Falsification

This week’s readings certainly take us away from the positivist outlook of Hempel and others about the centrality of the inductive approach in scientific inquiry, which generates laws. For the logical positivists, facts and observations are entirely divorced from values. Instead, this week we see an emphasis on how theory can influence the facts/puzzles we select for study.

Here are some questions for thought, but feel free to write on whatever strikes your imagination about the readings.

1. Popper points out that experiences are not prior to theories (p. 8). In other words, experiences or observations can be subjective. Then how can the falsification of a hypothesis/theory be accepted since it is based on relating observed facts to the hypothesis/theory?

2. Is a “best testable” theory (Popper, p. 15) necessarily the best theory in the social sciences? Popper argues that the best testable theory will have the “greatest information content and the greatest explanatory power.” For example, as we discussed in the Social Theory class, Marx’s theory is not falsifiable. Does that necessarily make it useless?

3. Kuhn disagrees with Popper on the importance of the critical tradition, especially as represented by the Greek philosophers like Plato, arguing that in fact “it is precisely the abandonment of critical discourse that marks the transition to science.” (p. 6). Kuhn also remarks that social science has been characterized by this kind of critical discourse. Is he right that social science is involved in critical discussion rather than puzzle-solving? What implication does it have for the ‘scientific-ness’ of our field? – are we in Kuhn’s “pre-paradigm” state/ Popper’s metaphysics?

4. Popper, Kuhn and Lakatos are all concerned with how science has actually progressed, rather than how it should (which was the concern of the logical positivists). Are they correct in assuming that science has, in fact, progressed?