Questions tagged [popper]
Sir Karl Raimund Popper (1902 – 1994) was an Austrian philosopher. He is noted for critical rationalism and promoting empirical falsification in science.
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Is Karl Popper a logical positivist?
Logical positivism is an important Western philosophy with a central idea of verification; the doctrine that all knowledge about matters of fact stems from and relies on sensory experience and remains ...
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Corroboration in Popper's system
Why does corroboration give increasing "value" to a theory, as he states in his "Logic of Scientific Discovery"?
The question is simple, but I need a complex answer, one that can't be used to ...
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Looking for existing discourse on the category of fallacies exemplified by “paradox of tolerance”
Popper coined the phrase "paradox of tolerance" when discussing how unlimited tolerance is self-contradictory (paradoxical) in that it precludes self-preservation (resisting intolerance). The seeming ...
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Popper, scientific laws and historical explanation
If you extracted theories in connection with descriptions of things in the past, thereby producing historical explanations, would you not then expect these theories – in a general enough form - to be ...
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Clarifications on 1) Modus Ponens, 2) Modus Tollens, 3) Inductive, 4) Incomplete based on examples
My second lecture on Hypothetico-Deductive methods (based on Popper's falsification theory).
In the class, we were given the following examples. We had to classify which examples belong to 1) Modus ...
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Popper on probability
I cannot understand how and why Popper rejects the idea of a theory being "probably true".
If a theory can be -more likely- than another (as he states), it means that a theory is more likely to be ...
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Popper and indeterminism, why is it part of philosophy?
Popper states that:
...There can be 2 incompatible theory, equally irrefutable; for example, determinism and his opposite, indeterminism.
Popper; Conjecture and Confutation chapter 8.
How can ...
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Modus Tollens / Popperian Syllogism for the Black Swan
If it is a swan, then it will always be white.
It seems like Popper is not asking so much people to build syllogisms, but rather DEPENDING on Modus Tollens as an engine for falsification.
So that, ...
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Is symbolic regression Popperian or inductivist?
This has been on my mind for a few days. I'd love a criticism of my arguments outlined here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/fallible-ideas/9bcC5WN6bLs. I'll re-issue them here:
While ...
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Does falsifiability require reproducibility according to Popper?
I can see how the idea of falsifiability (rather than some form of verificationism) could support a demarcation between science and pseudoscience. Here is the Wikipedia definition of falsifiability:
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What are Popper's views on employment and unemployment?
I recently read an interview where Popper ranked his interest in employment above education. Unfortunately, the interview was quite brief and didn't go further into Popper's thinking on this.
Q. What ...
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Would Popper have argued that a coin toss is indeterministic?
I know that Popper was an adovcate of the propensity theory of probability, i.e. probabilities are understood as properties of sets of generating conditions. Furthermore I (think) I have read that ...
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Non-science according to Popper's Criterion for Demarcation
So, Popper's Criterion for Demarcation goes something like this: “statements or systems of statements, in order to be ranked as scientific, must be capable of conflicting with possible, or conceivable ...
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Which movement was Karl Popper talking about?
Which "movement which began three centuries ago" is Popper talking about in his quote below? Would this be the English Civil War?
Our greatest troubles spring from something...These troubles are ...
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Is the whole debate Kuhn-Popper contained in “Criticism and Growth of Knowledge”?
In the Preface of I.Lakatos and A.Musgrave's Criticism and Growth of Knowledge, I read that the book is the fourth volume of the Acts of the International Congress of Philosophy of Science (London, ...
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Does Popper's falsification view of the problem of induction have any implications for the NEW riddle of induction?
Popper claims to solve Hume's problem of induction by explaining that science does not use induction at all, but rather science can be described by the process of putting forward hypotheses and then ...
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Does science provide the most accurate depiction of reality for analyzing and describing an accurate worldview?
I've been fighting throughout my philosophical reading with the question of the necessity of science as the only permitted view we (since the late 19th century) have on the world.
My question might ...
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Considering time and space as theory-free concepts
I note the question "Time and space – a subject of metaphysics?"
might be very near to my question, and maybe the answer is there somewhere. In that case I - as an amateur - would be grateful for a ...
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Was Popper against historicism?
I have some problems in reading whether Popper was a proponent or a critic of what's called "historicism". Historicism means belief systems that believe in some kind of logic in historical and ...
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Popper vs the Argument from Ignorance
Isn't Popper's epistemology a form of Argument from Ignorance? "We assume it is true if it has not (yet) been falsified."
But the fact that it hasn't been falsified doesn't make it true; assuming ...
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Is Popper correct on Anaximanders theory?
In the books of essays by Popper, titled the The World of Parmenides, he writes the following:
However this may be, Thales beautiful theory of the support and suspension of the Earth and of ...
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Ethical values according to Polanyi
What role do (ethical) values have in science according to Polanyi and Kuhn?
How does Polanyi define tacit knowledge and what view would Popper and Kuhn have on tacit knowledge?
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Cases with Poppers theories?
Does anyone have some examples or cases which demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of Poppers' theories?
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What role do values have in science according to Popper?
I have read a lot about Popper but I still can not answer.
What is the role of values in Popper's philosophy? What role do they have in science according to Popper?
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What is a good layman's introduction to Popper?
I'm looking for an introduction to Karl Poppper's philosophical ideas that have influenced the world the most. I have no prior knowledge of his work.
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What's the difference between the “hermeneutics of suspicion” and conspiracy theory?
The term "conspiracy theory" was invented by Karl Popper as a way to describe Marxist theories of history as a collusion of the bourgeoise class against the working class. So, as far as I can tell, ...
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In what way does induction concern itself “entirely with justification”?
Karl Popper was "opposed to induction when it came to science", in the words of one of his reviewers, because
Induction concerns itself entirely with justification – with establishing theories and ...
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Did Paul Feyerabend ever develop some alternative, useful and viable philosophy of science? [duplicate]
I know he criticized Popper's critical rationalism as limited and dogmatic, but critical rationalism isn't like that, because critical rationalism does accept ideas which at first sound illogical and ...
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Why is Marxism (not) historicist?
I have been reading bits and pieces on historicism, mostly from Wikipedia and other online publications. In my understanding, it is an ideological evaluation model which emphasizes the context in ...
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How to distinguish empirical and logical when axiomatising a theory in Popper's deductive approach
In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on Karl Popper, several steps of Popper's deductive approach are enumerated. I understand all of these but the second:
The second step is semi-...
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Fallibilism and truth by science
I know that a fallibilist believes that our current beliefs may not be true but i'm trying to argue that one can be a fallibilist and also believe that science progresses towards the truth. Does it ...
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Popper vs Kuhn, Science and Progression
So I've looked over multiple research papers and books and still can't grasp the idea of what the difference between Popper and Kuhn is based on their view of how science works and progresses?
Based ...
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Individual/Universal Concepts: What does Popper mean in section 14 of Logic of Scientific Discovery?
In section 14 of The Logic of Scientific Discovery Popper discusses the use of universal and individual names or concepts in singular and universal statements.
He starts with a pretty ...
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How is Lakatos's hard core of theoretical assumptions different than Kuhn's paradigm?
Listening to a course on philosophy of science, Lakatos was presented as a middle way between Popper and the positivists strictly rational description of scientific theories and Kuhn's historical/...
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Is this type of induction a problem?
I can understand how the verification of hypotheseses based on inductive reasoning can be problematic, and I understand that a lot of prominent figures in philosophy are in opposition to this (Popper, ...
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Why did Karl Popper criticize Karl Marx's ideas?
Karl Popper believed that Karl Marx's ideas lead to dictatorship.
Why did Karl Popper believe in this idea?
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What are the most important criticisms of Popper's account of Falsification? [duplicate]
Karl Popper is mostly known for his falsification principle. I'm very familiar with his account and I understand it well. I've heard multiple times that there are some real issues with this account ...
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Semantics of Popper's Demarcation criterion - what is included within “Science”?
Popper claims that falsifiability is a criterion of science (but not of meaningfulness). Scanning the original 1935 text (Logik der Forschung) it seems to me that he just refers to "Wissenschaft". ...
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Evolution and Popperian falsifiability
According to Karl Popper's falsification criterion only a falsifiable theory is said to be a scientific theory. If this is true, is Evolution Theory falsifiable and hence considered scientific?
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What is wrong with Popper's theory of falsification? [duplicate]
Popper popularized the notion that empirical science can not be verified, only falsified. Isn't he right? How can someone verify a theory? To me, it does not seem possible. However, you can easily ...
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A proposition is non-falsifiable. So what?
Does Karl Popper argue that non-falsifiable theories are not true/have no truth value, or simply that they are not provable? Put another way: according to Popper, could a non-falsifiable theory ...
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Does anyone argue that Karl Popper's theory of critical rationalism does not meet its own conditions?
I am a huge fan of Dr. Popper's work, and particularly his theory that the property of falsifiability separates the scientific from the non-scientific.
However, it struck me that this theory does not ...
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Popper, Nietzsche and knowledge
In many works of Karl Popper, he says, quoting Xenophanes, that all human knowledge is only conjectural, that modern science will never produce a true knowledge.
The german philosopher, Friedrich ...
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Karl Popper critiques to historical relativism
In his book "In Search of a Better World", Popper says that he already have argued against historical and social relativism in other works. What are these others works?
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Other terms for Popper's “metaphysical research program”
Are there synonyms or alternative terms for Poppers "metaphysical research program"? This seems like a useful concept for practicing scientists, but telling them that their work isn't "true" science ...
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Can we have a theory of the colour blue in a Popperian sense?
Saussure in his theory of signs declared that there was no necessary connection between the semantic value of a word and its phonetic sign: the sign 'dog' signifies the physical dog, but in principle (...
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Is medicine falsifiable?
Would modern medicine be falsifiable according to Popper? What about alternative medicine, such as homeopathy?
My problem with this, is that I imagine such falsification depends on double blind ...
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Why are Popper's basic statements not justifiable by experience?
In his Logik der Forschung Popper writes that
basic statements are not justifiable by our immediate experiences, but are … accepted by an act, a free decision (LSD, 109)
The SEP entry on Popper ...
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Can we measure the effort to create a mathematical theory in terms of energy?
Sir Karl Popper says that products of our mind, like speech, music, math,... are things on their own. We create them. We put effort in them. I wonder where the difference of creating these things, is ...
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Can information be thought without a physical realisation?
Thoughts, memories, information, all are stored in some kind of physical representation. You might get down to a single quantum state of a electron to store one (quantum) bit.
Sir Popper tells us that ...
