Response to Karl Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery How the Reading Has Affected What I Believe about the Nature of Science and What It Can Tell Us about the World

Popper (2005) rejects the notion that inductive reasoning can lead to the identification of universals, and he uses the white swan as an example: “no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white” (p. 4)—no, and nor should it. However, one could legitimately analyze the swan still further, identify its species and thus conclude that this species of swan is always going to be white. White is one of the characteristics of this type of swan—so why should it not be viewed as a universal characteristic of this specific species? Popper’s approach to the nature of science is rooted in the empirical analysis—in deduction rather than induction. He thus concludes that “like every other form of inductive logic, the logic of probable inference, or ‘probability logic’, leads either to an infinite regress, or to the doctrine of apriorism” (p. 6).

What would Popper make of today’s world’s use of probability logic? Why, the financial markets are driven by probability logic; the political strategizing of today is driven by probability logic; business is driven by probability logic—what in the world is not driven by it? Popper appears to approach metaphysics in the same manner as Ayer (1990), though Popper’s emphasis on the logic of the statement serving as the basis of all knowledge rather than on sense data ala Ayer is one difference between them. For me, I believe the inductive reasoning is just as important as deductive and I find Popper’s arguments unpersuasive. A great deal of scientific inquiry, I feel, is driven by inductive reasoning and always has been. I believe that this is Kuhn’ (1972) main point at least: after all, he states that science, ultimately, is “research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice” (p.10). For science to be meaningful, some induction is required.

Questions Regarding the Nature of the Nature of Facts, Theories, and the Scientific Enterprise

Popper discusses the knowledge of facts from the standpoint of sensationalism, which is where Ayer (1990) ultimately lays his basis of epistemology. Popper on the other hand rejects this notion and insists that the knowledge is conveyed by way of relation—i.e., by the statement, or the logical communication of relations. Sense perception is only a piece of a puzzle that remains to be put together and to rely on sensationalism as a means of understanding...

For we can utter no scientific statement that does not go far beyond what can be known with certainty ‘on the basis of immediate experience’” (p. 76). This follows on Popper’s use of falsifiability as as “criterion for the empirical character of a system of statements” (p. 66). Falsifiability merely refers to the manner in which a universal may be perfected and made truer in terms of its reflection of reality.
Facts, in other words, must be approached carefully and through a systematized process, which includes the process of falsifiability: if a statement of fact (not a sense perception of fact—but a statement) can withstand the process of falsifiability, its usefulness as a universal must be acknowledged. To say, however, that all ravens are black when there exists a family of white ravens at the New York Zoo (an example Popper uses) would be to illustrated have a universal can be falsified through the application of the falsifiability criterion. This is an important concept to consider when engaging with Popper, for it sits at the foundation of his approach to facts, theories and the nature of the scientific enterprise.

What They Mean for the Way We Can Understand the World Ourselves

These questions of what constitutes a fact, moreover, can have profound implications for what we can understand of our ourselves and of the world. A certain amount of rigor, of precision, of verifiability and emphasis on validity must be applied in the field of science to determine what is real and factual and what is not. And what is real and factual must be determined by statements of fact. A statement is what can be tested—a sense perception is not verifiable evidence unless it is incorporated into a statement of fact. That is Popper’s main point with regard to understanding the world in which we live and the role that science plays in coming to terms with that world and its meaning.

But what does it say of ourselves? Ayer (1990) postulates that “that our intellects are unequal to the task of carrying out very abstract processes of reasoning without the assistance of intuition” (p. 46). Kuhn (1972) states that paradigms present themselves for our consideration but that we must by no means feel bound to them or constricted by them, for they are the shoulders upon which we stand as we seek to understand still more deeply. Popper seems to reject Ayer’s postulation while arguing that Kuhn’s concept is acceptable only in so far as the inquiry is pursued with rigor and systematic precision. Popper would argue that we can only know ourselves in so far as we…