Online research in philosophy

I. C. Jarvie interprets Popper's philosophy of science as a theory of the institution of science, explains how the social aspect of his theory developed, and suggests that an updated version of Popper's social theory should be used to study both scientific and nonscientific societies today. Although (1) Jarvie's description of the emergence of Popper's theory suffers because he takes no account Popper's research conducted before Logik der Forschung (1994), (2) his portrayal of Popper's framework overlooks important problems, and (3) his program is by no means new, his essay throws light on the relation between Popper's philosophy of science, his social theory, and his social studies of science.

Abstract In his biography of Karl Popper, Malachi Hacohen brilliantly reconstructs the development of Popper's ideas through 1946, correcting many errors regarding the sequence of their emergence. In addition he recreates Popper's Vienna and provides insights into Popper's complex personality. A larger goal of Hacohen's narrative is to show the relevance of Popper's philosophical and political thought for the left. Unfortunately this leads him to neglect and distort certain aspects of the story he tells, particularly when it comes to the relationship between Popper and F.A. Hayek.

Neopositivistic philosophers held that Popper's destructive criticism to inductive methods is wrong. The legend according to which Popper's criticism, in the final analysis, is inconsistent is greatly widespread also amongst neopositivistic Italian scholars. I argue that they are wrong, and that, in general, Popper's view about induction is true. According to Popper all scientific concepts are theoretical, for every assertion not only entails hypotheses but it is also hypothetical, that is not sure and always falsifiable. I argue that the validity and the strength of Popper's criticism to induction is independent from the view according to which all scientific concepts are theoretical.

Denkpsychologie has been important for the development of psychology as well as of philosophy during the last century. More specifically, cognitive psychology as well as Karl Popper’s evolutionary epistemology were both influenced by Otto Selz’s cognitive psychology. Without doubt, Selz played a role in the development of Popper’s thinking, but Michel ter Hark has not given convincing evidence for Popper’s idea of bold conjectures being influenced by Selz.

I Karl Popper's Copernican Revolution Since Popper espouses what he terms " evolutionary epistemology" and since he argues that any discussion of ...

Abstract Evolutionary epistemologists from Popper to Campbell have appropriated the Darwinian principle to explain the apparent fit between the world and our knowledge of it. I argue that this strategy suffers from the lack of any principled distinction among various types of elimination. I offer such a distinction and show that there is a species of elimination that is really corrective, that is, which violates the Darwinian principle as Popper understands it.

In this chapter, I argue that Karl Popper was a communitarian philosopher. This will surprise some readers. Liberals often tout Popper as one of their champions. Indeed, there is no doubt that Popper shared much in common with liberals. However, I will argue that Popper rejected a central, though perhaps not essential, pillar of liberal theory, namely, individualism. This claim may seem to contradict Popper's professed methodological individualism. Yet I argue that Popper was a methodological individualist in name only. In fact, methodological individualism faded from Popper's vocabulary as he moved institutions and situational analysis more firmly to centre-stage. Popper's focus on institutions and situations constitutes what I call his communitarianism. If my interpretation is correct, then theorists in the socio logy of scientific knowledge and communitarian epistemology should reconsider their long-standing distrust of Popper's philosophy. Indeed, they may have much to gain by treating Popper as a friend rather than a foe.

Towards the last quarter of the 20th century, philosophers of science began to develop a research programme to show that neo-Darwinian models of species evolution are analogous to the evolution of scientific theories. This programme is known as the evolutionary epistemology of theories (Bradie, p. 414, 1986). Karl Popper’s influential book The Logic of Discovery was one of the first accounts to draw out the analogy between the evolution of biological species and the evolution of scientific theories. Many philosophers of science have later adopted this analogy, for Stephen Toulmin (1972), and Donald Campbell (1974). The aim of the metaphor is to not just be a model that explains how science progresses, but to actually account for how it does so. At the heart of this analogy is the fact that the generation of new scientific theories and scientific knowledge is conducted through a random process known as “blind variation” (Popper 1963, 1979 & Campbell 1974). If this analogy holds a philosophical consequence, it is that there is no logic of discovery. If there is no logic of discovery, this then supports the Fregean view that there is a gulf between the context of justification and context of discovery. If there is no logic of discovery, then the philosopher’s job is to analyze the justification rather than the discovery. However, Poppers analogy has come under pressure from fellow philosophers of science. Most notably, Paul Thagard argues that Popper’s analogy is a disanalogy because scientists don’t generate hypotheses blindly. My aim of this essay is to show that this is correct. My thesis is that Popper’s analogy is a disanalogy because there is a logic of discovery, thus making evolutionary epistemology of theory (EET) false. I will begin by explaining how Popper argues for the metaphor and the rejection of a logic of discovery. In section II, I will then build off of Thagard’s critiques of Popper to show that in order for science to progress, there needs to be some form of logic. Finally, I will argue that the most likely candidates for a logic of discovery are two types negative-logic: error-elimination and error-correction. I will then conclude that since there are suitable logics for discovery, Popper’s analogy is a disanalogy. This is important to philosophy because it allows for philosophers to analyze the context of discovery and not just the context of justification.

Karl Popper has been one of the few philosophers of sciences who has influenced scientists. I evaluate Popper's influence on our understanding of evolutionary theory from his earliest publications to the present. Popper concluded that three sorts of statements in evolutionary biology are not genuine laws of nature. I take him to be right on this score. Popper's later distinction between evolutionary theory as a metaphysical research program and as a scientific theory led more than one scientist to misunderstand his position on evolutionary theory as a scientific theory. In his later work Popper also introduced what he took to be improvements of evolutionary theory. Thus far these improvements have had almost no influence on evolutionary biology. I conclude by examining the influence of Popper on the reception of cladistic analysis.

In recent years Sir Karl Popper has been turning his attention more and more towards philosophical problems arising from biology, particularly evolutionary biology. Popper suggests that perhaps neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory is better categorized as a metaphysical research program than as a scientific theory. In this paper it is argued that Popper can draw his conclusions only because he is abysmally ignorant of the current status of biological thought and that Popper's criticisms of biology are without force and his suggestions for its improvement are without need. Also it is suggested that Popper's desire to see scientific theory growth as being in some sense evolutionary may have led him astray about biology. And conversely it is suggested that since his claims about biology are not well taken his analysis of theory growth may well bear reexamination.