Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Falsifiability (or refutability) is a deductive standard of evaluation of scientific theories and hypotheses, introduced by the philosopher of science Karl Popper in his book The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934). [B] A theory or hypothesis is falsifiable if it can be logically contradicted by an empirical test.
Popper presents falsifiability as both an ideal and as an important principle in a practical method of effective human problem solving; as such, the current conclusions of science are stronger than pseudo-sciences or non-sciences, insofar as they have survived this particularly vigorous selection method.
The philosopher Bryan Magee considered Popper's criticisms of logical positivism "devastating". In his view, Popper's most important argument against logical positivism is that, while it claimed to be a scientific theory of the world, its central tenet, the verification principle, effectively destroyed all of science. [8]
This led Popper to his falsifiability criterion. Popper wrote about critical rationalism in many works, including: The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934/1959), [ 1 ] The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), [ 2 ] Conjectures and Refutations (1963), [ 3 ] Unended Quest (1976), [ 4 ] and The Myth of the Framework (1994).
Falsifiability is the demarcation criterion proposed by Popper as opposed to verificationism: "statements or systems of statements, in order to be ranked as scientific, must be capable of conflicting with possible, or conceivable observations." [19]
The founder of critical rationalism: Karl Popper. In the mid-twentieth century, several important philosophers began to critique the foundations of logical positivism.In his work The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934), Karl Popper, the founder of critical rationalism, argued that scientific knowledge grows from falsifying conjectures rather than any inductive principle and that ...
In Popper's philosophy of science, scientific statements are always provisional, they have limits of application, and they could always be wrong. If a statement cannot even in principle be proved wrong, it cannot be a scientific statement. Thus, in Popper's eyes, the falsifiability criterion clearly demarcates "science" from "non-science". This ...
On the other hand, likened to economists of the 19th century who took circuitous, protracted measures to deflect falsification of their own preconceived principles, [49] the verificationists—that is, the logical positivists—became identified as pillars of scientism, [118] allegedly asserting strict inductivism, [119] as well as ...