can predict, scientifically, its own future states of knowledge'. ( The Poverty of Historicism, vii). Thus, while the future evolution of human history is extremely likely to be influenced by new developments in human knowledge, as it always has in the past, we cannot now scientifically determine what such knowledge will be. From this it follows that if the future holds any new discoveries or any new developments in the growth of our knowledge (and given the fallible nature of the latter, it is inconceivable that it does not), then it is impossible for us to predict them now, and it is therefore impossible for us to predict the future development of human history now, given that the latter will, at least in part, be determined by the future growth of our knowledge. Thus once again historicism collapses-the dream of a theoretical, predictive science of history is unrealisable, because it is an impossible dream.

Popper's arguments against holism, and in particular his arguments against the propriety of large-scale planning of social structures, are interconnected with his demonstration of the logical shortcomings of the presuppositions of historicism. Popper points out that such planning (which actually took place, of course, in the USSR, in China, and in Cambodia, for example, under totalitarian regimes which accepted forms of historicism and holism) is necessarily structured in the light of the predictions which have been made about future history on the basis of the so-called 'laws' which historicists such as Marx and Mao claimed to have discovered in relation to human history. Accordingly, recognition that there are no such laws, and that unconditional predictions about future history are based, at best, upon nothing more substantial than the observation of contingent trends, shows that, from a purely theoretical as well as a practical point of view, large-scale social planning is indeed a recipe for disaster. In summary, unconditional large-scale planning for the future is theoretically as well as practically misguided, because, again, part of what we are planning for is our future knowledge, and our future knowledge is not something which we can in principle now possess-we cannot adequately plan for unexpected advances in our future knowledge, or for the effects which such advances will have upon society as a whole. The acceptance of historical indeterminism, then, as the only philosophy of history which is commensurate with a proper understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge, fatally undermines both historicism and holism.

Popper's critique of both historicism and holism is balanced, on the positive side, by his affirmation of the ideals of individualism and market economics and his strong defence of the open society-the view, again, that a society is equivalent to the sum of its members, that the actions of the members of society serve to fashion and to shape it, and that the social consequences of intentional actions are very often, and very largely, unintentional. This part of his social philosophy was influenced by the economist Friedrich Hayek, who worked with him at the London School of Economics and who was a life-long friend. Popper advocated what he (rather unfortunately) terms 'piecemeal social engineering' as the central mechanism for social planning-for in utilising this mechanism intentional actions are directed to the achievement of one specific goal at a time, which makes it possible to monitor the situation to determine whether adverse unintended effects of intentional actions occur, in order to correct and readjust when this proves necessary. This, of course, parallels precisely the critical testing of theories in scientific investigation. This approach to social planning (which is explicitly based upon the premise that we do not, because we cannot, know what the future will be like) encourages attempts to put right what is problematic in society-generally-acknowledged social ills-rather than attempts to impose some preconceived idea of the 'good' upon society as a whole. For this reason, in a genuinely open society piecemeal social engineering goes hand-in-hand for Popper with negative utilitarianism (the attempt to minimise the amount of misery, rather than, as with positive utilitarianism, the attempt to maximise the amount of happiness). The state, he holds, should concern itself with the task of progressively formulating and implementing policies designed to deal with the social problems which actually confront it, with the goal of eliminating human misery and suffering to the highest possible degree. The positive task of increasing social and personal happiness, by contrast, can and should be left to individual citizens (who may, of course, act collectively to this end), who, unlike the state, have at least a chance of achieving this goal, but who in a free society are rarely in a position to systematically subvert the rights of others in the pursuit of idealised objectives. Thus in the final analysis for Popper the activity of problem-solving is as definitive of our humanity at the level of social and political organisation as it is at the level of science, and it is this key insight which unifies and integrates the broad spectrum of his thought.

9. Critical Evaluation

While it cannot be said that Popper was a modest man, he took criticism of his theories very seriously, and spent much of his time in his later years trying to show that such criticisms were either based upon misunderstandings, or that his theories could, without loss of integrity, be made compatible with new and important insights. The following is a summary of some of the main criticisms which he has had to address. (For Popper's responses to critical commentary, see his 'Replies to My Critics', in P.A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Karl Popper, Volume 2, and his Realism and the Aim of Science, edited by W.W. Bartley III.)

1. Popper professes to be anti-conventionalist, and his commitment to the correspondence theory of truth places him firmly within the realist's camp. Yet, following Kant, he strongly repudiates the positivist/empiricist view that basic statements (i.e., present-tense observation statements about sense-data) are infallible, and argues convincingly that such basic statements are not mere 'reports' of passively registered sensations. Rather they are descriptions of what is observed as interpreted by the observer with reference to a determinate theoretical framework. This is why Popper repeatedly emphasises that basic statements are not infallible, and it indicates what he means when he says that they are 'theory laden'-perception itself is an active process, in which the mind assimilates data by reference to an assumed theoretical backdrop. He accordingly asserts that basic statements themselves are open-ended hypotheses: they have a certain causal relationship with experience, but they are not determined by experience, and they cannot be verified or confirmed by experience. However, this poses a difficulty regarding the consistency of Popper's theory: if a theory \(X\) is to be genuinely testable (and so scientific) it must be possible to determine whether or not the basic propositions which would, if true, falsify it, are actually true or false (i.e., whether its potential falsifiers are actual falsifiers). But how can this be known, if such basic statements cannot be verified by experience? Popper's answer is that 'basic statements are not justifiable by our immediate experiences, but are ... accepted by an act, a free decision'. ( Logic of Scientific Discovery, 109). However, and notwithstanding Popper's claims to the contrary, this itself seems to be a refined form of conventionalism-it implies that it is almost entirely an arbitrary matter whether it is accepted that a potential falsifier is an actual one, and consequently that the falsification of a theory is itself the function of a 'free' and arbitrary act. It also seems very difficult to reconcile this with Popper's view that science progressively moves closer to the truth, conceived of in terms of the correspondence theory, for this kind of conventionalism is inimical to this (classical) conception of truth.

2. As Lakatos has pointed out, Popper's theory of demarcation hinges quite fundamentally on the assumption that there are such things as critical tests, which either falsify a theory, or give it a strong measure of corroboration. Popper himself is fond of citing, as an example of such a critical test, the resolution, by Adams and Leverrier, of the problem which the anomalous orbit of Uranus posed for nineteenth century astronomers. Both men independently came to the conclusion that, assuming Newtonian mechanics to be precisely correct, the observed divergence in the elliptical orbit of Uranus could be explained if the existence of a seventh, as yet unobserved outer planet was posited. Further, they were able, again within the framework of Newtonian mechanics, to calculate the precise position of the 'new' planet. Thus when subsequent research by Galle at the Berlin observatory revealed that such a planet (Neptune) did in fact exist, and was situated precisely where Adams and Leverrier had calculated, this was hailed as by all and sundry as a magnificent triumph for Newtonian physics: in Popperian terms, Newton's theory had been subjected to a critical test, and had passed with flying colours. Popper himself refers to this strong corroboration of Newtonian physics as 'the most startling and convincing success of any human intellectual achievement'. Yet Lakatos flatly denies that there are critical tests, in the Popperian sense, in science, and argues the point convincingly by turning the above example of an alleged critical test on its head. What, he asks, would have happened if Galle had not found the planet Neptune? Would Newtonian physics have been abandoned, or would Newton's theory have been falsified? The answer is clearly not, for Galle's failure could have been attributed to any number of causes other than the falsity of Newtonian physics (e.g., the interference of the earth's atmosphere with the telescope, the existence of an asteroid belt which hides the new planet from the earth, etc). The point here is that the 'falsification/corroboration' disjunction offered by Popper is far too logically neat: non-corroboration is not necessarily falsification, and falsification of a high-level scientific theory is never brought about by an isolated observation or set of observations. Such theories are, it is now generally accepted, highly resistant to falsification. They are falsified, if at all, Lakatos argues, not by Popperian critical tests, but rather within the elaborate context of the research programmes associated with them gradually grinding to a halt, with the result that an ever-widening gap opens up between the facts to be explained, and the research programmes themselves (Lakatos 1978, passim). Popper's distinction between the logic of falsifiability and its applied methodology does not in the end do full justice to the fact that all high-level theories grow and live despite the existence of anomalies (i.e., events/phenomena which are incompatible with the theories). The existence of such anomalies is not usually taken by the working scientist as an indication that the theory in question is false; on the contrary, he will usually, and necessarily, assume that the auxiliary hypotheses which are associated with the theory can be modified to incorporate, and explain, existing anomalies.

3. Scientific laws are expressed by universal statements (i.e., they take the logical form 'All \(A\)s are \(X\)', or some equivalent) which are therefore concealed conditionals-they have to be understood as hypothetical statements asserting what would be the case under certain ideal conditions. In themselves they are not existential in nature. Thus 'All \(A\)s are \(X\)' means 'If anything is an \(A\), then it is \(X\)'. Since scientific laws are non-existential in nature, they logically cannot imply any basic statements, since the latter are explicitly existential. The question arises, then, as to how any basic statement can falsify a scientific law, given that basic statements are not deducible from scientific laws in themselves? Popper answers that scientific laws are always taken in conjunction with statements outlining the 'initial conditions' of the system under investigation; these latter, which are singular existential statements, do, when combined with the scientific law, yield hard and fast implications. Thus, the law 'All \(A\)s are \(X\)', together with the initial condition statement 'There is an \(A\) at \(Y\)', yields the implication 'The \(A\) at \(Y\) is \(X\)', which, if false, falsifies the original law.

This reply is adequate only if it is true, as Popper assumes, that singular existential statements will always do the work of bridging the gap between a universal theory and a prediction. Hilary Putnam in particular has argued that this assumption is false, in that in some cases at least the statements required to bridge this gap (which he calls 'auxiliary hypotheses') are general rather than particular, and consequently that when the prediction turns out to be false we have no way of knowing whether this is due to the falsity of the scientific law or the falsity of the auxiliary hypotheses. The working scientist, Putnam argues, always initially assumes that it is the latter, which shows not only that scientific laws are, contra Popper, highly resistant to falsification, but also why they are so highly resistant to falsification.

Popper's final position is that he acknowledges that it is impossible to discriminate science from non-science on the basis of the falsifiability of the scientific statements alone; he recognizes that scientific theories are predictive, and consequently prohibitive, only when taken in conjunction with auxiliary hypotheses, and he also recognizes that readjustment or modification of the latter is an integral part of scientific practice. Hence his final concern is to outline conditions which indicate when such modification is genuinely scientific, and when it is merely ad hoc. This is itself clearly a major alteration in his position, and arguably represents a substantial retraction on his part: Marxism can no longer be dismissed as 'unscientific' simply because its advocates preserved the theory from falsification by modifying it (for in general terms, such a procedure, it now transpires, is perfectly respectable scientific practice). It is now condemned as unscientific by Popper because the only rationale for the modifications which were made to the original theory was to ensure that it evaded falsification, and so such modifications were ad hoc, rather than scientific. This contention-though not at all implausible-has, to hostile eyes, a somewhat contrived air about it, and is unlikely to worry the convinced Marxist. On the other hand, the shift in Popper's own basic position is taken by some critics as an indicator that falsificationism, for all its apparent merits, fares no better in the final analysis than verificationism.

Bibliography

Primary Literature: Works By Popper

Zur Methodenfrage der Denkpsychologie, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Vienna, unpublished, 1928.

Logik der Forschung, Vienna: Julius Springer Verlag, 1935.

The Open Society and Its Enemies (2 Volumes), London: Routledge, 1945.

The Logic of Scientific Discovery, translation ofLogik der Forschung, London: Hutchinson, 1959.

Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, London: Routledge, 1963.

The Poverty of Historicism 2nd edition, London: Routledge, 1961.

Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972.

Unended Quest; An Intellectual Autobiography, London: Fontana, 1976.

'A Note on Verisimilitude', The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 27 (1976): 147-159.

The Self and Its Brain: An Argument for Interactionism, with J.C. Eccles, London: Springer International, 1977.

The Open Universe: An Argument for Indeterminism, W.W. Bartley III (ed.), London: Hutchinson, 1982.

Realism and the Aim of Science, W.W. Bartley III (ed.), London: Hutchinson, 1983.

The Myth of the Framework: In Defence of Science and Rationality, London: Routledge, 1994.

Knowledge and the Mind-Body Problem: In Defence of Interactionism, M.A. Notturno (ed.), London: Routledge, 1994.

The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge, T.E. Hansen (ed.), A. Pickel (trans.), London: Routledge, 2007.

Secondary Literature

Ackermann, R., 1976, The Philosophy of Karl Popper, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

Bambrough, R. (ed.), 1967, Plato, Popper, and Politics: Some Contributions to a Modern Controversy, New York: Barnes and Noble.

Baudoin, J., 1989, Karl Popper, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Brink, C. & Heidema, J., 1987, 'A Verisimilar Ordering of Theories Phrased in a Propositional Language', British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 38: 533-549.

Brink, C., 1989, 'Verisimilitude: Views and Reviews', History and Philosophy of Logic, 10: 181-201.

Brink, C. & Britz, K., 1995, 'Computing Verisimilitude', Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 36(1): 31-43.

Bunge, M. (ed.), 1964, The Critical Approach to Science and Philosophy, London & New York: The Free Press.

Burke, T.E., 1983, The Philosophy of Popper, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Carr, E.H., 1962, What is History?, London: Macmillan.

Cornforth, M., 1968, The Open Philosophy and the Open Society: A Reply to Dr. Popper's Refutations of Marxism, London: Lawrence & Wishart.

Corvi, R., 1997, An Introduction to the Thought of Karl Popper, (trans. P. Camiller). London & New York: Routledge.

Currie, G. & Musgrave, A. (eds.), 1985, Popper and the Human Sciences, Dordrecht: Nijhoff.

Edmonds, D. and Eidinow, J.W., 2001, Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers, New York: Harper & Collins.

Feyerabend, P., 1975, Against Method, London: New Left Books.

Grünbaum, A., 1976, 'Is the Method of Bold Conjectures and Attempted Refutations Justifiably the Method of Science?', British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 27: 105-136.

Hacohen. M.H., 2000, Karl Popper-The Formative Years, 1902-1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hume, D., 1739-1740, A Treatise of Human Nature, inThe Philosophical Works (ed. T.H. Green & T.H. Grose), 4 vols., reprint of 1886 edition, Darmstadt: Scientia Verlag Aalen, 1964.

Jacobs, S. 1991, Science and British Liberalism: Locke, Bentham, Mill and Popper, Aldershot: Avebury.

James, R., 1980, Return to Reason: Popper's Thought in Public Life, Shepton Mallet: Open Books.

Johansson, I., 1975, A Critique of Karl Popper's Methodology, Stockholm: Scandinavian University Books.

Kekes, J., 1977, 'Popper in Perspective', Metaphilosophy, 8: 36-61.

Keuth, H., 1976, 'Verisimilitude or the Approach to the Whole Truth', Philosophy of Science, 43(3): 311-336.

Kuipers, T. A. F., 1982, 'Approaching Descriptive and Theoretical Truth', Erkenntnis, 18: 343-378.

Kuipers, T. A. F. (ed.), 1987, What is Closer-to-the-Truth?, Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Kuhn, T.S., 1962, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Lakatos, I., 1970, 'Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes', in Lakatos & Musgrave (eds.) 1970.

Lakatos, I., 1978, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, J. Worrall & G. Currie (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lakatos, I & Musgrave, A. (eds.), 1970, Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Laudan, L., 1977, Progress and Its Problems: Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth, London: Routledge.

Levinson, P. (ed.), 1982, In Pursuit of Truth. Essays in Honour of Karl Popper on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday, Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press.

Levinson, R.B., 1957, In Defense of Plato, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

MacDonald, G. & Catton, P., 2004. Karl Popper: Critical Appraisals, London: Routledge.

Magee, B., 1977, Popper, London: Fontana.

Maxwell, N., 2017, Karl Popper, Science and Enlightenment, London: University College London Press.

Mellor, D.H., 1977, 'The Popper Phenomenon', Philosophy, 52: 195-202.

Milkov. N., 2012, 'Karl Popper's Debt To Leonard Nelson', Grazer Philosophische Studien, 86: 137-156.

Miller, D., 1974, 'On the Comparison of False Theories by their Bases', The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 25: 178-188.

Miller, D., 1974, 'Popper's Qualitative Theory of Verisimilitude', The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 25: 166-177.

Miller, D., 1994, Critical Rationalism: A Restatement and Defence, Chicago: Open Court.

Mulkay, M. & Gilbert, G.N., 1981, 'Putting Philosophy to Work: Karl Popper's Influence on Scientific Practice', Philosophy of Social Science, 11: 389-407.

Munz, P., 1985, Our Knowledge of the Growth of Knowledge: Popper or Wittgenstein?, London: Routledge.

Naydler, J., 1982, 'The Poverty of Popperism', Thomist, 46: 92-107.

Niiniluoto, I., 1987, Truthlikeness, Dordrecht: D. Reidel.

Oddie, G., 1986, Likeness to Truth, Dordrecht: D. Reidel.

O'Hear, A., 1980, Karl Popper, London: Routledge.

Putnam, H., 1974, 'The Corroboration of Theories', in Schilpp (ed.) 1974.

Quinton, A., 1967, 'Popper, Karl Raimund', in Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Volume 6), P. Edwards (ed.), New York: Collier Macmillan.

Radnitzky, G. & Andersson, G. (eds.), 1978, Progress and Rationality in Science, Dordrecht: D. Reidel.

Radnitzky, G. & Bartley, W.W. (eds.), 1987, Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge, La Salle: Open Court.

Sassower, R., Laor, N. (eds.) 2019, The Impact of Critical Rationalism. Expanding the Popperian Legacy through the Works of Ian C. Jarvie. Cham: Springer International.

Schilpp, P.A. (ed.), 1974, The Philosophy of Karl Popper, 2 Volumes, La Salle: Open Court Press.

Shearmur, J., 1996, Political Thought of Karl Popper, London & New York: Routledge.

Simkin, C., 1993, Popper's Views on Natural and Social Science, Leiden: Brill.

Stokes, G., 1998, Popper: Philosophy, Politics and Scientific Method, New York: Wiley & Sons.

Stove, D., 1982, Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists, Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Sturm, T. 2012. 'Bühler and Popper: Kantian Therapies for the Crisis in Psychology', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 43(2): 462-72.

Tichý, P., 1974, 'On Popper's Definitions of Verisimilitude', The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 25: 155-160

Tichý, P., 1978, ' Verisimilitude Revisited', Synthèse, 38: 175-196.

Vetter, H., 1977, 'A New Concept of Verisimilitude', Theory and Decision, 8: 369-375.

Watkins, J., 1984, Science and Scepticism, Princeton: Princeton University Press, and London: Hutchinson.

Watkins, J., 1997, 'Popperian Ideas on Progress and Rationality in Science', The Critical Rationalist, 2(2), [available online].

Wilkins, B.T., 1978, Has History Any Meaning? A Critique of Popper's Philosophy of History, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Williams, D.E., 1989, Truth, Hope and Power: The Thought of Karl Popper, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Wuketits, F.M., 1984, Concepts and Approaches in Evolutionary Epistemology: Towards an Evolutionary Theory of Knowledge, Dordrecht : D. Reidel.

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Karl Raimund Popper was born on 28 July 1902 in Vienna, which at that time could make some claim to be the cultural epicentre of the western world. His parents, who were of Jewish origin, brought him up in an atmosphere which he was later to describe as 'decidedly bookish'.

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Философия как методология

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Философия как методология

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Философия как методология - имеет дело с источником, природой и развитием знания. Проще говоря, философская методология  - это представление о способах сбора, анализа и использования данных о явлении.

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Research philosophy is a vast topic and here we will not be discussing this topic in great details. In business and economics dissertations at Bachelor's level, you are not expected to discuss research philosophy in a great level of depth, and about one page in methodology chapter devoted to research philosophy usually suffices. For a business dissertation at Master's level you may need to provide more discussion of the philosophy of your study, but even there, about two pages of discussions has to be accepted as sufficient by your supervisor.

Discussion of research philosophy in your dissertation should include the following:

1. You need to specify the research philosophy of your study. Your research philosophy can be pragmatism, positivism, realism or interpretivism as discussed below.

2. The reasons behind philosophical classifications of the study need to be provided.

3. You need to discuss the implications of your research philosophy on the research strategy in general and the choice of primary data collection methods in particular.

Research philosophy deals with the source, nature and development of knowledge[1]. In simple terms, a research philosophy is belief about the ways in which data about a phenomenon should be collected, analysed and used.

Although the idea of knowledge creation may appear to be profound, you are engaged in knowledge creation as part of completing your dissertation. You will collect secondary and primary data and engage in data analysis to answer the research question and this answer marks the creation of new knowledge.

In essence, addressing research philosophy in your dissertation involves being aware and formulating your beliefs and assumptions. As it is illustrated in figure below, the identification of the research philosophy is positioned at the outer layer of the 'research onion, accordingly it is the first topic to be clarified in research methodology chapter of your dissertation.
Research philosophy in the 'research onion'[2]
Each stage of the research process is based on assumptions about the sources and the nature of knowledge. The research philosophy will reflect the author's important assumptions and these assumptions serve as base for the research strategy. Generally, research philosophy has many branches related to a wide range of disciplines. Within the scope of business studies in particular there are four main research philosophies:

The choice of a specific research philosophy is impacted by practical implications. There are important philosophical differences between studies that focus on facts and numbers such as an analysis of the impact of foreign direct investment on the level of GDP growth and qualitative studies such as an analysis of leadership style on employee motivation in organizations.

The choice between positivist and interpretivist research philosophies or between quantitative and qualitative research methods has traditionally represented a major point of debate. However, the latest developments in the practice of conducting studies have increased the popularity of pragmatism and realism philosophies as well.

Moreover, as it is illustrated in table below, there are popular data collection methods associated with each research philosophy.

Popular data collection method

Mixed or multiple

method designs,

quantitative and qualitative

Highly structured,

large samples,

measurement, quantitative, but can use qualitative

Methods chosen must fit the subject matter, quantitative or qualitative

Small samples, in-depth

investigations, qualitative

Research philosophies and data collection methods[3] My e-book, The Ultimate Guide to Writing a Dissertation in Business Studies: a step by step assistance contains discussions of theory and application of research philosophy. The e-book also explains all stages of the research process starting from the selection of the research area to writing personal reflection. Important elements of dissertations such as research philosophy, research approach, research design, methods of data collection and data analysis are explained in this e-book in simple words.
John Dudovskiy

[1] Bajpai, N. (2011) "Business Research Methods" Pearson Education India

[2] Source: Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A. (2012) "Research Methods for Business Students" 6 th edition, Pearson Education Limited

[3] Table adapted from Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A. (2012) "Research Methods for Business Students" 6 th edition, Pearson Education Limited

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Research Philosophy - Research Methodology

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Research philosophy is a vast topic and here we will not be discussing this topic in great details. In business and economics dissertations at Bachelor's level, you are not expected to discuss research philosophy in a great level of depth, and about one page in methodology chapter devoted to research philosophy usually suffices.

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1.Критический рационализм - направление философии как методологии

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1.Критический рационализм - направление философии как методологии

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I. Основные идеи и положения данного направления

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"Critical Rationalism" is the name Karl Popper (1902-1994) gave to a modest and self-critical rationalism. He contrasted this view with "uncritical or comprehensive rationalism," the received justificationist view that only what can be proved by reason and/or experience should be accepted. Popper argued that comprehensive rationalism cannot explain how proof is possible and that it leads to inconsistencies. Critical rationalism today is the project of extending Popper's approach to all areas of thought and action. In each field the central task of critical rationalism is to replace allegedly justificatory methods with critical ones.

Section 2 explains how critical rationalism arose out of the breakdown of Popper's first justificationist attempt to account for scientific progress. Section 2 also presents Popper's first application of his non-justificationist perspective to new fields in his The Open Society and Its Enemies. Section 3 first explains Joseph Agassi's view of the critical appraisal of metaphysical theories in scientific contexts as well as his view of piecemeal rationality, and secondly portrays William Bartley's more comprehensive view of non-justificationism. Section 4 discusses Imré Lakatos's extension of critical rationalism to mathematics. Section 5 portrays Hans Albert's systematic version of critical rationalism. His perspective incorporated results of Popper, Agassi and Bartley and extended them to social and political theory. Section 6 suggests that Mario Bunge's fallibilism ─ which he developed independently of critical rationalists ─ is sufficiently close to their views to count here: he develops critical tools for achieving progress without justification in virtually all areas of thought. Section 7 discusses attempts to develop critical rationalism in new and simpler ways. These views seek to do without frameworks and methodological rules; their originators are Jagdish Hattiangadi, Gunnar Andersson, and David Miller. These theories deprive rational thought of needed steering mechanisms. Section 8 presents the reintroduction of forms of justification designed to be compatible with Popper's criticism of induction. These have been developed by Alan Musgrave, Volker Gadenne and John Watkins. Section 9 explains how Popper's emphasis on the importance of methodological rules in science has led to a critical rationalist sociology of science. The main task of this sociology of science is to examine existing rules and methods as furthering or hindering research. Section 10 calls attention to the alternative philosophical anthropology which Agassi has proposed as a framework for critical rationalism. Whereas Popper saw rationality as contrary to human nature's craving for security, Agassi sees rationality as natural, but partial and improvable. Section 11 describes how Popper's original political manifesto in The Open Society and Its Enemies has led to attempts to use his arguments to defend both right-leaning and left-leaning political theories. Section 12 returns to Popper's early researches in educational theory. His philosophy led to concerted efforts to develop a new pedagogy which emphasizes active problem solving as the best learning method. This pedagogy should promote autonomy and critical thinking. Section 13 concludes with the suggestion that the success or the failure of the project of substituting critical for allegedly justificatory methods has still to be judged.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Popper and Non-Justificationism

3. Joseph Agassi and William Bartley

4. Critical Rationalism in Mathematics

5. Hans Albert

6. Mario Bunge and Fallibilism

7. Critical Rationalism without Frameworks of Methodological Rules

8. Critical Rationalism, Truth and Best Theories

9. Critical Rationalist Sociology of Science

10. Philosophical Anthropology and Critical Rationality

11. Critical Rationalism and Political Society

12. Popper and Education Theory

13. Conclusion

14. References and Further Reading

1. Introduction

Critical rationalism emerged from research by the Würzburg school of psychology. This school sought to develop a deductivist philosophy of science to complement their deductivist psychology. While working on this program, Karl Popper stumbled onto a non-justificationist theory of scientific knowledge: he explained the growth of knowledge without proof. Non-justificationism, that is, the theory that no theory can be proven, is at least as old as Socrates, but Popper's version of it is the first that also purports to explain the growth of knowledge. Popper and other critical rationalists took on the project of explaining the growth of knowledge without justification. This project has produced various competing theories of rationality and has been extended to many fields. This article will concentrate on the internal logic and problems involved in the development of critical methods capable of producing the growth of knowledge.

Of the numerous justificationist predecessors let only this be said. The overwhelming majority of those who comment on critical rationalism claim that critical rationalism is somehow incoherent and that inductivism is better. A major exception was Bertrand Russell. He appreciated the logical strength of critical rationalism and knew the logical weakness of induction. Nevertheless he clung to induction. He thought that critical rationalism was a philosophy of despair. Whether his judgment of critical rationalism was correct depends on whether its development can bring progress. To show this progress, new critical rationalist ideas are described and presented below. This should provide an answer to Russell that he amply deserves.

2. Popper and Non-Justificationism

Inductive inferences have observations as premises and theories as conclusions. They are notoriously invalid but often are deemed unavoidable. Critical rationalism views them as unnecessary. This point of view grew gradually out of Karl Popper's attempt to describe science without their use in Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie (1932-33), where he still operated within the framework of justificationism, that is, while viewing the aim of scientific method as the proper (justified) assessment of the truth value of certain sentences. He hoped to build a theory of the proper assessment of sentences, that is, of the possibility of proving the truth or falsity of some sentences. He began with the fact that a theory is false if it contradicts a singular sentence describing some observation reports. Popper then said that such singular sentences were veridical, that is, truthful as opposed to illusory, so they may be used to produce final proofs of the falsity of some universal sentences. For example, the singular sentence, "That swan is black," if it is a true report of some observation, can be used to produce a final proof of the falsity of the universal sentence, "All swans are white." But, he argued, proof of universal sentences or the demonstration that they are probable requires inductive inferences. As a consequence no such putative proof can be valid.

Popper himself found the theory he presented in Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie without chapter 5 inadequate for three reasons. The first reason is that singular statements are not veridical. He began work on this problem in chapter 5 of Die beiden Grundprobleme. This chapter contains a theory of science which differs on important points from the theory found in the rest of that volume. The second reason that Popper's first attempt broke down is that one can circumvent refutations by ad hoc stratagems, as Hans Reichenbach quickly pointed out in a note which responded to Popper's first publication of his view in Erkenntnis. The third reason was Popper's inability to handle the problem of the demarcation of science from non-science with his idea that we show how science properly assigns truth values to sentences with no inductive inference. On a justificationist theory of the task of the philosophy of science such as Reichenbach's, which was identical to Popper's theory as he wrote Die beiden Grundprobleme without chapter 5, science should be demarcated by the proper assignment of truth values: science is the set of sentences with justifiably assigned truth values. The task of the philosophy of science is to explain how these assignments are properly made. (Reichenbach said the calculus of probabilities serves that purpose.) Popper argued that it is not possible to properly assign either the truth value True or some degree of probability to universal sentences. He called such sentences "fictions", which is a term he had earlier taken over from Hans Vaihinger. On the theory presented in Die beiden Grundprobleme without chapter 5, after science had done its job, there were still, on the one hand, some fictions which ought to be deemed scientific such as the theories of the Würzburg school in psychology and, perhaps, as he said later, Einstein's physics, and, on the other hand, other fictions which should be deemed unscientific, such as the psychologies of Freud and Adler. He could not distinguish between these two sets of theories within his justificationist framework, since, on this view, only proofs or refutations of these theories could do that. He asserted, however, that no proof was possible and refutations could establish only the falsity of universal propositions.

As a consequence of these three difficulties Popper developed an entirely different theory of science in chapter 5, then in Logik der Forschung. In order to overcome the problems his first view faced, he adopted two central strategies. First, he reformulated the task of the philosophy of science. Rather than presenting scientific method as a tool for properly assigning truth values to sentences, he presented rules of scientific method as conducive to the growth of knowledge. Apparently he still held that only proven or refuted sentences could take truth values. But this view is incompatible with his new philosophy of science as it appears in his Logik der Forschung: there he had to presume that some non-refuted theories took truth values, that is, that they are true or false as the case may be, even though they have been neither proved nor refuted. It is the job of scientists to discover their falsity when they can. So, he worked around the difficulty posed by the fact that, on the one hand, he had to assume that theories were refutable and thus had truth values, whereas, on the other hand, he thought that only proven or refuted theories had truth values at all. He argued that his view could be interpreted as realist or as antirealist. He hedged his bets as best he could and appealed to Mach, who had stipulated that one should avoid participation in any metaphysical dispute.

In Logik der Forschung Popper solved his three initial difficulties in the following ways. First, instead of claiming that singular sentences were veridical, he said that basic statements are only provisionally accepted, provided that they were repeatable and so testable. He thereby introduced the following rule: consider only repeatable basic statements. He claimed that the provisional acceptance of basic statements does not disqualify them as refutations of theories-no longer simply universal sentences-because for the most part we can agree on which basic sentences we provisionally assume to be true. Second, he proposed the rule that one should always replace some theory which is contradicted by a basic statement by whichever new alternative has the highest degree of falsifiability. This rule should guarantee that refutations lead to progress. Reichenbach had declared that there was no logic of scientific method, that is, no proof or refutation. The basis for his claim that there could be no refutation was that any theory could be protected from a putative refutation with some ad hoc maneuver. Popper responded to Reichenbach with his Logik der Forschung (Logic of Research) and by introducing methodology into his deliberations. The methodological rule enabled him to avoid ad hoc protection of theories and thus enabled him to show how theories could be refuted. Third, he introduced the rule: only refutable theories-the term "fiction" no longer appears in his work-are scientific and may be deemed scientific.

This view was no longer justificationist, that is, it no longer claimed properly to assign truth values to sentences. All "assignments" are conjectural. But Popper had at that point no non-justificationist theory of rationality in general; his theory applied to science alone. He did not at that point notice problems which his theory raised for the broader framework of rationality which all philosophers of science had used since antiquity, the framework that identified the rational with the proven.

The conflict between Popper's new theory of science and his older theory that only proven or refuted sentences can take truth values was removed by Tarski. Tarski's definition of truth, as Tarski explained to Popper, allows for non-proven but still true sentences. Tarski thereby did away with the theory of truth that had given Popper so much trouble. Tarski did not necessarily offer Popper an adequate theory of truth for his philosophy of science. But Tarski did free him from a false theory which was a great impediment to the construction of a truly fallibilist, realist theory of science. Popper never clearly explained the importance that Tarski had for him at the time. This failure to explain how the logic of his problem changed as a result of Tarski's theory was part of his repression of the fact that he had held a justificationist theory of truth for a long time, even after he began writing a fallibilist book. After his meeting with Tarski, he was free to develop his fallibilist theory of science in new ways, because he could claim that theories could be true even though there was no proof of them. During his earlier years in London, during 1946-1965 or so, he returned to the possibilities this fact opened up.

In Logik der Forschung Popper developed a theory of the growth of scientific knowledge without justification. But he had no general theory of rationality without justification. Indeed, he still limited rationality to science and methodology. However, at least three problems arose for this limited view of rationality.

Popper maintained at that point that scientists gain knowledge not by proofs but by refutations of good conjectures and by replacing them with new and better ones. These new conjectures avoid earlier mistakes, explain more, and invite new tests. He originally thought of this theory as eo ipso a theory of rationality: outside of science and methodology he made no allowance for rationality. He identified research, science and methodology, as the title of his book indicates.

Difficulties piled up fast. First, if rationality is limited to science, how is methodology rational? Methodology can only be rational if methodology is the empirical study of science-as Whewell said-or if non-empirical research can be rational. Popper could not view methodology as a science of science because he held that it is not merely descriptive but also prescriptive. Yet it should be rational.

The second problem arose as Popper tried to apply his methodology of the physical sciences to the social sciences. The Poverty of Historicism and The Open Society and Its Enemies defend the open society on the grounds that only open societies preserve reason, that is, criticism, and as a consequence only open societies can be civilized. But why is a choice for the open society rational? He had no answer. He merely said that the acceptance of reason was a consequence of sympathy for others. Nothing can be said to convince those to change their minds who accept the barbaric consequences of fascism or communism.

The third problem concerns metaphysics. Before he had ever developed his own philosophy of science, he had defended in his doctoral dissertation the view that metaphysical hypotheses can serve as working hypotheses in the construction of scientific theories. His discussion there merely concerned the use of physicalist metaphysics as a guide for psychological research. He said that this was fine, but one should not decide a priori that a view of psychological processes as physical is needed or even possible. Scientific research-he was not clear then what that meant-should decide this. He was later pressed, however, to decide between competing metaphysical theories with which to interpret science, even in the absence of a scientific answer. Was the world determined or not? Questions such as this raised the question as to whether one metaphysical theory can be better or worse than another and whether one could find out which one is better. He gave up his earlier view of rationality as limited to scientific research and methodology, but he still insisted that for science some metaphysical theories are merely heuristic, and no more than that.

To extend his theory that rationality consisted of scientific research and methodology alone, Popper loosened his standard of rationality. Rejecting the older standard of rationality - proof - - as too high, he began to view the standard for science, refutability, as too high for the rationality that obtains outside science. Whereas earlier he had replaced justification with refutation, he now replaced refutation with criticism. Popper thereby created a new philosophical perspective by generalizing his theory of scientific research. The name he gave to this extension is "critical rationalism." Popper introduced it in the introduction to his Conjectures and Refutations, where he characterized it briefly as the critical attitude. He used it also to describe views he developed earlier, in The Open Society and Its Enemies.

Could his critical rationalism apply to other fields? Could various fields also not only do without (epistemological) justification but also raise their levels of rationality with the use of critical methods? Critical rationalism became a project to employ critical methods as a substitute for epistemological justification in all areas of life.

3. Joseph Agassi and William Bartley

Outside of Popper's own efforts to develop this project, the first two most significant endeavors were undertaken by Joseph Agassi and William Bartley. Although Agassi's efforts began somewhat earlier than Bartley's, their development overlaps considerably; the two were in conversation with each other for much of the time that they were working out their ideas as Popper's students. I begin with Agassi, who developed Popper's philosophy piecemeal and then turn to Bartley who attempted to give critical rationalism a comprehensive statement, that is, a version of it which would explain how a critical rationalist could adopt a critical stance toward any idea whatsoever, including its own claims.

Agassi began with his dissertation, in which he posed the question, How can metaphysics be used to guide scientific research without making science subordinate to it? Duhem had warned that, were science to concern itself with metaphysics, it would be subordinate to it. Encouraging scientists to engage in metaphysical debates would cause dissent and lead them away from science's main task of constructing empirical theories.

Agassi's project was to show how metaphysical research could facilitate empirical progress without tyrannizing science. He did this by extending Popper's theory of the methods of scientific practice to include the critical, and thereby progressive, use of metaphysical theories to guide scientific research. On his view metaphysics need not be a mere heuristic, that is, a source of ideas, but rather a systematic guide to scientific research and a provisional standard for desirable theories. Metaphysics can be useful in advancing science by giving guidelines for the search for empirical explanations and by deepening the understanding of the world offered by science. But, he also said, it can help achieve these aims only when used critically. A critical stance toward metaphysics is possible when two or more metaphysical research programs compete with each other to construct empirically refutable theories. This, he argued, is just what happened when Faraday used his metaphysical field theory as the framework within which he constructed physical (field) theories. His competitors tried to explain the same phenomena under the Newtonian assumption that all forces act at a distance. Faraday's theory of electro-magnetic events eventually had an enormous impact, because his metaphysics enabled him to construct better physical theories than his competitors.

Bartley developed a comprehensive version of critical rationalism. He argued that there were two problems that showed Popper's original version was too limited. Popper encountered the first of these as he wrote The Open Society and Its Enemies where he discussed the problem: Why should one be rational? He conceded that rationality is limited, as its choice is pre-rational, a decision based on feelings. Bartley viewed Popper's problem of the limits of the ability to argue rationally in favor of rationality as parallel to a problem he (Bartley) had earlier encountered in religious philosophy: defenders of religion claim that commitment to some religion is just as rational as commitment to rationality: each individual has to choose some starting point, and each starting point must be arbitrary. Each starting point then is just as pre-rational as the other, since each choice is beyond the limits of reason.

Bartley viewed the inability to defend rationality rationally as amounting to the inability to show the superiority of rational methods to solve problems over any other method. Bartley saw this limitation as an important defect. But in Popper's approach to rationality as critical rather than justificatory, he found a way to overcome it. For, he argued, on the one hand, the theory of rationality as proof should itself be proven, but in fact it is not provable, whereas, on the other hand, the theory of rationality as readiness to appraise theories critically should itself be open to criticism, and this is quite possible. It is then no longer the case that the adoption of a rational approach to problems is no more rational than commitments to belief systems, such as those of some religion: the theory that rational practice means holding all theories open to criticism, may itself be held open to criticism. This also means that the use of rational methods to solve problems may be rationally defended, that is, we may use rationality to answer objections to the use of rationality.

Could this theory allow one to hold religious beliefs rationally by holding them open to criticism? Bartley never answered this question explicitly. He hinted that he did believe this was the case, and some have understood him as adopting this position. Some critical rationalists are believers and some are not. Standards here remain vague. The winner of the Popper essay prize argued that Christians were also critical rationalists, because they discussed, for example, the theological significance of their religious experiences and have developed their views at Church councils. (Elliot 2004) Agassi has pointed out that the Talmudic tradition is highly critical within certain bounds, yet cannot be said to have a high degree of rationality. If all critical discussions, even those within sects, qualify their practitioners as critical rationalists, then critical rationalism itself dissolves. To take seriously the replacement of justification with criticism, Agassi suggests, requires demarcation between effective and ineffective critical methods.

Bartley called his view "comprehensively critical rationalism" to distinguish it from Popper's critical rationalism. It should not merely explain how one can conduct rational inquires in specific fields, but it should apply to the theory of rationality itself. Bartley added a list of critical standards one may use to evaluate ideas in any area whatsoever: a proposed idea should be a solution to an important problem, internally consistent, not refuted, and consistent with science. The first three are incorporated into virtually all critical rationalist theories. The fourth has been treated with more caution: science might also be mistaken, especially when it contains competing theories. A new metaphysical alternative may be inconsistent with established physical theory, as Faraday's was, yet be quite important for progress.

John Watkins considered Bartley's theory a reinforced dogmatism with a "Heads I win, tails you lose" strategy: If comprehensive critical rationalism faces no effective criticism it wins, but if it does, it thereby shows that it can meet its own standards and then again it wins. This criticism overlooks the fact that, if it faces effective criticism, it is shown to be wrong. Bartley's standard is a necessary condition of rationality, but meeting it is no reason for clinging to an effectively criticized theory.

Bartley's ideal of holding all ideas open to criticism has been an important part of critical rationalism. But it soon became apparent that the problems of how to develop critical rationalism were more important than demonstrating just how comprehensive it could be or of maintaining this comprehensive position. In order to see how and why this realization came about it is useful to return to Agassi.

Agassi deems the focus of Bartley's of approach to be misplaced: it unduly emphasizes the defense of rationality as rationally defensible. Rationality does not need defense; it needs improvement, Agassi says. And we may try to improve it piecemeal. We are all rational to some degree and are all interested from time to time in using reason more effectively than we now do. We cannot help but be rational, since thinking is, like seeing, innate to some extent. No one is always rational or perfectly rational any time. Our best hope, then, is to use rationality to improve the partial and limited rationality which we all use to one degree or another. We use a bootstrap process in that we use the rational methods we now have at hand to develop better methods, whereby the methods we use may very well be corrected or even discarded.

Agassi also applied Popper's non-justificationism to the historiography of science. Like many, Popper wanted the theory of science to describe science, but he hardly tried to apply his view to the history of science. Agassi developed a far wider picture of the history of science from Popper's viewpoint, contrasting the traditional inductivist and conventionalist historiographies with a non-justificationist one. Inductivism distorts the history of science as it is the view of innovations as either completely right or quite useless; conventionalism distorts the history of science because it explains away radical changes. John Wettersten extended this application to the historiography of psychology, explaining how a non-justificationist approach was needed to remove peculiar distortions there.

4. Critical Rationalism in Mathematics

In Proofs and Refutations Imré Lakatos extended the range of critical rationalism into mathematics. This area is just where one would expect that it would be the most difficult to develop a theory of the growth of knowledge by criticism rather than by proof, or, as Lakatos put it, by proofs and refutations. Putative counter-examples, he illustrated historically, often refute "proofs" and thus require improvements.

Lakatos did not provide for the use of frameworks to formulate problems in mathematics, nor did he discuss the rules which mathematicians should follow in formulating and criticizing proofs. He forcefully argued against premature formalization, but he did not allow for the modern method of introducing a field axiomatically from the start. His theory of response to criticism only shows that varying ways of responding to problematical cases are available.

As a beginning this is fine. But caring for the central task of critical rationalism, that is, for the development of critical methods (in mathematics) as an alternative to the quest for justifications, requires the replacement of justificationist methods with critical ones. Is this at all possible? Answers to this question might enlighten us about the rationality of mathematical research. They might supplement and/or improve Lakatos's portrayal of mathematical research by accounts of the ways it proceeds, and explain how decisions about the direction of research are made rationally.

Several thinkers have taken up this question; but with only one exception, they have sought to use Lakatos's justificationist methodology of scientific research programs. The exception is Peggy Marchi who broke off her research before she had constructed any developed view. Three thinkers, however, have made attempts to take Lakatos' methodology of research programs in a critical spirit and then apply it to the history of mathematics.

D.D. Spalt (Spalt 1981) argues that Lakatos' methodology of research programs is inapplicable to the history of mathematics as mathematicians are more open skeptical and critical than Lakatos' methodology describes. This confirms Lakatos's turn away from a critical approach, but does not help us further since it does not go on to ask if a genuinely critical approach, say, to the use of research programs such as Agassi's would help us. But Spalt also finds no mathematicians who follow any clear research program at all. He defends a view of mathematics which has great similarity to Feyerabend's view of science: there is no methodology which can describe all mathematical research.

G. Giorello (Giorello 1981) argues that Lakatos' theory of scientific research programs is better applicable to mathematical research than Popper's or Kuhn's. Teun Koetsier in turn found Giorello's argument inadequate (Koetsier 1991 pp. 145ff.). This is not surprising, since Lakatos' methodology of research programs is sketchy.

Koetsier was not satisfied with Giorello's vague results nor with Spalt's negative ones. He proposed a revision of Lakatos' theory which would enable him to describe how mathematical research proceeds. His revised version is closer to Agassi's theory of research programs, which, Agassi suggested, might be used to explain how mathematical problems were chosen and how mathematical research was coordinated.

Lakatos's historical reconstructions of mathematical developments are Popperian in that they portray not only mathematical theorems and their proofs, but also their refutations, and their replacement by new ones. Koetsier criticizes this portrayal. He finds instead that the aim of mathematical research has been directed at refining mathematical theorems. The refined theorems are then by and large accepted and entered into the body of mathematical knowledge, where they then stay, subject only to further refinements. Koetsier agrees, however, that Lakatos's theory does show how mathematicians work when solving problems within some narrowly defined areas of research. This research is fallible, he agrees, and this allows it to progress by the discovery of difficulties with previous theories which are overcome by succeeding ones.

Koetsier discusses clusters of mathematical theories that are part of identifiable research traditions. These traditions pose their own problems and are identifiable by their offerings of clusters of mathematical theorems. Each tradition, however, is not replaced by some competing one as in the case of science, where one explanation is superseded by another leading to the rejection of the former. In this respect the theories of science of Popper and/or Lakatos cannot be applied to the history of mathematics. Rather, each theory progresses in its domain and the results it produces are largely cumulative.

In order to explain how progress is made in such research traditions, Koetsier employs the suggestion made by Marchi that theorems should be taken as analogous to facts. (Marchi 1976) Whereas scientists seek to explain facts, mathematicians seek to prove theorems. Theorems are, just as facts, accepted provisionally. Instead of seeking to explain them as in science, mathematicians seek to prove them. Mathematics grows as new theorems are discovered and proved.

This theory leads back to the problem posed by Agassi and Marchi: How is research coordinated? Koetsier finds that Lakatos's theory of mathematics describes "local" mathematical research rather well. It describes how they solve problems within some cluster of theories and/or methods. He finds various research traditions, which have been used to set problems. But, he does not explain how such traditions arise nor why they are chosen. Mathematical research is, then, coordinated by interests in particular kinds of mathematical objects and/or particular methods. But, how are these chosen? Why do they change?

Koetsier also faces the question: Which theorems should mathematicians prove and why? He notes that some are central and others that seem simply too ad hoc to bother with. But, how does one decide? He offers a list of measures by which to judge the importance of theorems. His list of methods for appraising the ad hoc nature of theorems is interesting but still rather ad hoc. (Koetsier p. 170-171)

Agassi's theory of metaphysical research programs might have helped him here. Unlike Lakatos' inferior and subsequent theory, Agassi's was designed to solve the problems of "How is scientific research coordinated?" or "How do scientists choose their problems?" and "How can we explain simultaneous discoveries?" His answer is that problems in science are often chosen for their relevance to metaphysical problems. He developed at some length and in some depth the conflict between Faraday's field theory and Newton's atomic theory to show how problems were chosen which bore on this controversy and how the two metaphysical research programs could compete against each other.

How much of the choice of problems in the history of mathematics can be explained by Agassi's conjecture that they are regularly chosen due to their relevance to metaphysical problems? This is still an open question. But some problems clearly were. Among them are problems concerning irrational numbers, whether numbers exist in a Platonic world, problems concerning the nature of infinitesimals or irrational numbers or the square root of minus one or the nature of transfinite numbers as well as questions concerning the possibilities of non-Euclidean geometries. A history of mathematics written from this point of view might be enlightening, if it could portray underlying metaphysical concerns as focusing mathematical research on certain kinds of problems and the development of methods to deal with them.

It should be noted that J. O. Wisdom had portrayed the development of the calculus as a response to the criticisms of Berkeley before Lakatos began his research (Wisdom 1939; 1941). His view is less radical than Lakatos's however, since Lakatos, but not Wisdom, said that the growth of mathematical knowledge by proofs and refutations continues even after the introduction of new formal methods of logic. The formal proofs in the logical language are indeed, Lakatos says, immune from refutations, but the translations from the mathematical into the logical language are always open to question.

5. Hans Albert

In the 1960s, Hans Albert began to apply critical rationalism to social and political theory. His writings have become the standard statement of critical rationalism in the German-speaking world, if not elsewhere. He argues that any attempt at justification faces a three-pronged difficulty that is traceable to Agrippa: One alternative leads to an infinite regress as one seeks to prove one assumption but then needs to assume some new one; a second alternative lands in a circular argument as one assumes what one seeks to prove; a third alternative takes some arbitrary starting point and holds to it dogmatically. Outside of these three unacceptable moves, justificationism offers no other alternative. Since none of these three alternatives provide any justification at all, we should abandon the quest for justification. Instead we should hold all theories open to criticism, as Popper and Bartley have proposed. He takes over Agassi's theory of research programs, but, due to his emphasis on the comprehensive nature of critical rationalism, tends to side with Bartley more than Agassi on questions of rationality. He has never, however, had any open dispute with Popper, Bartley or Agassi even though the three thinkers disagree on various significant points. He builds what he can from their points of view into his own version and avoids controversial issues among critical rationalists, while developing polemics against its detractors.

His major project is to explain how the theory of rationality proposed by Popper, Bartley and Agassi is, or can be made to be, applicable to virtually all areas of human endeavor-ethics, politics, social science, science, and so forth. He has from time to time presented this as an alternative to the so-called Frankfurt School that was especially influential in Germany in the late 60s and 70s. Its members thought themselves capable of deep analyses of society to show what went wrong in German history-why, for example, Germany was authoritarian. Members of this school berated alternatives such as Albert's as "positivist," by which they seemed to have meant that it did not take into account the human dimensions of imperfect institutions. Because it looked at them too narrowly from an empirical, technical perspective it passed over too quickly the unhappy consequences they have. Albert countered that the failure to separate descriptive and prescriptive questions leads to the failure of the Frankfurt School to draw a realistic picture of society and such a picture is the necessary foundation for any adequate theory of social reform, which critical rationalism by no means opposes. It attempts rather to make it realistic. The political ideas of critical rationalism as presented by Popper and by Albert were the most popular in Germany next to those of the Frankfurt School. Albert also presented critical rationalism as superior to the hermeneutic theories of Hans-Otto Apel and Hans Georg Gadamer.

Albert has dealt extensively with methodology in economics, criticizing neo-classical economics for its unrealistic assumptions about the rationality of human actions, and its presumptions that there can be a measure of the social welfare of society. But he views the tradition of neoclassical economics as the best that the social sciences have to offer. He hopes to reform it by making its psychological assumptions more realistic. Here he decidedly parts company with Popper, who is far more skeptical about the use of theories of human nature, especially psychological ones. Albert rejects what he consider to be the exaggerated assumptions of rational-choice economics, and he suggests Popper's methodological individualism is not the same as the one that economists often use. But he has not constructed any systematic alternative.

6. Mario Bunge and Fallibilism

The researches mentioned so far grew directly out of Popper's non-justificationist theory of science. Mario Bunge developed a non-justificationist theory of science, especially of physics, before he had ever heard of Popper, and he does not view his work a part of the project known as critical rationalism. It nevertheless can count as a version of critical rationalism: it is a non-justificationist effort to improve standards of criticism. Bunge describes the crucial event in the later development of his philosophy as the realization that frameworks-he calls them systems-were crucial for the growth of knowledge. Bunge's "systems" differ from the "frameworks," whose usefulness is emphasized by some critical rationalists, if they differ at all, in taking as the best critical methods and most progressive research the formal, precise wording of theories. Bunge apparently feels more affinity with those thinkers who emphasize the use of formal methods and who futilely seek justification, than with those who deny the possibility of justification and deem the use of formal methods more limited than he does. This is understandable, since he holds that the attainment of precision is crucial for rationality and, on his view precision is best obtained with formal methods, and sometimes can be obtained only in this way. As a corollary of this attitude, he proposes to respond to difficulties first with small changes that preserve systems, and move to larger ones when these prove inadequate. This is the exact opposite of what Popper said, as he advocated that one should always prefer that theory which has the highest degree of falsifiability. These thinkers, however, do not disagree about the aim of the philosophy of science, which is to improve critical standards so that the best possible theories are created and honed, but rather about the best means for doing that. In the wake of Einstein, Agassi resolves this conflict by proposing that both approaches can be used simultaneously.

7. Critical Rationalism without Frameworks of Methodological Rules

In contrast to critical rationalists who emphasize the need for both theoretical frameworks and methodological rules, there are also critical rationalists who dispense with both. Jagdish Hattiangadi, Gunnar Andersson and David Miller are examples. Hattiangadi says that all problems are contradictions encountered in attempts to master everyday problems of survival. Theoretical frameworks play no role in the formulation of problems, though traditions apparently do. It is hard to see the difference. One of the difficulties that his view encounters is that it makes it impossible to define problems well. For, the problem posed by the assumptions {p, ~p, a, b, c} turns out to be the same as the problem posed by the assumptions {p, ~p, x, y, z}. Another difficulty the theory faces is that it should, but does not, present a contradiction to earlier versions of critical rationalism that it allegedly improves upon. Moreover, some problems are due to gaps in our knowledge that are not contradictions. Formulations of good problems thus require frameworks that include some selection rules.

Posing problems of knowledge in terms of the identification of methodological rules for gaining knowledge was the crucial breakthrough that enabled Popper to move beyond his early Die beiden Grundprobleme. When one dispenses with them, one has an ad hoc approach to critical methods. They grow of themselves, Hattiangadi suggests, as attempts to solve practical problems. No other special critical activity is needed or useful. He explains the growth of critical methods as part of the struggle for survival: those who use the best methods to solve practical problems survive and reproduce themselves best. This view runs the danger of relapsing into Hegelianism, since it judges as best any intellectual development which is successful. Should fundamentalist Hinduism or Islam or Christianity (or all of them together) win the day, will they then be the best expression of rationality?

Gunnar Andersson views Popper's introduction of methodological rules as quite unnecessary: all contradictions between theories and observations pose problems and all responses to them should be prima facie acceptable. He takes off the table the most crucial aspect of the project of critical rationalism: how can we best improve our critical methods and our capacity to learn from mistakes? Even without any appeal to an evolutionary process such as that used by Hattiangadi, Andersson assumes that science will do just fine without critical studies of its methods. He does not discuss his optimism or the fears of those who do not share it. He says virtually nothing about non-scientific inquiry and rational action.

David Miller's critical rationalism is the third example of attempts to characterize rationality without explaining how the use of theoretical frameworks or methodological rules furthers it or hinders it. He concentrates on improving criticism of the logic of justification; he ignores Popper's crucial move from the mere portrayal of the logic of research to the formulation of methodological rules. He agrees that science is better off because it handles theories critically, but does not bother with the details. He ignores the question: How is the use that science makes of criticism distinct, if at all, from other uses of it? However, he apparently sides with Bartley's comprehensively critical rationalism. He has effectively bolstered Popper's arguments against attempts to use induction to establish any degree of probability of any theory and effectively criticized Popper's theory of verisimilitude. Having concluded that there is no evidence which can increase the probability that a theory is true, he concludes that there can be no good reasons whatsoever for any theory or any course of action. All we can ask, he suggests, is: Why not? We only have reasons for the rejection of theories, never for their endorsement.

But it does not follow from his correct observation that we can have no evidence which increases the probability that a theory is true, that there are no good reasons to consider any theory true. Miller suggests that in the interest of truth we should not make fanciful claims. But he says nothing about reasons for preferring, say, highly explanatory theories over less explanatory ones, or ones that solve problems better than others, or that we can improve our methods of elimination of theories beyond the mere random quest for contradictions. On a commonsense understanding of good reasons, all these possibilities may constitute good reasons for preferring some theories over others, even if they do not increase the probability that any theory is true.

On Miller's view it seems a person can declare true any unrefuted theory, say a minimal astrological theory, or Descartes' theory that souls have no extension, without violating any rationalist precept. He does not offer any selection procedure. He relies entirely on the interest in the truth, which, he claims, prevents arbitrariness. This is hardly enough: arbitrariness is not obvious. He rejects the possibility of taking advantage of our ability to assign truth values as we fancy, as it is frivolous; he does not tell us how to spot the frivolous. Talmudists and scholastics certainly have an interest in truth, are hardly frivolous, and use arguments extensively, yet they are hardly rational in any way comparable to the rationality of scientists. Popper's mature philosophy began as he specified rules that should prevent frivolity. He saw the need for methodological rules to make criticism effective.

Some critics say Miller's version of critical rationalism seems to have lost its way. By limiting himself so severely to logical analysis and neglecting the methodological aspects of rationality, Miller gives his philosophy a characteristic typical of positivism; by limiting his considerations to logic, he suggests that almost anything goes.

Theoretical frameworks are needed to direct rational thought and conduct, and methodological rules are needed to improve criticism and to maintain critical standards. Popper took over from the psychology of Otto Selz the idea that rational thought is directed because it is problem-oriented: without problems to direct thought it becomes a random process. And without frameworks we cannot formulate and choose problems well.

Miller can defend his view by explaining that he, too, recommends procedures to select theories to consider true. This takes us back to the problems of social standards of rationality, of problem-solving, of desiderata and of methods of critique which other critical rationalists are engaged in solving. About all this he remains silent. Yet his view that there are no good reasons for considering some statements true seems to render these redundant. If they are redundant, he should explain how we can do without them; if not, he is saying what most critical rationalists agree about.

8. Critical Rationalism, Truth and Best Theories

Alan Musgrave, Volker Gadenne and John Watkins all came out of Popper's circle. But Musgrave and Gadenne nevertheless focus on the search for some assurance that the theories they trust really are trustworthy; Watkins wants some empirical standard to determine which theory is now the best. Their peculiarity is that they seek methods of selecting credible theories or the best theories, while recognizing the validity of the criticisms of methods of justification launched by critical rationalists.

Musgrave endorses Popper's arguments that show the impossibility of sensible assignments to theories of some measure of probability. But he finds wanting Popper's way of avoiding skepticism, because Popper fails to offer reasons for beliefs. Only if it does that can Popper respond to the charge that his view is too skeptical. Musgrave regards his effort, then, as a vital defense of critical rationalism. In order to provide the needed defense, he seeks a standard for reasonable belief. He says that Popper has such a solution: we should believe that that theory which has best withstood criticism is true. He adds that Popper should have said so more clearly.

Skepticism is the theory that no theory is any better than any other. Critical rationalism offers tentative rules for the choice of theories to examine, not to believe in. Musgrave endorses Popper's criticism of all attempts to specify the probability of any theory being true. He considers his position fallibilist and critical rationalist, because he accepts evidence to justify belief in a theory only if the evidence results from attempts to refute it. And, he claims, no evidence justifies claims that a theory is true, but only belief in a theory. Belief in a theory that has withstood criticism is justified, then, but not the claim that it is true. It is not clear why Musgrave suggests that the task of justifying beliefs is less insoluble and less superfluous than that of justifying theories.

Volker Gadenne resembles Musgrave somewhat. He agrees with Popper that theoretical science may very well do without evidence for belief, but he disagrees with him about actions: these require decisions as to which hypothesis is best. He suggests, then, that confirmed theories are preferable as a pragmatic ground for belief. Unlike Musgrave, he realizes that Popper's theory of corroboration cannot serve this purpose, as it allots the least probable theories, the ones that take the most risks, the highest degree of corroboration. But acting on them is still most risky. He therefore has a different theory of corroboration. He separates content from degree of corroboration in order to justify choosing the most highly corroborated theories to guide actions.

Admittedly we do need standards to limit the risk of the application of theories, as Agassi has pointed out. As a matter of principle, Agassi notes, we may demand that theories be tested in severe ways in order to reduce risk. But this procedure is not designed to increase belief or confidence in hypotheses or likelihood of theories. (It is not clear what Gadenne claims for corroboration.) For example, two theories might be equally applicable to some practical situation, one of which may by more risky, because it has more consequences than its competitor. We may still prefer it as a basis for action, even though we have, according to Gadenne's theory, more reason to believe the weaker theory. The stronger theory may enable us to do more. We have, for example, introduced nuclear energy even though we have far less reason, on Gadenne's standards for belief, to believe that using nuclear power is less risky than using coal. We use gene-technology for various purposes, even though Gadenne's theory of belief offers reasons to refrain from using it. We thus have standards for application of theories in technology and other areas of life which are quite independent of belief, thus apparently refuting Gadenne's theory.

Gadenne might respond by contending that the belief in question is not belief in a theory but belief in the success of its application. So, before applying it, we try to increase our belief that the application will succeed. But this is also not the case. We seek to anticipate problems and to test, as well as we can, whether some given application will lead to success or not. We try to apply risky theories because they promise more. When we know we are taking considerable risks, we anticipate them as best we can, and prepare to change course quickly. When we do not anticipate risks, but hope for great success, we simply act to test our hopes. The realization that these always may be frustrated may lead to total paralysis on the basis of Gadenne's theory of the need for corroboration as a means of choice of theories that enable us to act. Planning to solve our problems and realize our hopes employs theories with explanatory power. It also takes into account criticism of possible courses of action, and requires decisions. Belief or reassurance or corroboration are not required. Gadenne's theory, just like Musgrave's, leads us back to numerous insoluble and superfluous problems in the search for justification: How much corroboration must we seek before we act?

Judges must justify the sentences they impose on criminals. Proposals to take risks with the environment or to defend it should be justified too─on a case by case basis. Social standards have to be sufficiently agreed upon to allow for a consensus. On the core doctrine of critical rationalism, such standards cannot have epistemological justification; they are based on conjectures as to how we can avoid mistakes, and when there are different candidates, they are all subject to criticism. More cannot be done, and so all decisions are unjustified and so they all incur risks.

John Watkins intended his theory to go beyond Popper's suggestion that we should choose the theory that has the highest degree of explanatory power. He wished to explain why the theory corroborated to the highest degree is the best now available. But it is hard to see why one theory has to be identified as the best. It is often the case that one theory will be better in one respect and another in some other respect. Such a situation poses problems for both theories. It is reasonable to attempt to solve problems facing each theory quite independently of which theory is now the best on available evidence-if indeed, such a judgment can be made in any sensible way. The attempt to reduce all the good qualities to one quality which is fundamental or the most important is quixotic, as Popper's failed attempt to reduce all good qualities of theory to high degree of testability illustrates. (In the development of his theory of metaphysical research programs Agassi first pointed out that explanatory power can vary independently from testability.) The refined theory of corroboration which Watkins offers is quite irrelevant to practice, where what counts is adequacy for the task at hand and not some abstract measure of current success. Also, in practice we do not want to know which theory is the best, but how various serious alternatives may be improved. Furthermore, there is no point in trying to say which theory is the best at any given time with such a difficult procedure as Watkins has offered: before we have determined which of two alternatives is the best, both alternatives will very likely have been modified and we will have to start all over again.

Theories should have good qualities before we set about criticizing them, if we are not to waste our time in a random search. These good qualities are methodological: What does the theory explain? What problems does it solve? How can it be criticized? They are not epistemological: What evidence do we have for its truth? How can we be reassured we are on the right track? How do we know it corresponds to what the truth is like? Watkins views himself as a critical rationalist even though he stresses corroboration, because he does not relate corroboration to appraisals of the truth or probability of theories, but rather to other good qualities of theories. But he changes the project of critical rationalism from substituting methods of criticism for methods of justification to the quixotic project of determining which theory is best at any given time on the basis of its corroboration.

9. Critical Rationalist Sociology of Science

A crucial feature of critical rationalism is the theory that social norms determine the degree of rationality which individuals are able to exercise. This is a direct outgrowth of Popper's use of methodological rules to explain the growth of science. Because science is a social activity, Popper argued, Robinson Crusoe could not do science. One individual, he suggested, cannot both put forth and criticize theories adequately. Rationality comes from cooperation. To be effective in bringing about the growth of knowledge, criticism should follow social rules.

This feature of critical rationalism has led to a critical rationalist sociology of science and technology. The task of this sociology is the appraisal of the rules of science and technology. Do they encourage or hinder the formulation and circulation of bold conjectures and their effective critical appraisal? This effort began with Agassi's criticisms of Popper's rule to always prefer the theory with the highest degree of testability: Sometimes a testable theory has a higher explanatory power than some competitor, he argued, but also has a lower degree of testability than this competitor. We may, then, prefer it. The same holds for Popper's rule that all basic statements used in science should be repeatable: an independently testable explanation of a basic statement is sufficient. From these studies he moved on to inquiries into science as an open society. Even in the face of the traditional association of science with openness of debate and discussion, a variety of modern thinkers such as Michael Polanyi and Thomas Kuhn have opposed this view.

John Wettersten has continued critical rationalist studies in the sociology of science with examinations of how adventurous and conservative styles of research complement and compete with each other, how stylistic standards can hinder research, how a problem-oriented approach may improve standards in science and technology, and how critical rationalism may be used to guide sociological research. Wettersten has developed critical studies of alternative approaches to the sociology of science: a critical rationalist approach aims at minimizing the idealization of science, but without explaining scientific knowledge away.

I.C. Jarvie has recently studied how and when Popper added a theory of the institutions of science to his theory of the logic of science (Jarvie 2001) . In The Open Society and Its Enemies Popper explicitly added a social dimension to his view of science which was only implicit in Logik der Forschung. Popper did not, however, move on to sociological studies of science. He was so concerned not to explain away scientific knowledge as a mere social phenomena that he did not engage in the social studies of science even though his view called for such studies. He did not see that the effort to minimize idealized versions of science by describing how science encourages and hinders research poses no temptation to explain away scientific knowledge.

10. Philosophical Anthropology and Critical Rationality

As rationality is never perfect, and as idealization is to be minimized, Jarvie and Agassi tried to solve a number of central issues in the social sciences under the assumption that rationality is a matter of degree. This invites a new philosophical anthropology. In order to understand human nature it is desirable to desist from seeking all-or-nothing theories of humanity as, for example, a mere machine or of rationality as perfect. Human rationality cannot be understood apart from its mechanical or biological or social or rational aspects; human mechanism and biology and society cannot be understood apart from their rational aspects.

11. Critical Rationalism and Political Society

In addition to being a study of the methodology of the social sciences Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies is a political manifesto. It sets minimal conditions for democratic politics: it must avoid utopian social engineering. The exclusive use of piecemeal social engineering requires that societies be open and that critical appraisal of government policies be carried out. Governments must set abstract conditions for how a society functions, but they should leave individuals free to act as they choose. This freedom includes the right of individuals to build their own social groups.

John Watkins and Bryan Magee have added significant observations about Popper's contribution. Watkins pointed out that Popper's theory offered a basis for a pluralistic society which traditional theories of rationality cannot: justificationist theories allow only one view to be justified given the evidence at any time, whereas critical rationalism allows for a range of defensible theories which may democratically compete in the political arena. Magee (1995) has argued that Popper's philosophy offered a good antidote for those who would reject existing society as no good on the basis of utopian standards and demand radical reform. It explained why all societies have grave defects, that they could be corrected to some degree piecemeal, but that no radical change of society had any hope of making the situation any better.

Popper's abstract demarcation of closed and open societies does not touch most political controversies today, which concern disagreements among defenders of the open society. As a consequence, critical rationalists such as Jeremy Shearmur and Gerard Radnitzky have attempted to pull Popper's theory toward Hayek and laissez-faire economics, whereas others, such Malachi Hacohen, Agassi and Helmut Schmidt have found in his theory a framework for theories of active social reform. Popper said very little about competing democratic forms of government and what he has said is not necessarily connected to his philosophical deliberations in any obvious way.

Popper's observation that reform has unintended and unknown consequences which may then require further adjustments or backtracking has been read as a support for Hayek's demand that all government should be severely limited. Popper's observation that no society is perfect and his demand that social reform should eliminate some of its worst aspects have been read as support of a moderate socialism.

12. Popper and Education Theory

Popper began his research as a student of the Pedagogical Institute of the University of Vienna. Members of the Würzburg School such as Karl Bühler and Otto Selz were closely associated with the school reform movement led by Eduard Burger. Selz explained how learning could be improved when it centred on active problem solving. Popper adopted his view and argued that the memorization of important material by repetition would be replaced with a Selzian, problem-orientated approach. Wettersten has explained this as a beginning of integrated psychology and pedagogy that Popper has further developed by adding to it his methodological insights. Other critical rationalists followed this lead stressing the import of active problem solving, and adding the formation of conjectures and exercises in criticism and improvement of them. Also, emphasizing Popper's insight that science only makes advances in social settings, they have added the demand not to ignore the fact that learning involves social interaction, whereby autonomy, as the needed prerequisite for critical thinking, is also deemed a prime goal of any good pedagogy.

13. Conclusion

The salient points of critical rationalism open new possibilities in ethics, which until now has been merely couched in terms of the need to be critical and open. A problem-oriented ethics may replace traditional rule and consequence oriented ones. The use of critical standards of debate to appraise the history of philosophy opens up new perspectives as illustrated in the work of Curtis on Darwin's reception (Curtis 1987) and Wettersten's study of the reception to Whewell. It offers new paths for the study of related fields such as economics, where Kurt Klappholz and Lawrence Boland have led the way, for the study of methods and historiography of psychology as mentioned, and the possibility of a new theory of institutions as structures which individuals use to solve problems and appraise alternatives.

Various efforts such as these are still too fresh to be appraised and various defenders of critical rationalism differ on crucial issues. Just what, if any, its long-term impact will be is still quite open; debates among its exponents and between them and opponents are still on-going. The crucial issue is whether and to what degree methods of criticism can be substituted for epistemological methods of justification in all areas of life. This is the way we can face the stimulating criticism of Russell, who viewed critical rationalism as defeatist. Only the exhibition of bold, fruitful thinking may answer it. There is ongoing research to develop a critical theory of the history of philosophy, of the sociology of science, of political philosophy, of ethical theory, and of social and political institutions. If critical rationalism is merely a theory of weak justification as Musgrave, Gadenne and Watkins would have it, or if it ignores problems of the direction of research and intellectual standards as perhaps Hattiangadi, Andersson and Miller do, then it may deservedly be forgotten.

14. References and Further Reading

The literature on critical rationalism is enormous. Manfred Lubbe in his Karl R. Popper, Bibliographie 1925-2004 lists over four thousand publications on Popper. And his list omits many publications. The following bibliography is slanted to give background to the above portrayal of critical rationalism, on the one hand, and to contain a sampling of some of the most important literature, on the other. It is unavoidable that some publications which might not be so very important are listed as background, while others which may be of some significance are omitted in order to keep the list relatively short.

Agassi, Joseph, Towards an Historiography of Science, History and Theory, Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Beiheft 2, (1963).

Agassi, Joseph, Science in Flux (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publ. Co., 1975).

Agassi, Joseph , Towards a Rational Philosophical Anthropology (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977).

Agassi, Joseph, Science and Society (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publ. Co., 1981).

Agassi, Joseph, Technology: Philosophical and Social Aspects (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publ. Co., 1985).

Agassi, Joseph, A Philosopher's Apprentice: In Karl Popper's Workshop (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1993).

Agassi, Joseph and Jarvie, I.C. (eds) Rationality: The Critical View (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987).

Albert, Hans, Traktat über kritscher Vernunft (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck Verlag, 1968).

Albert, Hans, Plädoyer für kritischen Rationalismus (München: Piper Verlag, 1971).

Albert, Hans, Konstruktion und Kritik (Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, 1972).

Albert, Hans, Traktat über rationale Praxis (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck Verlag, 1978).

Albert, Hans, Kritischer Vernunft und menschlicher Praxis (Stuttgart: Philipp Verlag jun. Verlag, 1984).

Albert, Hans, Treatise on Critical Reason (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985).

Albert, Hans, Marktsoziologie und Entscheidungslogik (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck Verlag, 1998).

Bartley, William Bartley, The Retreat to Commitment (London: Chatto and Windus, 1964).

Berkson, William and Wettersten, John, Lernen aus dem Irrtum, Forward by Hans Albert (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, l982).

Berkson, William and Wettersten, John, Learning from Error, English edition of Berkson and Wettersten l982 (La Salle: Open Court Publishing Co., l984).

Boland, Lawrence A, The Foundations of Economic Method (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1982).

Bunge, Mario (ed.) The Critical Approach to Science and Philosophy (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1964).

Bunge, Mario, "Instant Autobiography", Studies on Mario Bunge's Treatise, eds. Paul Weigartner and Georg J.W. Dorn, Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1990, 677-684

Curtis, Ron, Darwin as an Epistemologist. Annals of Science 44, 379-408.

Elliot, Benjamin, Falsifiable Statements in Theology: Karl Popper and Christian Thought, Karl Popper Essay Prize, 2004.

Gadenne, Volker, ed. Kritischer Rationalismus und Pragmatismus, Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1998.

Fried, Yehuda, and Agassi, Joseph, Paranoia: A Study in Diagnosis (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publ. Co., 1976).

Hattiangadi, Jagdish, "Methodology without methodological rules," in: R.S. Cohen and M.W. Wartofsky (eds), Language logic and method, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science (Dordrecht: Kluwer 1982), pp. 103-51.

Jarvie, I.C., The Revolution in Anthropology (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964).

Jarvie, I.C., The Republic of Science (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 2001)

Jarvie, I.C. and Laor, Nathaniel (eds), Metaphysics and Science (Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994).

Jarvie, I.C. and Laor, Critical Rationalism, the Social Sciences and the Humanities (Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994).

Klappholtz, Kurt and Joseph Agassi, 'Methodological Prescriptions in Economics', Economica (Feb. 9, 1959): 60-74.

Koetsier, Teun, Lakatos' Philosophy of Mathematics: An Historical Approach (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1991).

Lubbe, Manfred, (ed.) Karl R. Popper, Bibliographie 1925-2004 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2005).

Lakatos, Imré, Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery, John Worral and Elie Zahar (eds) (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976).

Magee, Bryan, "What Use Is Popper to a Politician," in Anthony O'Hear (Ed.), Karl Popper: Philosophy and Problems (Cambridge: Cambridge Universty Press 1995), pp. 259-273. Reprinted in Ian C. Jarvie and Sandra Pralong (eds), Popper's Open Society after Fifty Years: The Continuing Relevance of Karl Popper (London: Routledge 1998), pp. 146-158.

Marchi, Peggy, "Mathematics as a Critical Enterprise" in R.S. Cohen, P.K. Feyerabend and M.W. Waratofsky (eds), Essays in Memory of Imré Lakatos (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publ. Co. 1976) pp. 379-394.

Miller, David, Critical Rationalism (LaSalle: Open Court, 1994).

Musgrave, Alan, Common Sense, Science and Skepticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

Popper, Karl, „Ein Kriterium des empirischen Charakters theoretischer Systeme," Erkenntnis 1 (1932-33), 426-27.

Popper, Karl, Logik der Forschung, Siebente Auflage (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr(Paul Siebeck), 1982).

Popper, Karl, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1962).

Popper, Karl, The Poverty of Historicism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960).

Popper, Karl, Objective Knowledge (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1972).

Popper, Karl, Conjectures and Refutations (New York: Basic Books, 1963, 1965).

Popper, Karl, Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr(Paul Siebeck), 1979).

Popper, Karl, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Fourth Edition (New York: Harper & Row, 1962).

Popper, Karl, "The Rationality Principle," in: David Miller (ed.) Popper Selections (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 357ff.

Popper, Karl, Gesammelte Werke. Band 1: Frühe Schriften. Hrsg. v. Troels E. Hansen. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006.)

Reichenbach, Hans, Erkenntnis, 1 (192-33), 426-7.

Selz, Otto, Über die Gesetze des geordneten Denkversaufs, eine experimentelle Untersuchung. Erste Teil (Stuttgart: Spemann, 1913).

Selz, Otto, Über die Gesetze des geordneten Denkverlaufs, Zweiter Teil, Zur Psychologie des produktiven Denkens und des Irrtums. Eine experimentelle Untersuchung, (Bonn: Cohen, 1922).

Shearmur, Jeremy, Hayek and After, Hayekian liberalism as a research program (London: Routledge, 1996).

Spalt, Detlef D., Vom Mythos der mathematischen Vernunft (Darmstadt: wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1981)

Watkins, J. W. N., Science and Skepticism (London: Hutschison; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).

Watkins, J. W. N., "Imperfect Rationality" in R. Borger and F. Cioffi (eds) Explanation in the Behavioral Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1970), pp. 167-217.

Wisdom, J.O., "The Analyst Controversy: Berkeley's influence on the development of mathematics," Hermathema 54, (1939): 3-29.

Wisdom, J.O., "The Compensation of Errors in the Methods of Fluxions," Hermathema 57 (1941): 3-29.

Wettersten, John, "The Place of Bunge" in Joseph Agassi and Robert S. Cohen (Eds) Scientific Philosophy Today (Dordrecht, Boston, London: D. Reidel, l982a) pp. 465-86.

Wettersten, John, The Roots of Critical Rationalism, Schriftenreihe zur Philosophie Karl R. Poppers und des kritischen Rationalismus, Kurt Salamun (Ed.) (Amsterdam und Atlanta: Rodopi, 1992a).

Wettersten, John, 'The Sociology of Scientific Establishments Today', British Journal of Sociology, 44, 1 (1993): 68-102.

Wettersten, John, "Braucht die Wissenschaft methodologische Regeln?" Conceptus, Wettersten, John "After Popper," Review-essay of David Miller, Critical Rationalism and Alan Musgrave, Common Sense, Science and Skepticism, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 26, 1 (1996b): 92-112.

Wettersten, John, "Eine aktuelle Aufgabe für den kritischen Rationalismus und die Soziologie," in Hans-Jürgen Wendel und Volker Gadenne (eds) Kritik und Rationalität (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr(Paul Siebeck) 1996c), pp. 183-212.

Wettersten, John, "The Critical Rationalists' Quest for an Effective Liberal Pedagogy," in Gerhard Zecha, Critical Rationalism and Educational Discourse (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi:, 1999a), pp. 93-115.

Wettersten, John, "Popper's Historical Role: Innovative Dissident," Zeitschrift für allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie, Vol. 36, No. 1, Jan. 2005, 119-133.

Wettersten, John, "New Insights on Young Popper," Journal for The History of Ideas, (Oct. 2005); pp. 603-631.

Wettersten, John, How Do Institutions Steer Events? An Inquiry into the Limits and Possibilities of Rational Thought and Action (Aldershot: Ashgate Publ. Co., 2006)

Zecha, Gerhard, ed., Critical Rationalism and Educational Discourse (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1999).

Author Information

John R. Wettersten
Email: wettersten@t-online.de
Mannheim Universit
Germany

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"Critical Rationalism" is the name Karl Popper (1902-1994) gave to a modest and self-critical rationalism. He contrasted this view with "uncritical or comprehensive rationalism," the received justificationist view that only what can be proved by reason and/or experience should be accepted. Popper argued that comprehensive rationalism cannot explain how proof is possible and that it leads to inconsistencies.

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Фальсификация К.Поппера

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Фальсификация К.Поппера

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I Основные идеи и положения данного направления

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I Основные идеи и положения данного направления

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"Рационально действует лишь тот, который строит смелые теоретические гипотезы, открытые самым разнообразным попыткам их опровержения. Более того, рациональность предполагает бескомпромиссную критику, в т.ч. и собственных позиций, опирающуюся на научную методологию (Фальсификация). Важнейшим следствием этой установки является признание принципиальной гипотетичности, предположительности знания, поскольку претензии знания на абсолютную истинность противоречат принципу критицизма и, следовательно, нерациональны".
Каждое ложное убеждение, которое мы обнаруживаем, на самом деле - это хорошо, потому что это приближает нас к тому, чтобы верить только в истинные вещи.
Пример: чтобы доказать реальность существования Санты Клауса, ты обязан попытаться доказать его не существование. Проверяя достоверность того, во что вы верите различными способами, тогда ваша теория имеет право называться научной.

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Karl Popper, Science, & Pseudoscience: Crash Course Philosophy #8

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Корни критического рационализма

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Корни критического рационализма

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В нашем крупнейшем в мире магазине представлены электронные книги, которые можно читать в браузере, на планшетном ПК, телефоне или специальном устройстве.

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Критический рационализм 

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Критический рационализм 

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- разрабатывает свою концепцию, анализируя проблемы развития научного знания. Его представители считают, что истинным методом философии является так называемая рациональная критика. Это по сути означает непризнание мировоззренческой функции философии. Следует отметить, что критические рационалисты признают существование реального мира и возможность его научного описания.

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План проекта.

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План проекта.

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1. Критический рационализм - направление философии как методологии

Основные идеи и положения данного направления

2. Основные представители критического рационализма и их труды ("Корни критического рационализма")
( К. Поппер, И. Лакатос)

Труды основных представителей направления (Логика научного исследования - К.Поппер)

3. Применение критического рационализма (фальсифицируемости) в социальных науках
4. Выводы: оценка данному направлению как методу познания мира

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Тема проекта:

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Тема проекта:

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"Критический рационализм - направление философии как методологии"