Compare and Contrast Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper

Compare and Contrast Thomas Kuhn and Karl PopperPositivists regarded verifiable observation freed of preconceptions as the room by which facts were obtained and explained. This view, however, has been greatly contested since the Vienna Circles avid pursuance of it. The main problems include its inability to be checked and criticised by the scientific community members. In other words, they are subjective, fallible and thus unreliable.1It is this initial discontent with logical positivism, especially with logical positivism which prompted Karl Popper to develop his Theory of Falsifiability, a possible action which no hourlong relies on induction but on deduction, which accepts that truth is non attainable and which casts theories aside which contract been refuted by only a single piece of existential evidence. Falsification is likewise a demarcation betwixt skill and non- acquisition, something which has proved to be in truth controversial. Thomas Kuhn, perhaps the most we ll known critic of Poppers school, does non believe in induction or deduction as methods through which science progresses. Instead, he introduces the concept of modal(prenominal) science, varietyary science and effigys. The differences between these two mens work will be analysed, the implications of each for the conduct of social sciences commented upon and the work of Imre Lakatos, a twentieth century philosopher of mathematics and science, cotton uped in order to instance just how much both philosophers resonate in the social sciences as a whole.Karl Popper, Positivism and his Theory of FalsifiabilityKarl Popper was first and foremost a philosopher of the natural sciences,2his companionship of the social sciences being limited basically to economics.3With that in mind, unmatchable understands why he agreed with Rudolph Carnap in advocating that philosophy should learn from how the natural sciences operate. He believed scientists should ingest a critical attitude, willin g to incessantly test their views with empirical evidence and rational discussion which the Vienna Circle had so avidly promoted. However, Popper was curtly to highlight flaws with positivism, especially with logical positivism. These were, in particular, its dedication to the principles of inductivism and verificationism.Inductivists claim that via induction, angiotensin converting enzymeness is able to obtain secure scientific knowledge and that the inference is legitimate if a prodigious number of singular or observational statements are gathered under a wide variety of circumstances.4In order to maintain the empirical demonstration of inferences obtained through the deductive method, the universal law premise must be empirically certain.5However, as Popper pointed out, one has no assurance that any universal empirical proposition is certain. For Popper, the problem of induction was insurmountable, contesting that if science is empirical its laws must be treated as tentativ e hypotheses.6Popper accepted the Humean critique of induction, claiming not only that it is never affaird by scientists but that observation, believed to be an initial step in the formulation of theories, is misguided7. Hume also pointed out that observation is selective and theory-laden and thus one send away never make pure or free observations.8Popper, however, disagreed with Hume over whether knowledge could be rationally justified. Hume saw inductively inferred laws as merely an account of exercise or custom, (suggesting that) even scientific knowledge is mistaken.9Popper, on the other hand, in order to avoid statements allowing empirical evidence to confirm false theories, believed that induction could be step ind by deduction. Deduction draws inferences approximately the premises from the observed falsity of the conclusion.10To justify this, he argued that though even with a personate of empirical evidence, one stand never be absolutely certain about the validity of a theory, it takes only one empirical rebuttal to determine the falsity of a theory. Popper denominated this the imbalance between verifiability and falsifiability11, a difference which became the centrepiece of his philosophy of science.Scientists begin with universal statements and initial conditions from which they deduce hypotheses which will then be subsequently tested. If they withstand the test, the theory will survive if falsified, the theory is abandoned. Falsifiability, according to Popper, is the criterion of demarcation between science, or the empirical sciences and the non-science. There are, however, degrees of falsifiability. The more information a statement contains, the large its body of observational statements and therefore, the higher its degree of falsification. According to Popper, scientists should aim at highly refutable theories instead of modestly falsifiable ones. It is preferable for the theory to be bold, precise and simple12as their empirical content will be greater and therefore there will be a larger body of potential falsifiers.Poppers definite break with logical positivism appears in their count of certainty the positivists aimed to specify methods that would generate certain knowledge13whilst in Poppers view, one can only hope to improve what must always remain imperfect14as prox tests could cast doubt over what was previously thought of as true. If we take Poppers approach to the search for truth, it would initially appear that there are an endless number of possible true theories.15However, Popper addresses that by explaining his notion of verisimilitude. The scientific parade of trial and error which Popper advocates creates a greater approximation of the truth, or increases the verisimilitude of the theory.Popper, Marxism and Pseudo-ScienceThe young Popper had been attracted to the apparent strength of theories such as Freuds psychoanalysis and Adlers individual psychology. These theories were regarded as satisfacto ry of explaining virtually everything related to human behaviour as verifications were ready to justify every advancement. Popper, however, was soon to discover a major flaw in them they could not be refuted. Freud was therefore severely criticised by Popper for producing immunised theories against falsification. A theory unable to be falsified belongs, in Poppers view, to a non-science. His drastic approach towards pseudo-science was also across-the-board to Marxism, especially the Marxism that Neurath had brought to the Vienna Circle.Neurath interpreted Marxian materialism as epsitemically equivalent to his own physicalism16and hailed Engels and Marx as having produced the foundations of a truly scientific study of society. In Poppers opinion, this could not have been further from the truth. The problem with Marx was not only that he was considered a historicist, but that he was a utopian too.Marxism, initially considered as a science beca ingestion of its predictive nature, was soon re-classified as fundamentally non-scientific. The predictions Marx had do had not been borne out and in order to save it from falsification and refutation, ad hoc hypotheses were added, making the theory matched with facts. These factors prompted Popper to adopt falsifiability as his criterion for demarcation between science and non-science. If a theory, according to Popper, is capable of being falsified or, in other words, is incompatible with empirical evidence, it is considered as scientific. If, on the other hand, a theory is compatible with all observations and is capable of explaining virtually everything be it because, as with the case of Marxism, it has been modified to accommodate newly made observations or, because, as in the case of psychoanalysis, it is indeed consistent with all observations made and to be made in the future, it is categorised as unscientific.17It is this criterion which characterises Poppers theory of falsifiability and which was soon criticis ed.Implications for the Social SciencesPopper helps demolish one of the notions positivism embraces, namely that science progresses from the observation of data by means of experiments. These experiments are verified when repeated allowing general laws about the nature of human beings to be inferred. Popper, therefore, shows that progress is made not by verifying facts, but by attempts of falsifying the results of other theories.18The theories of science, he argues, are conjectures to cypher problems and cannot be verified by empirical evidence.19The bemuse from induction to deduction also means that rather than proceeding from the particular to the universal, science originates from the universal (i.e. scientific hypotheses) to the particular.20SanderThomas Kuhns Theory of ParadigmsThomas Kuhn began his career as a physicist and then turned his attention towards the record of science where his preconceptions about natural history were shattered21. His Structure of scientific Re volutions (1962) was developed as an attempt to give a theory more in keeping with the historical situation as (Kuhn) saw it22. Unlike Popper, his main aim was not to provide guidelines to scientists about how to proceed or to develop a normative philosophy of science. The central mention of his thesis was to characterise the way in which science historically develops and to explain why scientists have operated in such a way.Kuhns Structure of scientific Revolutions has been one of the most provocative (pieces of work) to appear in the last fifteen years23, offering the most sophisticated alternative to Popper.24Science, in his opinion, does not progress inductively as positivists would maintain nor by falsification as Popper would argue. Alternatively, Kuhn places focus on the revolutionist character of scientific process, where a revolution involves the abandonment of one theoretical building and its replacement by another, incompatible one.Kuhns approach to the way science pr ogresses can be summarised by the following open-ended schemepre-science normal science crisis revolution new normal science new crisis25According to Kuhn, the pre-science stage is a disorganised and diverse activity preceding the formation of science. It eventually becomes structured, directed and channelled when a single paradigm emerges and is adhered to by the scientific community. As will be discussed below, the concept of paradigms itself has been subjected to heavy unfavorable judgment, not least because of its ambiguous nature. However, vaguely, one can request that paradigms contain some very general methodological prescriptions26to guide scientific work. Paradigms also serve a regulative function in directing future research.27 prevailers within a specific paradigm whether it be Newtonian mechanics or wave optics practise what Kuhn denominates normal science.As professed in Structure of Scientific Revolutions, normal science isresearch firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice.28Normal science is inextricably characterised by a dominant paradigm, something that Popper quickly picked up upon as irrational and superficial.29In normal science the scientists work is devoted to the articulation and wider application of the accepted paradigm.30In other words, their main aim is to fill out what is suggested by the accepted paradigm.31It is therefore clear that little emphasis is placed upon normal science and research to produce major novelties as a primary aim.Kuhn, in effect, reduces Poppers falsification theory to problem solving within the confines of normal science. According to Kuhn, science is merely a set of puzzles whose solutions are to be found within the operating paradigm32. Normal scientists do not actively look for anomalies which the content of their paradigm will be hard-pressed to solve. However, wh en a repeated anomaly does arise which the paradigm is unable to disrupt, crisis will break out.During such a crisis, extraordinary science occurs characterised by a plurality of views and a take exception to the fundamentals of the paradigm. The crisis will then be resolved when a completely new paradigm emerges which has the capacity to resolve the previous, problematic anomalies and, in doing so, attract the faithfulness of a growing scientific community until eventually the paradigm posing the problem is abandoned. Therefore, the new paradigm not only has to be able to resolve the anomaly, it also has to be subsequently accepted as normal science, thus establishing a new consensus. A scientific revolution according to Kuhn is constituted by discontinuous change33as the newly adopted paradigm will be confronted with problems it is unable to resolve and thus the never-ending cycle continues.Kuhn and PopperThe Structure of Scientific Revolutions soon became problematic to reconc ile with Poppers theory of falsification as Kuhns historical account about how scientists operate came into conflict with Poppers work. The emphasis Kuhn placed on scientific communities, their rules and expectations, was used to explain why scientists were not always willing to refute and actively search for falsifications of their theories. Unlike what Popper claimed, the scientific communities would not question the paradigm they work within until a particular anomaly was repeated. Instead, they might question their own calculations or instruments implemented, but never the broader fashion model they operate within.34Poppers reaction to Kuhns severe criticism was veritably weak. He simple asserted that Kuhns accurate historical account of science clashes with the facts as I see them.35According to Kuhn, falsification has not been in use in the past for the reasons highlighted above. Poppers rebuttal to this was that he, unlike Kuhn, had not focused on providing a historical acco unt but on providing guidelines for future scientists. He also criticises Kuhn for producing a highly selected theory, one which disregarded large chunks of normal science. 36Popper also criticised Kuhn for paving the way for irrationalism and relativism,37the reason for this lying in two of Kuhns statements. Firstly, the fact that Kuhn equated the switch in paradigms to a gestalt switch or a religious conversion because he believed in a holistic theory of meaning38means that it is very difficult to compare scientific theories. Secondly, because of Kuhns cynical approach to verisimilitude and his belief that we never get closer to the truth, his explanation on how science progresses seems ill-founded. In these contexts, Popper criticises Kuhn of adhering to the myth of framework which presupposes that rational and critical discussions can only take place if fundamentals are agreed upon. Popper strongly disagrees with this concept, as with the belief that science will not progress ac ross paradigms and argues that different frameworks always have enough in common to allow the scientific community to compare and judge them, triggering progress. new(prenominal) Criticisms of Kuhns WorkPopper has not been alone in criticising aspects of Kuhns Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Bernstein succinctly puts the majority of the criticisms in his The Restructuring of Social and Political Theories39. The ambiguous nature of paradigms and the irrationality of the paradigm turn have been discussed above. Critics have also pinpointed Kuhns misrepresentation of the history of science40, the inaccurate description of normal science41and the exaggerated distinction between normal and revolutionary science42. In order to further show the relevance of Kuhns work to the social sciences, the vagueness of paradigms will be discussed, as the irrationality of paradigms has been explained above.When first introduced, Kuhn claimed paradigms were universally recognised scientific achie vements that for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners.43However, the elusive and slippery concept44of paradigm was shown when Kuhn acknowledges that he had been using the term paradigm in many ways45, citing Masterman who listed at least twenty two senses in which the term was used in the book.46To tackle the confusion created by his septuple use of paradigms, Kuhn proposes to replace it with a disciplinary matrix.47A disciplinary matrix includes the shared commitments of the community of scholars, the shared symbolic generalizations and the shared problems and solutions in the discipline.48 check off?Other Implications for Social Scientists.Even though Thomas Kuhn has been almost exclusively concerned with the natural sciences, social scientists have repeatedly claimed his work offers fresh illumination for pinch social sciences and theory.49Part of the reason for this is, as Kuhn himself pointed out, the fact that his work is regretfully too nearly all things to all people.50The revolutionary transformation in the use of observation as a means leading to theory has also had an impact on social scientists. Kuhns starting point for the formulation of theories is not reality but construction.51Kuhn contributed to demolishing positivism52not only by admitting revolutions in science involve the intrusion of non-scientific elements such as habits, customs or ethnical values, but also in casting doubt over the possibility of attaining perfect knowledge and over the established idea that progress in science is cumulative.One of the most important consequences Kuhns work had for the social sciences was the significance he attributed to the role played by the sociological characteristics of scientific communities. Kuhn turned away from the search for an ideal methodology to the study of science by scientific means and, in doing so, invigorated the empirical study of science.53Finally, Kuhn may have hastened the demise of pos itivism by prompting and then influencing the naturalisation of epistemology, a movement which has become prominent through, for example, a conventionalistic and naturalistic study of science.Imre Lakatos A Middle Man?By the late 1960s a great deal of the debate on the philosophy of science had come to focus on the difference between Kuhns paradigms and Poppers rescript of positivism.Numerous epistemic doctrines entered this debate and different interpretations of Popper and Kuhns works emerged, reflecting the impact they had on their contemporary critics and their effect on the conduct of social science as a whole. Lakatos is one of the most prominent critics of their works, his critique generally considered as the most important attempt to place the post-empiricist theory of science somewhere between Popper and Kuhn.54Imre Lakatos at the outset appears to be a supporter of Poppers falsification theory. He strongly criticised Kuhn for his irrationalist and too general55concept of a revolution and his notion of a single, despotic paradigm. Lakatos defends Popper against the charge of naive falsificationism, the immediate discarding of a theory as soon as contradictory evidence is exposed. However, he goes beyond Popper in claiming that science progresses by sophisticated falsification which focuses on the comparative evaluation of whole research programs.56Sophisticated falsificationists realise that the conditions that a hypothesis should satisfy in order to be worthy of a scientists consideration alone are insufficient57and that the need for a hypothesis to be more falsifiable than the other it will replace is necessary for scientific progress. Thus, it is not single theories which are falsified but entire programs, embodying the notion of refutation not automatically lead(ing) to rejection.58Such an epistemic theory strikingly resembles Kuhns theory of paradigms. The difference between them only appears when closely examining Lakatos notion of research programs.According to Lakatos, every scientific research program has a hard core, a set of propositions that are immune from empirical tests59because they are surrounded by a protective belt of assumptions or conditions.60Though research programs and paradigms have been equated, Lakatos proposes that normal science be considered more as a research program for reasons of its general acceptability61and does not attribute the general status to it that Kuhnian paradigms have. Furthermore, the transition from one research program to another is the product of rational exploration of rival methodologies62and not, as Kuhn implied, a mystical conversion63to a new ontology. Cultural values, historical events and other external factors are far less important in Lakatos eyes and play little part in particular scientific theories or the choice of general research programs, levelling Kuhns theory down to critical rationalism.64Lakatos MSRP has not emerged without enticing criticisms. Firstly, he seems to have natural philosophy exclusively in mind when he developed his theory and when referring to science. Other natural sciences cannot as easily be accommodated to the Procrustean bed of the MSRP65and it is only economics which seems to offer the possibility of an easy fit.66As a model for the history of science, MSRP fails to meet the empirical test of general acceptability67. It is also limited in explaining how science works, failing to formulate the criteria needed to be employed for it to work. However, as Gordon highlights, the fact that Lakatos was flexible in not regarding former scientists as misguided in adopting theories that now would be considered irrational is a noteworthy point of merit in Lakatos epistemic stance.68The MSRP model allows the possibility of gaining knowledge by using theories that are subsequently regarded as, in the absolute sense, false.69ConclusionAs Lakatos claimed,The clash between Popper and Kuhn is not about a mere technical point in e pistemology. It concerns our central intellectual values, and has implications not only for theoretical physics but also for the underdeveloped social sciences and even moral and political philosophy.70As seen with Sanders account, Popper has greatly influenced the political sciences, contributing to xxxx. Kuhns work, on the other hand, as Mark Smith rightly points out, has had a deep impact on the conduct of social sciences because of the vagueness and therefore adaptability of the term paradigms.71Despite their distinct approaches, however, both men have met with severe criticism, not only from each other, but from scientific colleagues and both have apparently failed to address these adequately.72It is therefore not surprising that xxxxxx