what were the main ideas in the teaching of karl popper

Karl Poppers Key Points Conjectures and Refutations

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What did Karl Popper believe about science?

Karl Popper believed that scientific knowledge is provisional – the best we can do at the moment. Popper is known for his attempt to refute the classical positivist account of the scientific method, by replacing induction with the falsification principle.

What is Popper's theory of falsification?

Popper is known for his rejection of the classical inductivist views on the scientific method, in favour of empirical falsification: A theory in the empirical sciences can never be proven, but it can be falsified, meaning that it can and should be scrutinized by decisive experiments.

Why did Karl Popper write the Open Society and its enemies?

The annexation of Austria in 1938 became the catalyst which prompted Popper to refocus his writings on social and political philosophy. He published The Open Society and Its Enemies, his critique of totalitarianism, in 1945.

What are the key elements of a scientific theory Popper?

Popper views conjecture, testing and refutation as the key elements in the functioning of a theory; a principle shared by Kuhn as well though he asserts that these elements take place during normal science. Popper emphasizes on conjecture though he maintains that a new conjecture cannot be based on a rationale that is given.

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What is popperian philosophy?

Popper coined the term "critical rationalism" to describe his philosophy. Popper rejected the empiricist view (following from Kant) that basic statements are infallible; rather, according to Popper, they are descriptions in relation to a theoretical framework.

How does Popper explain the growth of human knowledge?

The Growth of Human Knowledge. For Popper, the growth of human knowledge proceeds from our problems and from our attempts to solve them. These attempts involve the formulation of theories which must go beyond existing knowledge and therefore require a leap of the imagination.

What did Karl Popper say about falsification?

Popper seemed to be admitting that his critics were right: falsification is a mere guideline, a rule of thumb, sometimes helpful, sometimes not. Popper said he had never before responded to the question I had just asked. “I found it too stupid to be answered. You see the difference?” he asked, his voice gentle again.

Does Popper believe sociology is a science?

Popper believed that social science could be scientific, but that that social scientific knowledge has to be based on deduction and falsification (rather than induction and verification). For Popper, sociology can be scientific if it makes precise predictions through the use of the hypothetic-deductive model.

What is the meaning of verification for Karl Popper?

Verification, philosophy: verification means determining the truth value ("true" or "false") of statements that refer to the observable. The admissible means of verification are determined by the theories, the statements belong to.

What is the main purpose of scientific model?

Scientific models are used to explain and predict the behaviour of real objects or systems and are used in a variety of scientific disciplines, ranging from physics and chemistry to ecology and the Earth sciences.

What is Karl Popper debate?

The Karl Popper Debate format focuses on relevant and often deeply divisive propositions, emphasizing the development of critical thinking skills, and tolerance for differing viewpoints. To facilitate these goals, debaters work together in teams of three, and must research both sides of each issue.

What is Karl Popper's contribution to science?

Popper's principal contribution to the philosophy of science rests on his rejection of the inductive method in the empirical sciences. According to this traditional view, a scientific hypothesis may be tested and verified by obtaining the repeated outcome of substantiating observations.

Which world of Popper corresponds to the description of knowledge?

More on world 3 But, world 3 is not to be conceived as a Platonic realm, because unlike the Platonic world of forms, which is non changing and exists independently of human beings, Popper's world 3 is created by human beings and is not fixed. It corresponds to the current state of our knowledge and culture.

What is empirical knowledge in philosophy?

empiricism, in philosophy, the view that all concepts originate in experience, that all concepts are about or applicable to things that can be experienced, or that all rationally acceptable beliefs or propositions are justifiable or knowable only through experience.

What did Karl Popper do?

He undertook a doctoral programme with the department of psychology at the University of Vienna the under the supervision of Karl Bühler, 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 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 Kant scholar (a professor of philosophy and 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 the discipline 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 “Zur Methodenfrage der Denkpsychologie”. In extending Bühler’s Kantian approach to the crisis in the dissertation, Popper critiqued Moritz Schlick’s neutral monist programme to make psychology scientific by transforming it 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 Popper’s attention away from Bühler’s question of the unity of psychology to that of its scientificity. This philosophical focus on questions of method, objectivity and claims to scientific status was to become a principal life-long concern, bringing the orientation of Popper’s 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.

Where did Popper teach philosophy?

In 1937 he 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. The annexation of Austria in 1938 became the catalyst which prompted Popper to refocus his writings on social and political philosophy.

What is Popper's view on Marxism?

Popper also considers that contemporary Marxism also lacks scientific status. Unlike psychoanalysis, he argues, Marxism had been initially scientific, in that it 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 asserts, a theory which was initially genuinely scientific degenerated into pseudo-scientific dogma. As he sees it, the Hegelian dialectic was adopted by Marxists not to oppose dogmatism but to accommodate it to their cause by eliminating the possibility of contradictory evidence. It has thus become what Popper terms “reinforced dogmatism” (1963: 334).

What was Popper's dissertation?

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 “Zur Methodenfrage der Denkpsychologie”.

Why is Popper's dream unrealisable?

Thus, once again historicism collapses—the dream of a theoretical, predictive science of history is unrealisable, because it is an impossible dream. Popper’s argues against the propriety of large-scale planning of social structures on the basis this demonstration of the logical shortcomings of historicism.

What is Popper's problem with demarcation?

For Popper the central problem in the philosophy of science is that of demarcation, i.e., of distinguishing between science and what he terms “non-science” (e.g., logic, metaphysics, psychoanalysis, and Adler’s individual psychology).

Why is it important to know if a theory is probable or improbable?

Science values theories with a high informative content, because they possess a high predictive power and are consequently highly testable. For that reason, 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. Thus, the statements which are of special interest to science 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. As a result, the severity of the test to which a theory can be subjected, and by means of which it is falsified or corroborated, is of fundamental importance.

What is Popper's philosophy?

However, his political thought has arguably had as great an impact as has his philosophy of science. This is certainly the case outside of the academy. Among the educated general public, Popper is best known for his critique of totalitarianism and his defense of freedom, individualism, democracy and an “open society.”.

Who was the main target of Popper's criticisms of the Open Society?

Although Plato was the principle target of Popper’s criticisms in the Open Society, he also detected dangerous tendencies in other ancient Greek philosophers’ ideas, most notably Aristotle’s. Plato ’s greatest student, Popper argued, had inherited his teacher’s essentialism but had given it a teleological twist.

What was the central aim of the Open Society and Its Enemies as well as The Poverty of?

A central aim of The Open Society and Its Enemies as well as The Poverty of Historicism was to explain the origin and nature of totalitarianism. In particular, the rise of fascism, including in Popper’s native Austria, and the ensuing Second World War prompted Popper to begin writing these two essays in the late 1930s and early 1940s, while he was teaching in New Zealand. He described these works as his “war effort” ( Unended Quest, 115).

What were the three predispositions that underpinned Plato's defense of the closed society?

Holism, Essentialism and Historicism. Popper charged that three deep philosophical predispositions underpinned Plato’s defense of the closed society and, indeed, subsequent defenses of the closed society during the next two-and-a-half millennia. These ideas were holism, essentialism, and historicism .

What did Popper think of Plato?

Betraying the open and critical temper of his mentor Socrates, in his Republic Plato devised an elaborate system that would arrest all political and social change and turn philosophy into an enforcer, rather than a challenger, of authority. It would also reverse the tide of individualism and egalitarianism that had emerged in democratic Athens, establishing a hierarchical system in which the freedom and rights of the individual would be sacrificed to the collective needs of society.

What is Karl Popper best known for?

Among philosophers, Karl Popper (1902-1994) is best known for his contributions to the philosophy of science and epistemology. Most of his published work addressed philosophical problems in the natural sciences, especially physics; and Popper himself acknowledged that his primary interest was nature and not politics. However, his political thought has arguably had as great an impact as has his philosophy of science. This is certainly the case outside of the academy. Among the educated general public, Popper is best known for his critique of totalitarianism and his defense of freedom, individualism, democracy and an “open society.” His political thought resides squarely within the camp of Enlightenment rationalism and humanism. He was a dogged opponent of totalitarianism, nationalism, fascism, romanticism, collectivism, and other kinds of (in Popper’s view) reactionary and irrational ideas.

What is holism in science?

Holism may be defined as the view that adequate understanding of certain kinds of entities requires understanding them as a whole. This is often held to be true for biological and social systems, for example, an organism, an ecosystem, an economy, or a culture. A corollary that is typically held to follow from this view is that such entities have properties that cannot be reduced to the entities’ constituent parts. For instance, some philosophers argue that human consciousness is an emergent phenomenon whose properties cannot be explained solely by the properties of the physical components (nerve cells, neurotransmitters, and so forth) that comprise the human brain. Similarly, those who advocate a holistic approach to social inquiry argue that social entities cannot be reduced to the properties of the individuals that comprise them. That is, they reject methodological individualism and support methodological holism, as Popper called it.

What was Popper's contribution to science?

Popper’s relations with many of his most devoted students were now often stormy and, with the exception of one or two cases, tended to end in open hostility. Popper had become intolerant of dissent and also inclined to misunderstand the nature of his own contribution to the philosophy of science. He believed that he had solved the problem of how scientific knowledge is generated and established. In reality he had merely moved the problem one step forward and so opened an entirely new problem. In demonstrating that all scientific knowledge is only provisional and hypothetical, he had invited doubts as to the degree to which it genuinely corresponded to reality. These doubts were pursued by Thomas Kuhn and led him to a relativism which never gained Popper’s approval. [3, 8 ]

What book did Karl Popper write about science as falsification?

At yovisto academic video search, you can listen to an excerpt of Sir Karl Popper’s ‘Science as Falsification’ from his 1963 book ‘Conjectures and Refutation’.

Why did Popper leave Austria?

Due to the rise of fascism in Austria as well as in German y and the steady growth of anti-Semitism, Popper was forced to leave Austria. In 1937, he went to New Zealand and taught philosophy as a senior lecturer at the University of Canterbury.

Who was Karl Popper's grandfather?

All of Karl Popper’s grandparents were Jewish, but the Popper family converted to Lutheranism before Karl was born. They understood this as part of their cultural assimilation, not as an expression of devout belief. Karl’s father was a bibliophile who had 12,000–14,000 volumes in his personal library. By the time, Vienna claimed to be the cultural epicentre of the western world.

Who was the philosopher who wrote the book Objective Knowledge?

He had public debates with Ernst Bloch and Theodor Adorno, two of the most popular luminaries of Continental philosophy in the 1950s and 1960s, and in 1972 he published his third major book, Objective knowledge, in which he established a close link between his philosophy of science and the development of neo-Darwinism. He was knighted in 1965. Popper continued to think and write until the very last years of his life. He died on 17 September 1994 in Croydon, Surrey.

When a theory appears to you as the only possible one, what does it mean?

Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve. – Karl Popper in Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (1972)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Life

Backdrop to Popper’s Thought

The Problem of Demarcation

Basic Statements, Falsifiability and Convention

The Growth of Human Knowledge

Probability, Knowledge and Verisimilitude

Objective Knowledge and The Three Worlds Ontology

Social and Political Thought—The Critique of Historicism and Holism

• Given Popper’s personal history and background, it is hardlysurprising that he developed a deep and abiding interest in social andpolitical philosophy. He understood holism as the view that humansocial groupings are greater than the sum of their members, that theyact on their human members and shape their destinies and that they aresubject to their...

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Scientific Knowledge, History, and Prediction

Immutable Laws and Contingent Trends