(Controversial vs. plausible)
While we agree with Popper’s claims that falsificationism is the correct way to pursue knowledge, there are a few arguments against this philosphy. His statement that ‘you cannot prove a theory, but you can disprove it,’ has seen its share of criticisms but one common mistakes that his critics have made is confusing demonstration and derivation. Proof is a matter of demonstration (as in mathematics), but refutation is a matter of accepting a basic statement and rejecting the truth of the theory it contradicts. If we accept ‘This swan here is black’, then we are obliged to reject ‘all swans are white’. This does not prove that not all swans are white, though. In a proof, we discard the assumptions that helped us to get to the conclusion. This is quite clear in proof by reductio ad absurdum. In a reductio ad absurdum we start by assuming the opposite of what we wish to prove. That is, we assume it is false. We then try to infer an absurdity (contradiction) from this, and if we do, we then conclude that the assumption must be true. But in a refutation our rejection of a theory depends on our maintaining the truth of the basic statement. In a refutation we hold on to the assumptions of our derivations. (Jack Cohen’s The Critical Rationalist). Another point of controversy is that fact that we cannot falsify falsification.
Justificationists: ‘they hold that whatever cannot be supported be positve reasons is unworthy of being believed.’ (Artigas )
Inductivists
If induction is considered , the logical problem with it is the fact that whether or not induction can give us true knowledge?? Or is logical reasoning unsubstantiated?
How would Popper react?
In fact, Popper does believe that the problem of induction can be addressed if a hypothetico-deductive methodological approach to induction is developed (Oldroy p 301). Therefore, this method of conjecturing or refuting knowledge Popper claims can be adopted and hence any problems of induction avoided. It is known that deduction unlike induction gives more certainty than induction but merely being methodological and rational (???) in scientific inquiry does not make induction deductive. Well, that’s what Oldroy claims. Furthermore, Hanson argues that once we acknowledge the fallibility of human knowledge we can come to terms with reality and agree that scientific knowledge is purely hypothetical or conjectural. In the case of classsical Newtonian mechanics it was seen as an impregnable law until Einstein’s theory of relativity dethroned it. Maybe this is where the constructive empiricist view of Haas Van Frassen comes into the picture. Being more pragmatic it accpets theories as long as these ‘work’ and appeals to the average impatient knowledge thirsty univesity student.**
Probabilists
In the view of many social scientists, the more probable a theory is, the better it is. They state that if a choice has to be made between two theories which are equally strong in terms of the explanatory power and differ only in that one is probable and the other is improbable, then we should choose the former. Popper disagrees with this. He states that a working scientist is interested in theories with a highly informative content as such theories possess a higher predictive power and are consequently highly testable.
Popper argues saying that then paradoxical as it may sound, the more improbable a theory is, the better it is scientifically as the probability and informative content have inverse variations. (Stanford archives)
Dogmatic falsificationists
A dogmatic (or naïve) falsificationist believes that conclusions can be limited to observations. It must be possible to falsify the conclusion through observation. If that is so, then the theory survives to be tested again.
The main difference with Popper’s falsification is that Popper’s falsication contains auxiliary assumptions, meaning that it has greater empirical content. Popper also claims that empirical content in science is more important than truth. Despite a theory having a low probability, if its empirical content is higher, that is, it has more potential falsifiers, it has a closer proximity to the truth.
Conventionalists
Conventionalists believe that observation is not a certain source of knowledge as observation is often not objective.
Kantian
He was interested in a prior knowledge. One could achieve this kind of knowledge by mental introspection by examing the form of propositions. According to Kant an analytic proposition is one which the predicate is contained within the subject.
Duhem’s Simplicism
Duhem was an anti-realist instrumentalist who believed that a theory could not be proved true simply on the basis of experimental evidence. “A theory was an instrument of intellectual economy.” For him, the scientific theory was a useful tool in establishing the convenient or inconvenient. To him, no scientific laws can be said to be true or untrue.
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