Phil 8: Introduction To Philosophy of Science: Lecture 11: Falsificationism and Popper

Phil 8: Introduction to Philosophy of Science
Lecture 11: Falsificationism and Popper
I. Background on Karl Popper
 Karl Popper is an enormously well-known philosopher of science who

achieved an unusual amount of popularity outside of philosophy.
 Like the positivists, he started out in Vienna and fled during the rise of
Nazism. But he is not a logical positivist.
 There’s a famous, though perhaps false, story about a confrontation between

Wittgenstein and Popper. Supposedly Wittgenstein threatened Popper with a
fireplace poker and challenged him to give one example of a moral rule.
Popper replied “don’t threaten visiting lecturers with pokers”.
 PGS tells a story in our book of going to see a lecture by a Nobel Prize
winning researcher. Most of the lecture was about Popper instead of his
research. Popper is a big deal!
 Popper’s popularity with scientists is greater than his contemporary

popularity with philosophers of science. Today we’ll talk about some of
Popper’s most famous ideas.
II. Problem of Demarcation
 Popper’s approach to the philosophy of science is to begin with the question

of what distinguishes scientific theories from psuedo-scientific theories.
 Einstein’s theory of relativity is, for Popper, an exemplar of a scientific

theory. Freudian psychoanalysis and Marxism are, for Popper, exemplars of
pseudo-scientific theories.
 Popper’s theory of what seperates science from psuedo-science is called

“falsificationism”: A hypothesis is scientific if and only if it has the potential
to be refuted by some possible ovservation.
 Of course, that doesn’t mean that a theory must actually be falsified to be

scientific. It only means that there is some possible observation that would
falsify the theory if that observation were made.
o Example: Relativity makes a prediction about the behavior of

Mercury’s orbit.
o Example: The theory that the earth rotates predicts the behavior of
giant pendulums.
 Theories such as Freudian psychoanalysis are not falsifiable, aruged Popper.

No matter how the patient behaves, a Freudian will be able to account for
that behavior in terms of Freud’s theory.
 Unlike the positivists, Popper doesn’t draw the conclusion that psuedo-
science is meaningless.
 For Popper, falsification is a deductive enterprise. A scientific theory makes a

prediction about observational consequences. Then, if those observational
consequences aren’t observed, the theory is proved false.
III. Popper and Induction
 According to Popper, the unifying characteristic of scientific theories is their

capacity to be proven false. Induction is conspiciously absent from Popper’s
understand of science.
 That’s because Popper, like Hume, is an inductive skeptic. Popper is

convinced by the problem of induction, but he doesn’t see it as a problem!
Science doesn’t use induction, according to Popper, only deduction.
Confirmation is a myth.
 For Popper, we never have evidence of a theory’s truth. All we can ever say
for a theory is that it has not yet been falsified.
 It’s important not to confuse Popper’s view with fallibilism. Fallibilism is the
idea that we can never be certain of the truth of our scientific theories. Lots
of people think fallibilism is true.
 Popper’s view is much stronger, and much more strange. His view is that we
can never have any incremental confirmation at all in a scientific theory.
 Nevertheless, Popper thinks that scientific theories aim at the truth. The goal
of science is to discover the truth. However, we can never be justified in
believing our theories. Again, we can only ever say that they haven’t yet been
proven false.
IV. Popper and Scientific Change
 For Popper, science changes through a two-step cycle that endlessly repeats.
o Step 1: Conjecture. A good conjecture is bold- it has lots of
obseverational consequences
o Step 2: Attempted Refutation: The theory is subjected to critical testing.
We try very hard to prove the theory false.
o If step 2 is completed, we go back to step 1.
 During this process, we may want to suggest a new conjecture that is similar to
an older falsified conjecture. That’s okay, but we want to avoid ad hoc
hypotheses.
 It’s hard to say precisely what makes a hypothesis ad hoc, but it’s not so hard to
come up with examples.
o Example: Mind reader theory.
 Avoiding “ad hoc hypotheses” seems to involve not adding auxiliary hypotheses for
the sole purpose of dealing with one-counter instance.

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Phil 8: Introduction to Philosophy of Science

Lecture 11: Falsificationism and Popper

I. Background on Karl Popper

 Karl Popper is an enormously well-known philosopher of science who

 There’s a famous, though perhaps false, story about a confrontation between

 Popper’s popularity with scientists is greater than his contemporary

II. Problem of Demarcation

 Popper’s approach to the philosophy of science is to begin with the question

 Einstein’s theory of relativity is, for Popper, an exemplar of a scientific

 Popper’s theory of what seperates science from psuedo-science is called

 Of course, that doesn’t mean that a theory must actually be falsified to be

o Example: Relativity makes a prediction about the behavior of

 Theories such as Freudian psychoanalysis are not falsifiable, aruged Popper.

 For Popper, falsification is a deductive enterprise. A scientific theory makes a

III. Popper and Induction

 According to Popper, the unifying characteristic of scientific theories is their

 That’s because Popper, like Hume, is an inductive skeptic. Popper is

IV. Popper and Scientific Change

o Example: Mind reader theory.

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