In the field of epistemology, there are three special actors who will never cease to influence: Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend and Karl Popper. Each brought their respective doctrines; subjectivist scientism (crassly put), epistemic anarchism and falsificationist realism. These epistemological concepts all painted science in a different light and came in turn to fight bloody battles in the court of ideas for many years to come. — Pelle
Who do you think has the right idea of what science is/ ought to be? — Pelle
More philosophically -- the problem with Popper is the scope of his claims, and the prescriptive nature of his project. He's making a normative project for scientists, and doing so not just for a few scientists who feel inspired but for scientific knowledge as a whole. And while Popper's method gets at some aspects of scientific thought, it does not meet the burden it sets for itself -- and yet still demands that science should be performed in accordance with his particular epistemological concerns. — Moliere
Feyerabend demonstrates this by placing Popper's method alongside Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems -- an example which surely everyone would agree is properly scientific, and even good science, yet does not follow Popper's method. So either Galileo is wrong about how to do science, or Popper has overstated the scope to which his method applies. (at least, if we agree with Feyerabend's analysis, of course -- we could set out to save Popper by trying to reframe Galileo in Popperian terms. But I'm fairly well convinced by the arguments in Against Method) — Moliere
What sort of prescriptive things do you not like? The requirement to be open to criticism, and to subject one's ideas to the harshest of tests? How a bout the requirement to not appeal to any authority, or that a scientific theory must yield testable statements about reality? — Inis
There are more subtle requirements, like given the choice of two theories, one should choose the one with higher empirical content, because it will be more falsifiable. — Inis
Of course, this is only a superficial account, but these ideas seem rather good to me. — Inis
Firstly, Lakatos characterises falsification as operative not on singular propositions, but on series of propositions. Such a series might be 'The laws of Newtonian mechanics + observations about Uranus' orbit' or 'The laws of Newtonian mechanics + observations about Mercury's orbit', and when falsification strikes (when 'Nature shouts "No!" as he puts it), it does not act on a specific proposition, but on the composites "The laws of Newtonian mechanics + observations about Uranus' orbit'. — fdrake
The second difference from Popperian falsification is that the rejection entailed by Nature shouting 'No!' is weakened. We don't reject Newtonian mechanics entirely just because it fails to model the orbit of Mercury, we rather constrain its application to a domain of relevance, and this is done adaptively with respect to theoretical and experimental demarcations. — fdrake
I'll wait on you providing the reference later, then. — fdrake
LSD section 19: "...the theoretical systems of the natural sciences are not verifiable, but I assert that they are not falsifiable either.
LSD section 6: "...it is still impossible, for various reasons, that any theoretical system should ever be conclusively falsified.
how could we ever know anything? — Pelle
completely agree. The biological aspects of Popper's writing is what I found the most interesting. There's seems to be a lot of people that think he's a status quo shill with no radical ideas, but it's just not true. — Pelle
modern science does follow Popper's ideas to some extent. The critical discussion around science today is exactly as Popper described: people trying to falsify eachother's theories. — Pelle
modern science does follow Popper's ideas to some extent. The critical discussion around science today is exactly as Popper described: people trying to falsify eachother's theories. — Pelle
I realize that his intent was to multiply knowledge by multiplying metod — Pelle
, but his unwillingness to outline what science is is a huge issue.
If Feyerabend's ideas were to be applied to the scientific enterprise, things with merely heuristical (if even that) use would appear a lot more in the academies like Marxist Science, Creation Science and Astrology. — Pelle
What if there is no specific set of criteria that captures all science? Wouldn't it be more honest to not describe it if that were the case? — Moliere
I guess the response here is -- so what? If someone wants to run a research program on Marxist Science, Creation Science, and Astrology, who cares? I can tell you the specific reasons why I don't believe in this or that set of beliefs. But there's no reason to have an over-arching theory of knowledge to safeguard the sanctity of academia. I can respond in kind to any sort of research program or argument. — Moliere
Science is about solving problems, but Marxism nor Creationism solve problems: they merely provide explanations taken directly from their ideological framework (which is essentially a set of conclusions). — Pelle
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.