Rationality: Predictive Theories Are Better or Not?

¶ … Rationality: Predictive Theories are Better or Not?

Philosophy

Carl Gustav Hempel is a leader of the logical positivist movement. Logical positivism, also known as logical empiricism or logical neopostivism, rose as a movement in Hempel's home of Germany in the early to mid 20th century. Logical positivism's primary concern lies in the critical analysis of scientific knowledge and natural sciences with definite meaning. Logical positivism and thus Hempel argue for the exploration and clarification of amorphous or ambiguous concepts to make them the exact antithesis -- precise and exactly articulated. Karl Popper, a self-titled "critical rationalist" is a philosophical exemplar of thinkers who directly influence science and technical matters. Popper's theories combine matters of philosophy, the social realm, politics, and science comprehensively and succinctly. Thus, the paper addresses the question of the topic with this context in mind: is it rational to give more credence to theories that predict or explain evidence? The paper will propose a philosophical definition of rationality and subsequently evaluate philosophical perspectives and/or theories that productively approach the answer to the question at hand.

Rationality is fundamental to the study and implementation of philosophy. Quite simply, rationality is the use of reason. Rationality is a process by which philosophers (or people being philosophical) deduce conclusions to matters upon which they have pondered with gravity. Logic and efficiency characterize rationality as well. Furthermore, evidence is a matter of great contention within the study philosophy. Epistemology is a branch of philosophy in which the entire thrust of the thinking is to consider how we know what we think we know. Therefore, before the reader even approaches the answer to the question, the question must be deconstructed, interpreted, and summarized clearly, else the direction in which we venture for the answer may not only be the wrong one, which is still valuable, but also that direction may be counterproductive or wasteful.

The etymology of the word "theory" stretches back to the times of Ancient Greece. Theories are structured ideas or concepts that allow thinkers to consider the idea, to understand the idea, or to simply behold the idea in full. Theories are specifically tied to thinking and not to actions. Hypotheses and experimentation are actions that can result from theories, but theories are truly about the ideas and nothing more. Therefore, a theory that predicts evidence is not a theory, nor it is an effective theory if considered a theory. Moreover, the evidence is weak if it requires a theory to explain it. The evidence should stand alone and reflect the experimentation or the idea in action.

Logical positivism, like epistemology, questions how we derive and understand meaning and knowledge. Flynn defines the use for logical positivism:

"A statement is meaningful if and only if it can be proved true or false, at least in principle, by means of the experience or in virtue of its meaning. Moreover, the meaning of a statement is its method of verification; that is, we know the meaning of a statement only if we know the conditions under which the statement is true or false (this assertion is called the verifiability principle)." (Flynn, 2007,-Page 3)