© InternationalJournal.org Karl Popper on Theory Creation

The very title of my paper may cause many eyebrows to be raised. For anyone who is familiar with Popper's philosophy of science knows well that he distinguished clearly between two types of historical processes, namely, the process of conceiving a new scientific theory or idea and the methods of examining it logically, and asserted that the task of the philosophers is not to ponder on these actual thinking processes whereby a new scientific theory comes into being. The logical analysis of scientific knowledge, instead, is restricted to an examination of contents of linguistically formulated scientific theories and of the post-generational evaluative procedures of scientists. One might naturally ask what then the point behind an inquiry like this is since Popper himself was mainly concerned with post-generational justification and bequeathed the detailed study of theory creation to the psychologists and the historians. There are two principal reasons which motivated this examination. Firstly, what is generally found as the Popperian notion of creativity and scientific discovery in the literature of philosophy of science is reasonably different from what closer readings of his earlier and later works reveal. Secondly, an analysis like this can illuminate problems of theory change and scientific progress, which undoubtedly are important to philosophy of science in general and Popper in particular. This implies a crucial point, namely, that progress of scientific knowledge, contrary to what philosophers of science generally used to believe, is not the subject matter of a single discipline. In this paper I attempt to make apparent the shortcomings that the disciplinary splitting of the topic of advancement of knowledge (in science) entails.

CENTRAL ASIAN JOURNAL OF LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY AND CULTURE, 2022

This paper situates us within the context of an internal conflict in the Philosophy of Karl Popper. On the one hand, Popper is an ardent proponent of scientific realism-the view that science seeks to formulate true theories that depict the structure of the universe; and on the other hand, the very Karl Popper propounds Non-Justificationism in science-a negativist methodology which asserts that the logic of science seeks not the justification but the refutation of theories. This non-justificationism seems asymmetric to the realist optimistic ambition of justifying the reliability of scientific knowledge. To resolve this tension between realism and nonjustificationism in Popper's epistemology some philosophers have proceeded by revising his method of falsification (Imre Lakatos,), others have opted for a reinterpretation of his realism (Evandro Agazzi, Mario Alai,) while some have given an instrumentalist status to popper's rationality of science (Peter Godfrey-Smith, Anthony O'Hear). Our argument in this Paper is that to resolve the contradiction within Popper's rationality of science we have to situate the two conflicting theses (Realism and non-justicationism) within the general problem of Popper's epistemology. That is, the problem of the conditions necessary for the growth of scientific knowledge. Thus, after examining the basic tenets of Popper's realism and illustrating the levels of the opposition between realism and non-justificationism, we have gone beyond other solutions to defend the conflation of realism and non-justificationism as the condition for the growth of knowledge. Popper thus emerges out of our analysis as a 'critical realist' who rejects 'dogmatic optimism' and creates 'critical optimism' in his evolutionary epistemology.

1972

This paper considers objections to Popper's views on scientific method. It is argued that criticism of Popper's views, developed by Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Lakatos, are not too damaging, although they do require that Popper's views be modified some¬what. It is argued that a much more serious criticism is that Popper has failed to provide us with any reason for holding that the methodological rules he advocates give us a better hope of realizing the aims of science than any other set of rules. Con¬sequently, Popper cannot adequately explain why we should value scientific theories more than other sorts of theories ; which in turn means that Popper fails to solve adequately his fundamental problem, namely the problem of demarcation. It is sug¬gested that in order to get around this difficulty we need to take the search for explana¬tions as a fundamental aim of science.

As the title of this article indicates, its aim is to investigate in the origins of Karl Popper’s philosophy of science. In particular, find out the roots of what for him were at the time the two fundamental problems of the theory of knowledge. Thus, the fundamental questions in this work are: 1. What did Popper know of European philosophers of science that he mentions and criticizes? 2. Where does Popper's anti-inductivism and falsificationism come from? 3. Were Popper's basic positions original? 4. To what extent was Popper in his beginnings a realist philosopher? 5. How contributed Popper to the theory of scientific explanation? 6. What does contemporary scientific instrumentalism owe to Popper? Even if reading this article may cast some doubts on the solidity of Popper's basic approaches, what is indubitable is that Popper is an indispensable figure in the contemporary philosophy of science.

Karl Popper: Critical Appraisals

JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY AND DEVELOPMENT, 2017

This paper extracts from Popper's assertion that he had turned his back on induction. Popper believed he had 'solved' the 'problem of induction' by providing a noninductive account of corroboration. Popper used the term 'corroboration' rather than 'confirmation' since he believed that the latter term is too closely allied to the notion of the inductive or probabilistic support that a theory can receive from evidence. However, Popper admitted to a “whiff of inductivism” in his later years with the assumption that science can progress towards greater verisimilitude. In spite of David Miller's restatement and defence of Popper's critical rationalism and Miller's repudiation both of ampliative inferences and all conceptions of confirming evidence, the “whiff of inductivism in Popper's science still stands. This paper acknowledges this unavoidable “whiff” of inductivism in Popper's hypotheticodeductive corroboration. By using Clark Glymour's bootstrap inferences to represent very severe testing of a theory, I aim to make clear that through some richer methodological processes we can further support Popper's idea of severity of testing inductively as well as show that the testing of hypotheses and the legitimate processes of scientific inquiry can be conducted through a plurality of methods.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Karl Popper was a philosopher that criticized traditional views of how knowledge was purported to support scientific and philosophical hypotheses. This paper analyzes the influence Popper had on how knowledge is used to support science.

Journal of The Operational Research Society, 2009