POPPER Karl Raimund
(Popper, Karl Raimund)(1902-1994), British philosopher of Austrian origin. Born in Vienna on July 28, 1902 in the family of a prominent lawyer. He joined the socialists and communists, but then abandoned socialist ideas, realizing that they brought more evil than they promised to correct. Popper was influenced by the cultural atmosphere of Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century: music, science, philosophy, political ideas. He entered the University of Vienna in 1918, where he studied mathematics and theoretical physics; I read books on philosophy on my own. In 1920-1922 he thought about a career as a professional musician, joined A. Schoenberg’s “Society of Private Concerts”, and studied composition at the Vienna Conservatory for a year. Having decided that he was not sufficiently capable of music, he left the conservatory and in 1921-1924 mastered the profession of cabinetmaker. At the same time he participated in social work and carrying out school reform, worked as a volunteer in the children's clinics of A. Adler, whom he knew personally. Adler's confident diagnoses of patients whom he did not even examine led Popper to doubt psychoanalysis and "clinical data." It was this, as well as the false claims of Marxism to be scientific, coupled with the study of the works of A. Einstein, that led him to the formulation of the so-called. the principle of falsification. Popper wondered what distinguishes scientific theories (such as Einstein's) from the pseudoscientific doctrines of Marx, Freud and Adler, and came to the conclusion that what makes a scientific theory is not the confirmation or proof of its provisions, but the ability to exclude the possibility of certain events. Popper became one of the first employees of the Pedagogical Institute at the University of Vienna, thanks to which he met K. Bühler, who later became the supervisor of his dissertation on the problem of method in psychology. Bühler's linguistic ideas influenced Popper's concepts of language and World 3. After graduating from university, Popper married Josephine Anna Henninger and taught mathematics and physics in the senior classes of one of the Viennese gymnasiums. At this time, Ludwig Wittgenstein and the logical positivists who were members of the Vienna Circle actively promoted the so-called. This book, which Popper called his "contribution to the war effort," established his reputation as a world-famous philosopher. In 1946, having accepted an offer from the London School of Economics, he moved to England. Popper was appointed professor at LSE in 1949, knighted in 1965, and devoted the rest of his life to philosophy. He died in Croydon (England) on September 17, 1994.
Epistemology. Popper recognized that truth is objective and absolute, but emphasized that our knowledge is, in principle, imperfect and subject to constant revision. He rejected the widespread interpretation of knowledge as justified true belief. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Popper argued that a theory does not have to be justified, true, or credible in order for it to be considered scientific. He went even further and argued that to demand from our scientific knowledge for it to be justified or confirmed is irrational. No theory about the world can be justified or confirmed. Many of Popper's critics called him an irrationalist and a skeptic on this basis. However, the philosopher argued that it is the demand for “justification,” and not our inability to achieve it, that leads to skepticism and irrationalism. While most contemporaries considered the condition for the rationality of a theory to be able to justify it, Popper believed that knowledge is rational only if we are able to criticize it. While most contemporaries believed that scientific theories were based on empirical observations and could be justified by them, Popper argued that the main thing in science is not how we arrive at our theories, but whether we can, and to the extent possible, to provoke critical discussion. Popper also rejected attempts to justify knowledge by citing the authority of experts. He called himself a great admirer of scientists and scientific theories, but said that we are in vain in believing in the existence of scientific experts whose opinion we could fully rely on. Task higher education- not in training experts, but in creating people with such developed critical abilities that they can distinguish experts from charlatans. Popper called his philosophy critical rationalism. He formulated his position ("moral credo") as follows: "I may be wrong, and you may be right; let's make an effort, and we may get closer to the truth." Critical rationalism began as an attempt to solve the problems of induction and demarcation, which Popper considered "two fundamental problems epistemology." Hume, believing that our ideas are derived from experience, and inductive inferences from experience are untenable, concluded that theories that are not reducible to experience are meaningless and that our scientific knowledge of the world is based on following custom and habit. Kant, trying to save natural scientific rationality, he argued that our a posteriori knowledge of the world is based on a priori intuitions, a priori concepts and a priori true principles. However, Wittgenstein and the logical positivists again returned to Hume’s empiricism when Kant’s models of a priori true sciences - Euclidean geometry and Newtonian mechanics - were shaken. in the course of the further development of science, Wittgenstein and the positivists argued that the meaning of a statement is a method of its verification and that it is empirical verifiability that distinguishes science from metaphysics and meaning from nonsense. Popper agreed with Hume that the attempt to justify knowledge using inductive inferences from experience leads to. irrationalism, but denied that scientists ever reason inductively. He agreed with Kant that experience and observation presuppose a priori ideas, but he denied that our a priori ideas are reliably true. And he agreed with Wittgenstein and the positivists that it was no longer possible to appeal to a priori true principles in attempts to justify empirical science, but argued that metaphysical theories are not necessarily meaningless and that verifiability cannot be a criterion for the demarcation of science and metaphysics, since it is unable to explain scientific character scientific laws, which, being strictly universal propositions covering an infinite number of cases, cannot be verified by inductive inferences from experience. Here Popper cut the Gordian knot by arguing that scientific knowledge cannot be justified (and does not need justification); it is rational not because we find justification for it, but because we are able to criticize it. Any attempt to justify knowledge must, to avoid an infinite regress, ultimately rest on the truth (or reliability) of some statement (or ability, or person) that does not need justification. However, the fact that the truth (or reliability) of this statement (or ability or person) is accepted without justification means that we give it a kind of exclusivity that we deny to other statements (or abilities or persons). Thus, in contrast to Wittgenstein and the positivists, who appealed to experience to justify knowledge, Popper argued that “the main problem of philosophy is the critical analysis of the appeal to the authority of experience, namely, that experience that every adherent of positivism accepts and has always taken for granted.” of course." The observational statements that record our experience never entail the truth of a strictly universal statement (or theory). Therefore, universal statements (or theories) cannot be justified (or verified) by experience. However, it only takes one genuine counterexample to show that the universal statement is false. So, observation of any large number black crows cannot justify or verify the claim that all crows are black; the observation of just one non-black crow proves that the generalization “All crows are black” is false. Therefore, some universal statements (or theories) can be criticized (or falsified) by experience - or at least by "basic statements" (single observational statements) that contradict them. Popper concluded that it is falsifiability, not verifiability, that distinguishes empirical science from metaphysics. Then, pointing out the existence of a logical asymmetry between universal and individual statements - universal ones can be falsified, but not verified, and individual ones can be verified, but not falsified - Popper showed that the distinction between science and metaphysics does not coincide with the distinction between meaningful and meaningless statements. This is the logical part of solving the problems of induction and demarcation. However, Popper also denied that scientists generally discover scientific theories through inductive reasoning, making observations and then generalizing from them. Their theories are speculative inventions; and they appeal to observation and experience to verify these decisions, not to justify them. In this way, Popper showed that the growth of science is both empirical and rational. It is empirical because we test our hypothetical solutions to scientific problems through observation and experience. It is rational because we use proper forms of proof derived from deductive logic, especially modus tollens, to criticize theories that contradict observational statements that we take to be true, and because we never infer from the success of a theory test that thereby its truth has been proven. Scientific knowledge, according to Popper, is internally imperfect and always conjectural. Its growth occurs not through the justification of theories, but through the critique of speculative hypotheses that are offered as solutions to the problems we face. Scientific theories cannot be proven to be true and should not be considered to have any justification or support. However, this failure to justify knowledge does not necessarily lead to irrationalism, since we can always criticize our theories by testing their predictions through experience, and since this testing involves the use of only correct deductive inferences.
Social theory. Popper was alarmed by the strengthening tendencies of irrationalism and authoritarianism in political life. He was also occupied philosophical teachings, who intellectually supported these trends with deterministic theories that deny reality human freedom. In The Open Society and Its Enemies, the philosopher criticized Platonism for its tribalist elitism and Marxism for its “historicist” belief in laws that predict the course of history. He considered both of these theories to be irrationalist and again turned to criticism of Marx in the book The Poverty of Historicism (1957), explaining belief in historicism, in particular, by a misunderstanding of the nature of scientific knowledge and the scientific method. Popper's alternative, the idea of an open society, was thus based on his ideas about science. An open society is a society that "releases the critical faculties of man", as opposed to a closed or tribalist society "with its subjugation magical powers"Popper argued that the future is not predetermined and can be influenced through the free will of individuals. He opposed Plato's idea of a philosopher-ruler and defended democracy as the political system best able to protect an open society. But he also said that democracy is the least of evils and its main advantage is not that it allows us to choose the best political leaders, but that it allows us to non-violently get rid of leaders when they do not live up to our expectations. Popper considered all political systems to be potentially dangerous. , member free society must combine loyalty to the state with “a certain degree of vigilance and even distrust of the state and its officials: its duty is to supervise and ensure that the state does not overstep the boundaries of its legally defined functions.” Popper liked to repeat Lord Acton's remark: "All power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Philosophy of the late period. In his mature years, Popper often repeated that the goal scientific research- kill accepted theories before they kill us. He proposed the formula P1 (r) TT (r) EE (r) P2 to describe the growth of knowledge as an evolutionary process in which a theory proves its validity, resisting all our attempts to refute it. Here P1 is the problem we wish to solve, TT is the tentative theory we propose to solve it, EE is our attempts to eliminate errors in the tentative solution, and P2 is new problem that occurs after errors have been corrected. Popper said that science begins with problems and ends with problems, and also that the solution to any problem gives rise to many other problems that arise in place of the solved one. For him, science is an endless process of assumptions and refutations, in which the value of a theory is proven by its ability to withstand the fire of criticism, and the progress achieved can be assessed in any way. this moment, according to the distance traveled from the very first problems to the problems today. Throughout his life, Popper was in conflict with the dominant philosophical movements. He criticized linguistic philosophy as scholastic and defended the authenticity philosophical problems in an era when it was fashionable to think of them as linguistic puzzles. He did not accept the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, rejected the understanding of probability as a measure of subjective certainty, and developed the theory of probability as an objective “predisposition” to the occurrence of certain events. While most scientist-minded philosophers adhered to some form of physicalism, Popper defended not only the dualism of body and soul, but also the objective existence of scientific problems and theories, putting forward the concept of the so-called. "Mira-3". He argued that we must recognize the existence of three different "worlds" human experience: Mir-1 natural physical objects; World-2 subjective states of consciousness; both objective and immaterial World-3, consisting of products human mind. Popper's World-3 is often confused with Plato's realm of eternal and unchanging ideas or Frege's realm of abstract objects. However, Popper, unlike Plato and Frege, viewed Mir-3 as a human creation. He believed that the most important thing in this world is not the essence or meaning of words, but scientific problems and theories proposed to solve them. Popper imagined World-3 as a product of the evolution of the human mind, interacting with both World-2 and - indirectly - with World-1. He needed Mir-3 to characterize science as “knowledge without a knowing subject.” By calling World 3 a human creation, Popper emphasized the importance of the I, or the human subject, in the production of knowledge. But he also noted that the objects of World 3 are autonomous in the sense that, once created, they no longer depend on the consciousness of those who created them. By asserting this, Popper emphasized that scientific knowledge is objective and does not depend on the knowing subject. Popper's other important works: Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, 1963; Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (1972); the three-volume Postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery (1982), which develops a speculative metaphysical concept of the Universe, as well as Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography (1992).
LITERATURE
Popper K. Logic and the growth of scientific knowledge. M., 1983 Popper K. Open Society and Its Enemies. M., 1992 Popper K. The poverty of historicism. M., 1993
Collier's Encyclopedia. - Open Society. 2000 .
It began with a discussion of reports presented by K. Popper and T. Adorno. G. Albert, R. Dahrendorf, J. Habermas, G. Pilot took part in the discussion.
Discussion about positivism. Critical rationalism and critical theory. Positivist project S-i – subject of discussion. Could it be With science? The questions relate to philosophy of science, not just methodology.
Karl Popper on the one hand (the creator of the theory of critical rationalism) and T. Adorno(critical theory) with others.
Popper "Logic of Social Sciences"» - 27 theses. The first 20 are general practitioners of scientific knowledge. 7 – Social science and development of the sociological method.
1st – ( general position) we have things and knowledge about them. 2nd – we have knowledge, but even more we have ignorance, and it has a sobering effect on knowledge. All our knowledge is unstable. An important task: to take into account theses 1 and 2 simultaneously. His falsification methodology is based on this contradiction. Constant testing of our knowledge. Religion and ideology cannot be subjected to falsification and reflection.
4 t – any knowledge begins not with facts, but with a problem. Cognition begins with tension m-y knowledge and ignorance. The problem begins with something wrong with our knowledge.
6 t – main. A) the method of social science is to test different ways of solving problems. B) if the solution may be criticized, we are making an attempt to refute it. C) we offer another solution to the problem. We choose the most successful one. D) if an attempt at a solution can withstand criticism, we accept it as probabilistic and worthy of discussion and attempts to criticize it. E) the method of science is a continuation of the trial and error method. The objectivity of science is the objectivity of the method.
7 t is something like a conclusion. S-i d.b. is focused on the discrepancy between theory and newly emerged situations and the corresponding description. The position of equalizing the sciences (naturalism) is criticized by Popper. S-I cannot exist as a purely em-disc-na and has a theoretical character.
From 11 t - about the objectivity of scientific knowledge. The thesis about freedom from value judgments is completely rethought; The basis of any sociological discourse should be mutual criticism of scientists. Popper believes that psychology is a social science, because our thinking and actions depend on social relationships. S-I presupposes psychological concepts. S-I is autonomous in two senses. The nature of social reality and its interpretation. Indicates that the basis of the subject Social should be intentional social d-e. Popper sides with Weber in this regard: task S-i- in the understanding of social life. The only question is the S-i method. He proposes to rely on methods of understanding and interpretation of S-i like sov sots diy.
25 t: in the social sciences there is a purely objective method - situational logic or the objective-understanding method. Such a science can develop independently of any subjective ideas, without resorting to the help of psychology. D is objective in relation to the situation . Subject C is an objective individual intentional social element. Method: situational logic – d-analysis. More analysis of institutions. Popper proposed the logic of situational analysis. But situational analysis d-i d.b. supplemented by an analysis of traditions and institutions.
In the 20th century, almost the entire S-I will abandon these subtleties. The main subject of analysis will be individual social life. S-I will try to combine the method of interpretive sociological tradition with systems analysis.
As part of the discussion on positivism, an alternative report to Popper was presented by a German (American) sociologist Theodor Adorno("Towards the logic of social sciences"). Target: it is necessary to construct S-th as an objective science, as knowledge with appropriate criteria. I took it no problem explanations and social sciences (Popper), and a significant aspect of the entire critical theory and positivist tradition in sociology is principle of freedom from evaluation.
ADORNO AGREES WITH POPPER, What the beginning of any knowledge is a problem, not em facts. Accepts position on the completeness of knowledge and the boundlessness of ignorance. However, he notes doubtfulness. They often tried to stop sociology and, when it dealt with the theory of society, they pointed out that it was becoming similar to philosophy and ideology, and not to a specific science and did not provide emp knowledge. He talks about how theoretical sociological knowledge is built, and deals with the problem - the complex construction of sociological knowledge and sociological theory. I agree with the anti-empiricist position and defends the level of theory of reflection in S-i, analyzes its structure and position. Adorno was one of the first to raise the question of the structure and model of sociological knowledge. Ignorance cannot be overcome through the directed movement of knowledge of sociological methodology. Adorno and Popper oppose clichés that knowledge moves in steps: from observation to order. Any information and facts received are already structured. The system and individual phenomena are interconnected and may known only in their interdependence.
ADORNO DISAGREES WITH POPPER. Adorno addresses the question of values. Scientific knowledge a society that presents itself as value-free and supposedly objective is not feasible! Such behavior is impossible psychologically and due to subject provisions! This is a problem of objectivity. Society in general crystallizes around one or another concept of correct society. It stems from criticism (awareness of one’s contradictions and the need to criticize them). The process of cognition is carried out through the opposition of these moments. Cognition is always normative. Any serious judgment of ours contains an idea of the normative(correctness, beauty, familiarity, what is accepted - from these terms). Failure S-i from critical theory leads to its humility not to know the whole. Subject S-and m.b. only totality. In fact, value-free behavior is impracticable not only psychologically, but also due to substantive considerations. Adorno, recognizing the priority of society in relation to psychology , does not conclude about the radical independence of sociology and psychology from each other. The autonomy of social processes is rooted in reification. However, even processes alienated from people continue to remain human. The vision of society as a totality means that knowledge must include all the active moments in this totality. The experience of the contradictory nature of social reality is not an arbitrary starting point, but a motive that generally constitutes sociology. Only for those who are able to think about society differently does it become, in the language of K. Popper, a problem. It is only through what society is not that it reveals itself to be what it is. Sociology strives for this, not limiting itself to solving management problems. Perhaps this is why there is no place for society in such sociology. “Sociology’s refusal of a critical theory of society is due to the fact that it has resigned itself to not daring to think about the whole because it despairs of changing it,” and such a limitation for the purposes of knowledge also harms the knowledge of details. In the “emphatic concept of truth,” T. Adorno believes, a correct structure is also conceived, although this structure should not be presented as an image of a future society. The reduction of society to man, which inspires all critical enlightenment, presupposes that in this man is the substance of society, in a man who has yet to be created in a society that has mastered itself. In today's society, this reduction only indicates to “socially untrue”" This position of T. Adorno allows us to draw the main conclusion: According to critical theory, sociology cannot be built as a value-free science and its fundamental subject basis can only be the social totality, and not individual social action. T. Adorno thus reproduces the classical position of critical sociology, thereby recreating his divergence from the positivist program in sociology.
Adorno refused Habermas in enrolling him in the ranks of Frankfurt. Habermas's position is more nuanced and more complex. Subject S-i- a whole society. The immediate basic cell of any sociological analysis should be. social d-e. He then breaks down even a whole society into separate social groups. His position can be considered as the quintessence of the discussion of the late 60s and early 70s. “Towards the Logic of the Social Sciences” is the most complete development of his methodological approach. In Germany in 1968 as a supplement to a magazine, in 70 - a book. Written in the mid-60s, when sociologists decided that they should rely on the methodology of the sciences in the full sense. They d.b. engage in either self-deprecation or change the subject. His work contributed to sharply reducing the influence of analytical philosophy on S.
Result: multiple construction of not just theories, but paradigms. The main problem of sociological methodology: there is always a preliminary question. Basic question: what is the nature of social reality? This is a Phil question. It can only be resolved by the method of phil analysis, or take a position: what is the nature of this reality (causal - positivism, or semantic - Weber, Simmel, phenomenol, ethnomethodol approaches associated with understanding S-i).
The assimilation of hermeneutics, linguistic analysis, understanding S-and convinced him that critical theory must break with the apparatus of knowledge rooted in Comte and Hegel. S-I is the science of culture (Weber). It is necessary to master not only individual d-e, but also semantic reality. Theory of language; linguistic turn in sociology. The nature of social reality is semantic and structured through language. His research moves within the framework of the theory of knowledge. He starts from afar: with the history of the issue (19th century, the problem of dualism eats sciences and cultural sciences). He undertakes a historical reconstruction of the existing methodol contradictions eats sciences and cultural sciences, the cat was initiated by neo-Kontianism. Only positivism does not agree with this; such a gap only indicates the underdevelopment of sociology and the humanities. All history of S-i indicates that the subject of sociol analysis is db social d-e (Habermas). All social sciences study meaning, but with systematic goal-setting. Intentional social science studies S-I. We understand it through the reconstruction of meaning. Social facts can be understood in terms of motives (probabilistic interpretation). General attitude m-y hypothesis and corresponding confirmation (this is Weber’s position, Habermas agrees). Social sciences receive the status of objective knowledge about social life, which by its nature is always intentional; they turn out to be sciences about the spirit and culture. The hermeneutic approach he proposed poses the problem m-y sociology and history. Habermas removes S from the influence of psychology; any intentionality is not associated with an individual psychological motive and state of mind, but with historical knowledge. S-yu must be associated with it, it is objective and supplemented by knowledge about culture and its semantic meanings. S-I is indifferent to history. This is criticized by Habermas. The question remains open: is S-I reducible to the analysis of the history of events or can it be cleared of the history of influence and be as science eats? Habermas takes an interesting position: S-I is a science, which deals with the historical transformation of society, its objectivity is connected with specific historical types of society that arose at the beginning of modern times. Sociol research - the study of modernity (repeat by Anthony Giddens). He analyzes two approaches to the construction of social sciences: normative-analytical and empirical-analytical. Subject C is an intentional social d-e. To analyze and understand it, it is necessary to combine 3 approaches: phenomenological (the strategy of Cicourel, Schütz, Garfinkel), linguistic (the study of language - the philology of the late Wittgenstein, language games as the unity of language and praxis), hermeneutic (the end of Gadamer, where hermeneutic knowledge is associated with the analysis of language).
9. The structure of sociological theory according to O. Gouldner.
Alvin Ward Gouldner.(1920-1980, St. Louis) - an outstanding American sociologist and methodologist of science, researcher of the state and trends in the development of world sociology. The most famous works: “The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology” (1971), “Models of Industrial Bureaucracy” (1954). “Two Marxisms” (1980), “The Future of the Intelligentsia and the Emergence of a New Class” (1979)
Theoretical content of “sociology of sociology” A. Gouldner consists in justifying the fact that any sociological theory basically contains certain general “background” and particular “subject” premises on which it is built. The totality of these premises forms the metaphysical and ideological basis of sociological theories).
General background messages represent philosophical ideas concerning reality that do not spontaneously raise doubts. Metaphysical ideas (general) about the world subconsciously shared by other people.. Private item parcels- this is a set of more specific ideas that determine the theoretical statements of science. The meaning of subject premises is that they accumulate the feelings, affective states and value orientations of researchers. They determine the choice and interpretation of facts and the evaluation of theory. In other words, social theorists often take “facts” for granted. This is due to the fact that these “facts” are obtained rather thanks to personal experience scientists than them research work; they blindly believe in them because these facts have their source in their personal reality. No theory, according to A. Gouldner, is free from value and ideological preferences and prejudices.
Each sociological theory contains a level of actually sociological, private or domain prerequisites(probably they are private subject parcels).
Domain assumptions theory was developed in the early 1970s by Alwyn Gouldner, who emphasized that in order to understand the nature of academic sociology it is necessary to understand the implicit underlying assumptions that it uses.
Domain prerequisites form basic ideas about society, its basic processes and components, and, as the theory of sociology demonstrates, these prerequisites are always personal, semantic and value-laden in nature.
Sociologists or groups of sociologists always, even before starting to build a theory, consciously, or vaguely, on the periphery of theoretical consciousness, but necessarily have ideas and interpretations of society that constitute a set of domain premises.
Also, basic domain prerequisites can always be identified. In Marxism, for example, such domain prerequisites will be: rootedness public relations in the labor (production) sphere and the theory of class conflict.
A. Gouldner is developing his program for sociology and calls it “ reflexive sociology" Sociology of sociology is reflexive sociology.
The mission of reflexive sociology is to transform the sociologist himself, to penetrate deeper into his daily life and work, enriching them and making him more receptive, and raise the self-consciousness of the sociologist to a new historical level. Reflexive sociology must now and in the future be radical sociology. Radical, because she must understand that knowledge of the world cannot move forward without the sociologist’s knowledge of himself and his position in social world, or change it without his efforts. Radical because it seeks to both transform and understand another world, both outside the sociologist and within it . Reflexive sociology differs from old sociology in that it should include not only the knowledge of social reality and the construction of sociological theories, but also makes the object of reflection the value systems of sociologists themselves as ordinary members of society, their ideas about the structure of society. Its goal is to transform sociological consciousness and place the theoretical activities of sociologists under reflexive control. A. Gouldner also emphasizes the need to formalize the practice of transforming the personality of a sociologist. As for the object theoretical interest of reflexive sociology, it is associated with two fundamental spheres of sociological analysis - the sphere social institutions and the sphere of “alien social worlds.”
Thus, reflexive sociology seeks to deepen the self's ability to recognize that it treats certain information as hostile, to recognize that it uses certain tricks to deny, ignore or camouflage information that is hostile to it, and this sociology seeks to strengthen its ability to accept and use hostile information. In short, reflexive sociology seeks not to distort, but to transform the sociologist's self and thereby his practice in the world.
Not long ago I had such a strange conversation with one of my friends. He argued that, in essence, what the logical positivists proposed and what Popper proposed are one and the same. Therefore, I have long wanted to make this entry to clarify the situation in the sense that I personally see it.
First, a few words about logical positivism. This may all sound somewhat simplified, but still.
Logical positivism is a movement that developed on the basis of the so-called. “Vienna Circle”, organized in 1922 by M. Schlick. Logical positivists posed an interesting task - finding a reliable basis for scientific knowledge. In addition, they were very interested in the problem of demarcation - the separation of scientific knowledge and extra-scientific knowledge; they, in particular, really wanted to expel philosophy (metaphysics) from science. According to logical positivists, in order for a certain proposition (in the logical sense) to have the status of a scientific one, it is necessary that it can be expressed through some elementary (protocol) propositions that are empirical (for simplicity, we will assume this way, although there is something else here -What). That is, in essence, any scientific knowledge must be strictly reduced to empirical experience in one form or another. On the other hand, theoretical knowledge is built on the basis of empirical knowledge through its inductive generalization. Logical positivists put forward verification principle, which a scientific theory must satisfy. Its logical form is
where T is a theory, and is a consequence logically deduced from theory T, and at the same time an elementary sentence expressing an empirically reliable fact. In this case, they say that the theory is confirmed by empirical fact a. The more empirical facts, the higher the degree of confirmation of the theory. This scheme is thus based on induction - particular facts confirm the general theory.
Karl Popper’s concept opposes logical positivism on a number of points, in particular:
- Against induction. Induction as a logical method includes an irrational moment (as David Hume spoke about): at what point can you interrupt the enumeration and move from the premises (a finite set of facts) to the conclusion (a general statement about all such facts)? From a logical point of view - never. There is no logical transition from premises to conclusion. And induction is the logical basis of empiricism. Thus, empiricism is not logically justified.
- Against the principle of verification. It is quite difficult to establish the truth of a certain statement. For example, “All swans are white” will be true if each of the swans is white. That is, you need to check every swan. But you can show the falsity of such a statement by finding at least one counterexample. Thus, there is some asymmetry between confirmation and refutation.
- Against the discrediting of philosophy (metaphysics) by positivists. Popper showed (see his “Logic of Scientific Research”) that if we use the principles of logical positivism, it becomes clear that not only philosophy falls out of the category of science - many statements of theoretical physics also turn out to be extra-scientific. Here I am reminded of the story of the general theory of relativity. People who understand the issue understand that there is not a single complete confirmation of this theory. There are a number (generally speaking, very small) of confirmations that are in one way or another based on calculating corrections to the Newtonian potential. But this does not make us doubt this theory. And here the point is that it is theory, not experience, that comes to the fore. Popper did not believe* (nor did Einstein, by the way) that a theory should be based on empirical facts, or in any way be provoked by them.
where T is a theory, b is a consequence, not b is an empirical fact that contradicts the consequence. The conclusion affirms the falsity of T.
As a result:
1. The significance of empirical knowledge remains.
2. This mode is deductive and its conclusion is logically certain.
3. Induction is preserved - in a specific sense: the inductive direction of lies from false private knowledge in the premise to false general knowledge in the conclusion.
The principle of falsification is put forward as a criterion for scientificity (demarcation): a theory must have the potential to conflict with empirical facts. The more unsuccessful refutation attempts, the better for the theory. Therefore, falsifiability is a logical relation between a theory and a class of potential falsifiers (this includes not only pure empirical knowledge, but also mental statements). An attempt to rehabilitate a false theory leads, according to Popper, to dogmatism. And that's why. If b is derived from theory, but in practice it turns out not-b, then we must somehow introduce the statement of not-b into the theory. But this can lead to the theory containing a contradiction, and this, as is known, leads to the fact that anything can be deduced from the theory. To demonstrate this simple statement, I will quote Popper's words from his article "What is Dialectics":
"Using our two rules, we can actually show this. Let's say there are two contradictory premises, let's say:Regarding verification, Popper says the following:
(a) The sun is shining now.
(b) The sun is not shining now.
Any statement can be derived from these two premises, for example, “Caesar was a traitor.”
From premise (a) we can deduce, according to rule (1), the following conclusion:
(c) The sun is shining now V Caesar was a traitor. Taking now (b) and (c) as premises, we can ultimately deduce, according to rule (2):
(d) Caesar was a traitor.
It is clear that using the same method we could derive any other statement, for example, “Caesar was not a traitor.” So from “2 + 2 = 5” and “2 + 2 not = 5” we can derive not only the statement we would like, but also its negation, which may not have been part of our plans."
“I can illustrate this with two significantly different examples of human behavior: the behavior of a person pushing a child into water with the intention of drowning him, and the behavior of a person sacrificing his life in an attempt to save that child. Each of these cases is easily explained in both Freudian and Adlerian terms. According to Freud, the first person suffers from a repression (say, Oedipus) complex, while the second has achieved sublimation. According to Adler, the first person suffers from a feeling of inferiority (which causes him to prove to himself that he is capable of daring to commit a crime), the same thing happens to the second (who has a need to prove to himself that he is capable of saving a child). So, I could not think of any form of human behavior that could not be explained on the basis of each of these theories. And precisely this fact - that they coped with everything and always found confirmation - in the eyes of their adherents was the most powerful argument in favor of these theories. However, I began to suspect whether this was not an expression of the strength, but, on the contrary, of the weakness of these theories?Popper managed to identify the main shortcomings of the program of logical positivism; he actually closed the problem of the existence of a reliable source of knowledge. The old question of what is in cognitive activity defining: feelings or reason - turned out to be incorrectly formulated, because There are no “pure” empirical facts. They always depend on a certain theory. Popper made us think about the nature of theoretical knowledge and the role of induction in its emergence. The main purpose of a scientist is to put forward risky hypotheses, the falsification of which forces one to put forward new problems and even more risky hypotheses.
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Astrology is not subject to testing. Astrologers are so mistaken about what they consider to be supporting evidence that they pay no attention to examples that are unfavorable to them. Moreover, by making their interpretations and prophecies vague enough, they are able to explain away everything that might be a refutation of their theory if it and the prophecies that follow from it were more accurate. To avoid falsification, they destroy the testability of their theories. This is the usual trick of all soothsayers: to predict events so vaguely that the predictions always come true, that is, so that they are irrefutable.
The two psychoanalytic theories mentioned earlier belong to a different class. They are simply untestable and irrefutable theories. ... This does not mean that Freud and Adler did not say anything correct at all ... But it does mean that those “clinical observations” that psychoanalysts naively believe confirm their theory do so no more than the daily confirmations found by astrologers in your practice. As for Freud's description of the I (Ego), the Super-I (Super-Ego) and the Id (Id), it is essentially no more scientific than Homer's stories about Olympus. The theories under consideration describe some facts, but do so in the form of a myth. They contain very interesting psychological assumptions, but they express them in an untestable form.”
—Popper K.R. Conjectures and Refutations. The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. London and Henley. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972.
The disadvantages traditionally include the fact that consistent implementation of the principle of falsification in real scientific practice has never taken place. A real scientist, faced with contradictions, will not, even after a certain period of time, abandon his theory, but will find out the reasons for the conflict between theory and facts, look for an opportunity to change some parameters of the theory, that is, he will save it, which is fundamentally prohibited in Popper’s methodology.
*) Generally speaking, as far as I remember, Karl Popper himself did not receive a humanities education at all; rather, he was close to mathematics and theoretical physics, as, indeed, were many members of the Vienna circle.
Popper, who participated in the meetings of the Vienna Circle, actively opposed the verification criterion. He put forward another criterion for demarcation, or differentiation, of genuine science from pseudoscience, which is based on the possibility of falsification, or refutation, of scientific hypotheses and theories.
Despite criticism of verification, Popper shared the positivist thesis that philosophy of science should deal only with issues of substantiating scientific knowledge.
The fundamental opposition to logical positivism was primarily the methodological constructions of Popper, who proposed a radical A New Look on the role of experience in relation to scientific theories. According to Popper, the main purpose of observations and experiments is not at all to confirm scientific hypotheses and theories, much less to prove their truth (both experience is not able to accomplish simply due to its logical capabilities in relation to theories). The purpose of experience is to falsify false models and theories. Among theories that have not been falsified by existing experience, preference should be given to those theories that had a high probability of being refuted and, nevertheless, successfully withstood the test. Moreover, only those theories can generally be considered scientific that can, in principle, be falsified by experience and sooner or later will be refuted.
Karl Popper (1902-1994) considers knowledge not only as a ready-made, established system, but also as a changing and developing system.
He presented this aspect of the analysis of science in the form of the concept of the growth of scientific knowledge. Rejecting agenetism, the anti-historicism of logical positivists in this matter, he believes that the method of constructing artificial model languages is not able to solve the problems associated with the growth of our knowledge. But within its limits, this method is legitimate and necessary. Popper is keenly aware that emphasizing the change of scientific knowledge, its growth and progress, may to some extent contradict the popular ideal of science as a systematic deductive system. This ideal has dominated epistemology since Euclid.
The growth of knowledge is not a repetitive or cumulative process, it is a process of elimination of errors, Darwinian selection. The growth of knowledge is not a simple accumulation of observations, but the repeated overthrow of scientific theories and their replacement by better and more satisfactory ones. The main mechanism for the growth of knowledge is the mechanism of assumptions and refutations.
The growth of scientific knowledge consists of putting forward bold hypotheses and the best (possible) theories and carrying out their refutations, as a result of which scientific problems are solved. The growth of scientific knowledge is carried out by trial and error elimination and is nothing more than a way of choosing a theory in a certain problem situation - this is what makes science rational and ensures its progress. The growth of scientific knowledge is a special case of global evolutionary processes. Popper points out some difficulties, difficulties and even real dangers for this process: lack of imagination, unjustified faith in formalization and precision, authoritarianism.
Necessary means for the growth of scientific knowledge include such aspects as language, formulation of problems, the emergence of new problem situations, competing theories, and mutual criticism in the process of discussion.
3 basic requirements for the growth of knowledge:
1) A new theory must start from a simple, new, fruitful and unifying idea.
2) It must be independently verifiable, i.e. should lead to the presentation of phenomena that have not yet been observed. That is, the new theory should be more fruitful as a research tool.
3) A good theory must withstand some new and rigorous tests.
The theory of scientific knowledge and its growth is epistemology, which in the process of its formation becomes a theory of problem solving, construction, critical discussion, evaluation and critical testing of competing hypotheses and theories.
Popper's theses:
Man's specific ability to cognize and reproduce scientific knowledge is the result of natural selection.
Evolution is an evolution of building better and better theories. This is a Darwinian process.
Eliminating previous theories that turn out to be wrong.
Against the BADEY principle of cognition - the traditional theory of cognition. Denies the existence of direct sensory data, associations and induction through repetition and generalization.
A necessary prerequisite critical thinking is the presence of human language descriptive or descriptive function that allows information to be conveyed about states of affairs or situations that may or may not occur.
History of Philosophy Skirbekk Gunnar
Popper and "critical rationalism"
We have already talked about the impossibility of complete verification of general statements obtained through induction (see Chapter 7). We will indeed never be able to verify the general statement “all swans are white,” since new observations of white swans will only add to the fundamental finite number confirmed observations. After all, the general statement applies to an infinite number of cases (“all swans ...”). On the other hand, a single observation of a black (not white) swan falsifies this statement.
The same arguments can be made against scientific statements like “force equals mass times acceleration.”
Such considerations have led to a reformulation of the criteria for the epistemic meaningfulness of statements. The requirement of their verifiability was replaced by the requirement of falsifiability. So, for a statement to be epistemically meaningful (= scientific), it must be fundamentally falsifiable.
This reformulation took central place in the concept of Karl Popper (Karl Popper, 1902–1994). It is important to emphasize that we are talking about the fundamental falsifiability of statements. Whether they are actually falsified depends at any given time on existing technological capabilities. Thus, to falsify a statement about the temperature on the far side of the Moon or at its center, certain technical means are required. Unlike in the past, today we can falsify claims about the temperature on the far side of the Moon. But even now we are not able (as far as we know) to falsify statements about the temperature at its center. However, in principle, with more advanced technical means in the future, we will be able to do this. Therefore, the statement “the temperature at the center of the Moon is x degrees Celsius” is cognitively meaningful, since it is fundamentally falsifiable.
But what can be said about the statement “the temperature on the surface of the Earth after all people die will be on average equal to 100 degrees Celsius”? This statement is, in principle, not falsifiable, since there will not be a single living person who would falsify it (we assume here that no other beings will take the place of a person). Is this claim epistemically meaningless and therefore unscientific? Most likely, scientists would resist such a conclusion. It is unlikely that they think that such statements are meaningless and unscientific.
All this shows how problematic it is to equate the distinction between fundamentally falsifiable and fundamentally unfalsifiable statements with the differences between cognitively meaningful and cognitively meaningless statements, and between science and nonscience.
Popper's work The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Logik der Forschung, 1934 Russian translation of this work, with the exception of chapters 8 and 9, see K. Popper. Logic and the growth of scientific knowledge. Selected works, - M, 1983 - V.K.) is a classic of the philosophy of science. It is in close but critical connection with logical empiricism and follows the empiricist attitude that goes back to Locke. According to this attitude, to ensure the growth of knowledge, clear formulations and the best possible empirical tests of our statements are required ["All of this can be summarized in the following statement: the criterion for the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, falsifiability, or testability." KMopper. Assumptions and refutations. The growth of scientific knowledge. Translation by L. Blinnikov, V. Bryushinkin, E. Nappelbaum and A. Nikiforov. - In the book. K.Popper. Logic and the growth of scientific knowledge. - M., 1983. - P. 245.]. Popper used the term critical rationalism to refer to his theory.
Popper makes the following argument against the inductive method. We do not have legal grounds to derive general statements (universal hypotheses and theories) about all events from singular statements, that is, from descriptions of individual events based on observations and experiments. No matter how many white swans we observe, we are not entitled to conclude that all swans are white (cf. Hume's view of induction).
In this case, how can one justify general statements like hypotheses and laws? Popper's answer is: using the deductive method of verification, according to which, after putting forward a hypothesis, its consequences are first tested empirically. At the same time, the question of how we formulate universal statements and hypotheses must be separated from the question of their justification or verification. The question of how we come to formulate hypotheses is a psychological question that can be investigated empirically. The question of how we justify an existing hypothesis is a logical or methodological question that cannot be answered with the help of empirical research, since it already presupposes its validity. Thus we arrive at a fundamental difference between problems of fact, the solution of which falls within the purview of the empirical sciences, and problems of justification or validity, which must be explained by the logic of inquiry.
How do we test our hypotheses? We deduce (deduce) singular statements from hypotheses, which we then verify or falsify using empirical testing according to whether or not they correspond to the statements of observation and experiment. Deduced singular statements say what should happen under given conditions. A statement will be true if what it says is the case. If this does not happen, the statement is false. In the first case, the hypothesis withstood specific testing. However, this test relates to only one of an infinite number of possible situations, characterized by the inference processes employed and the means and methods used. Consequently, we cannot be sure of the universal truth of the hypothesis, that is, that any test will confirm it. But if the result of a particular test is negative, then the hypothesis is proven to be false.
Thus, there is an asymmetric relationship between what follows from an empirically confirmed hypothesis and what follows from an empirically unsupported hypothesis. If one of the consequences of a hypothesis is confirmed, then we do not know whether it is true. If one such consequence is not confirmed, then we know that the hypothesis is false.
Consequently, the true test of a hypothesis lies in its falsification, and not verification, which turns out to be fundamentally unattainable. This implies that the best way to test a hypothesis is not to run many subtle tests of it, but to find the tests that would be most difficult for the hypothesis to withstand.
When a hypothesis passes such a test, we can temporarily regard it as confirmed. But this result is always open to further falsification.
In addition, so that other scientists can easily see the weaknesses in our argument, it is very important to clearly and clearly describe and publish all information related to the hypothesis and its testing.
Logical positivists gave special meaning the problem of a clear demarcation of science and metaphysics. They defined it in terms of the difference between what is verifiable and what is not, that is, the difference between what is epistemically meaningful and what is epistemically meaningless. Characteristic of Popper was the denial that scientific hypotheses and theories are verifiable. In his opinion, the criterion for scientific statements is their falsifiability, not verifiability.
Popper also dealt with the distinction between science and metaphysics (see the history of discussions about this distinction from Locke through Hume to Kant). He saw it again in the difference between the empirically falsifiable and the non-falsifiable. To the extent that a theory is not falsifiable, it is not scientific. However, Popper does not claim that this distinction is a distinction between what is epistemically meaningful and what is epistemically meaningless. At this point he does not share the positivist point of view.
But what is the logical status of his criterion of demarcation? How do we know its truth? Popper's answer is that this criterion is ultimately a conventional assumption that we decide to accept and which cannot be rationally argued. So Popper adheres to a certain form of decisionism. Since a binding rational consideration of the criterion of demarcation is impossible, we must decide whether to accept it or not.
But at the same time, Popper adds (in a footnote) “that between parties interested in discovering the truth and ready to listen to each other’s arguments, a rational discussion is always possible” [K. Popper. The logic of scientific discovery. Translation by L. Blinnikov, V. Bryushinkin, E. Nappelbaum and A. Nikiforov. - In the book. K.Popper. Logic and the growth of scientific knowledge. - M., 1983. - P. 59.].
From a hermeneutical point of view, one might argue that it makes no sense to say that we are able to choose rationality, understood as our interest in truth. After all, the very act of choice already presupposes that we are rational in this sense.
Let us note some ambiguity in Popper's position regarding choice. What he says in this footnote (many would add: what he does both in practice and in his passionate publications on socio-philosophical topics) indicates that he himself goes beyond the decisionism he ascribes to to yourself.
By using the term "critical rationalism" to refer to his position, Popper emphasizes his reliance on rational discussion, on reason in its scientific and practical dimensions. For him, discussion is an open and free testing activity in which opponents take part not in order to convince the other, but in order to learn something. Taking part in the discussion, opponents look for possible falsification of the statements they defend. Each participant in the discussion must be prepared for the fact that it may not be his statement that is correct, but the statement of his opponent. Participants must have equal confidence in the sharing of intelligence as a facilitator for all parties. For Popper, this is rationalism, that is, the belief in the effectiveness of the use of reason in open discussions. The critical aspect of this rationalism relates to the participants' attempts to falsify theories, as well as their criticism of the rules of method, which shows that they do not contribute to the acquisition of knowledge. So one can criticize a philosophical position without being able to empirically falsify it. Popper also includes such a universal thesis as determinism among this kind of philosophical position.
But why should we develop (promote) knowledge? This issue is also being discussed. But here Popper tends to be decisionist: critical rationalism, based on the open, shared use of reason, is based on a certain choice. This choice cannot itself be justified by arguments based on the critical use of reason.
If falsifiability serves as a demarcation criterion for science, then there must be singular statements that can act as prerequisites for falsifiable conclusions. Deduced singular statements are not verified by direct comparison with reality. They are compared with observation statements, that is, with singular statements saying that such-and-such is the case. But how do we know that these observational statements (basic statements) are true? When we have a direct sensory experience and express it with the help of a singular statement of the form “now this house is green,” then there seems to be no other way of verifying this statement except with the help of another singular statement of the same kind . State-of-affairs statements are controlled by new observations, which are again formulated as state-of-affairs statements. How can we be sure that we are not mistaken about these new claims?
We have already touched on this problem in connection with Descartes. It was also mentioned in connection with Berkeley that some philosophers tend to refrain from making any statements about external reality and limit ourselves only to statements about direct experiences. But such a limitation raises the problem of the status of our sensory experiences, the so-called sense data. Indeed, although an individual can say that he is confident that his statements about experiences are correct, since these are his own experiences, and not just what he only talks about, the price of such confidence for this is very high: with such limitation, we are deprived of a world of objects common to us.
How does Popper try to solve this problem? He takes a pragmatic approach. When many people perceive the same thing, and when the thing is reproduced in perception as the same thing over and over again, then we have the objective basis we need. The guarantee that our sensory perceptions are universally valid lies in their testing for intersubjectivity. It follows that what is reproducible and intersubjectively accessible - repeating itself and common to us - can be the content of science in the form of observational statements.
But there is no absolute guarantee of this. In connection with the verification of observation statements, there is a regress ad infinitum (an endless transition from one such statement to another), but in practice no verification can continue indefinitely. However, Popper does not claim that everything scientific statements must be verified, he says they can all be verified.
For Popper, not only his methodology and his epistemology are interconnected. They turn out to be connected with political theory. To identify misconceptions, we must engage in free debate; to engage in free debate we must have the institutions and traditions that make it possible, that is, we must have a society shaped by a scientific ethos. For Popper, this society is open and liberal. Based on his views on knowledge and the formation of an open society, Popper took an active part in political debates. In The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), he criticizes Plato, Hegel and Marx for their lack of concern for the open and gradual improvement of knowledge and the liberality that such improvement implies.
According to Popper, these philosophers built their doctrines on a fragile foundation and, in the spirit of their dogmatism, put forward a theory of a society that represented a danger to rational discussion and the progressive functioning of knowledge. Thus, Popper defends the demands of tolerance and liberality, and also opposes indoctrination and the monopoly on truth.
The book The Poverty of Historicism (1957) is dedicated to “the memory of the countless victims of the fascist and communist faith in the Inexorable Laws Historical Destiny" The argument in this book is directed against ideas about the possibility of predictions relating to society as a whole (holistic predictions). He calls this point of view historicism and in the preface he succinctly sets out the main line of argument against it.
It is as follows.
“(1) Human history is greatly influenced by the development of human knowledge. (The truth of this premise is also recognized by those who see in our ideas, including scientific ones, by-products of material development).
(2) Rational or scientific methods do not allow us to predict the development of scientific knowledge. This statement can be proven logically (arguments in its favor are given below).
(3) Thus, the move human history impossible to predict.
(4) This means that theoretical history is impossible; in other words, a historical social science similar to theoretical physics is impossible. It is impossible to have a theory of historical development on the basis of which one could engage in historical prediction.
(5) Thus, historicism formulates its main task incorrectly (see sections 11 to 16) and therefore it is untenable.” (K. Popper. The poverty of historicism. Translation by S. Kudrina. - M., 1993. - P. 4–5.)
This line of argument does not, of course, deny the possibility of all kinds of social predictions. On the contrary, it is entirely compatible with the ability to test social theories, e.g. economic theories, by predicting that certain events will take place under certain conditions. It only refutes the possibility of predicting historical development to the extent that it will depend on the growth of our knowledge.
So, Popper does not reject the possibility of making predictions regarding individual particular processes. On the contrary, he believes that we should put forward hypotheses about the future, examine their consequences and compare the consequences with actual events, adjust the original hypotheses on this basis, again examine the consequences of the adjusted hypotheses, etc. In other words, he transfers the main features of his philosophy of science on political philosophy. The result is an experimental (tentative) policy of gradual steps, a kind of scientific reformism.
This approach is fundamentally neutral with respect to the question of whether it is used for the benefit of a particular social group in society. Following it becomes a problem of political choice. For Popper, the essential thing is that, with the help of gradual social engineering, politics becomes scientific. He rejects the desire to plan a social structure precisely as an integrity. This is impossible. We can't change everything at once. Those who gravitate towards global change become not only utopians, but also show a tendency towards authoritarian power, as they want everything to be carried out according to their plans. The only possible way is to do everything gradually, step by step. Moreover, it is highly desirable to act scientifically and openly, namely: we must realize our goals using proven means and adjust plans as we progress.
Popper does not deny the difference between social phenomena and natural ones. He says that social phenomena, to a much lesser extent than natural ones, can be observed without having certain ideas about what we are observing. For him objects social science are largely theoretical constructs. In this regard, he mentions ideas about war and the army, which he views as abstract concepts. At the same time, Popper notes that the people (soldiers) who are killed are specific. Along with this, Popper formulates the principle of methodological individualism: “... the task of social theory is to build sociological models and analyze them in descriptive or nominalistic terms, that is, in terms of individuals, their attitudes, expectations, relationships, etc.” [K.Popper. The poverty of historicism. Translation by S. Kudrina. - M., 1993. - P. 157].
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