Source | Yao Dazhi, editor-in-chief, Modern Western Philosophy
Falsificationism refers primarily to the philosopher K. Popper of the London School of Economics in the United Kingdom. Popper) and his students conduct research on the philosophy of science and scientific methodology. His denialism is also known as critical rationalism. This position manifests itself not only in the question of knowledge, but also in other, more general human affairs. Popper did a lot of thinking about social institutions and social ideals. He believes that there is no ideal society, only a society that is constantly improving and revising; there is no ideal system, but only a system that constantly corrects mistakes. Such a concept is highly consistent with his claims on the theory of knowledge.
Three of Popper's students were influential: John Watkins, Faye Abend, and Lakatos. Woggins's book Science and Skepticism had some influence, but Fayer Abend and Lakatos were even more influential. Lakatos, who called himself a refined denier, had an important idea in his life as a methodology for the program of scientific research to explain the rationality of the development of scientific theories. But many people prefer to think of him as a historicist.
The meaning of a denial
Falsification, which is also often translated as falsification. From the point of view of words, confirmation and denial seem to be a relative pair of words, but in fact there are great differences between the two. Confirmation and denial are not a simple pairing category in Popper.
First, logical positivism holds that confirmation is the criterion of meaning. It only makes sense to speak of confirmation. Logical positivism places far greater emphasis on verifiability than on actual confirmation, for example, they believe that meaning is the method of confirmation. Popper, for his part, considered confirmation irrelevant, and he was not interested in what the question of meaning was.
Second, logical positivism holds that confirmation attaches great importance to logic. Constructivist, in particular, physicist philosophers placed more emphasis on logic, which was their only task in studying scientific knowledge, and without which they had nothing to do. Popper argues that ten thousand swans are white, which does not confirm the judgment that "all swans are white", while a black swan can effectively refute the assertion that "all swans are white". This is Popper's use of his human way to treat his body, not Popper's love of logic.
Third, logical positivism refers to confirmation as the empirical confirmation or support of a proposition. Falsification is also an empirical confirmation of a proposition as false. When talking about denial, logical positivism also emphasizes confirmation. Popper's denial is a bit of a veto, that is, we can finally legitimately reject a statement or a theory. In this sense, confirmation is not something logically superior, but something wrong in attitude.
Fourth, logical positivism emphasizes the accumulation of truth by science, and popper's denial is a practical methodological rule. Popper argues that confirmation does not deserve such a rule. The purpose of scientific research is to refute. The word rebuttal fully reflects the different positions expressed by such words as testing and confirming. For example, in the examination, people have the so-called conformity theory of truth, which is intended to be compared with experience, and the rebuttal is a need for trade-offs, not whether it is true or not. According to Popper's understanding, confirming the theory is worthless. He saw the confirmation as a failure of the test and as an unsuccessful rebuttal. The problem is that the core of practical methodology is rebuttal rather than confirmation. Both the purpose and the results of scientific research are sought to deny it.
II. Critical Rationality
In search of the legitimacy of the no-proof method, Popper found the try-outmethod method. Trial and error is not so much a theory as an insight. Popper called the universal law of the survival of all living things the law of trial and error. The most essential feature of the behavior of all living things towards the environment is tentative. When the temptation succeeds, it keeps the patterns and behaviors of success, and if it is wrong, makes new attempts. The survival of life always takes place in this act of trying new, of correcting old ones. Popper's idea at least got E. Thorndike.com. Thorndike) and other animal behavior psychologists support.
The trial and error method is a law of life's adaptation to the environment, which is universally valid in the biological world. People also live in this environment, but also a species, and people adapt to survival is also the application of trial and error. It's just that trial and error is an instinctive method. The greatest advantage of human rationality is that they can take the initiative to adapt to the environment and consciously correct mistakes.
The methodological strategy of seeking knowledge is formed on the basis of the trial-and-error method. People realize that their behavior must be wrong, so they take the initiative to correct the mistake and give up their insistence on the mistake. The behavior of scientists is rational, because scientists seek denial, rather than conformism. The scientific method of denial theory consists of two links: speculation and refutation. Speculation shows that scientific theories are all hypotheses, they are all guessed, and after making a guess, they seek to refute the guess. If the rebuttal is successful, then continue to speculate, and with a reasonable guess, a new rebuttal begins, which is the basic cycle of scientific research.
The same is true of important social decisions, and there is no guarantee of strategizing and winning a thousand miles. It is rational to keep trying and correcting mistakes. We have to constantly look for where we might go wrong to avoid making big mistakes. This is the rational society and the rational way of life. The same is true for governments, where there is only a government that constantly corrects mistakes, and there is no ideal government that does not make mistakes. A good social system should also favor a cycle of speculation and rebuttal. Popper wrote two books for this purpose: "Open Societies and Their Enemies" and "The Poverty of Historical Determinism."
Three methodological procedures with four-segment schemas
Speculation and rebuttal is a rough formulation of Popper's methodological procedures for scientific research. A more elaborate expression is embodied in what Popper called the four-segment schema. The abbreviated expression for this four-segment pattern is P1-TT-EE-P2. The interpretation of this expression is based on the problem, after guessing and refuting to find a new problem.
Not from experience, nor from theory, not from unquestionable premises, but from problems, which shows the practical nature of Popper's methodology. This methodology does not rely on the reliable presuppositions of past epistemology. But the problem here must be directed at nature, at things in nature. If theory wants to explain the world, there will be phenomena that need to be explained, and how to explain it will create corresponding problems.
The guessing phase proposes tentative hypotheses. This tentativeness is an inherent feature of scientific knowledge. Tentative hypotheses are proposed for the problems that science is trying to solve, so that the problems faced by scientists can be more reasonablely explained. What is the hypothesis here? Hypotheses are formulated by scientists who need to explain scientific facts and predict scientific phenomena. Explaining natural phenomena and predicting scientific facts all rely on scientific hypotheses, that is, on guesswork. But scientific prediction must abide by certain methodological rules, the explanation we pursue must reach the goal of generalizing more facts, explaining more phenomena, and the theoretical form of prediction should also be more generalized, simpler, and more effective. This is an important methodological requirement for making a guess.
The rebuttal phase corresponds to the test of positivism. In the case of scientists in general, the purpose of the test is often understood to confirm the correctness of the hypothesis, while Popper argues that the purpose of the test is to refute the theory. Because only theories that stand up to rigorous rebuttal are better theories. Although the activity of scientific theory is based on the problem, the solution to the problem is to achieve a better scientific theory. And the way to achieve this is to subject the hypothesis to harsher rebuttals.
Because rebuttal is the part of pursuing a better theory, whether a better theory is reached requires a rebuttal. And sooner or later the theory will be refuted. When a theory is refuted, new questions arise that suggest the direction of a new tentative hypothesis. This completes a complete cycle of scientific research.
IV. Self-developing knowledge
To illustrate the existential status of knowledge, Popper also proposed his three-world theory.
The so-called three-world theory divides the world into three different realities, called the physical world of the first world, which includes all the living and inanimate things we know; the second world is the world of spiritual or psychological states and processes; and the world of knowledge that also exists in the third world, that is, the world of human spiritual products and artifacts. The Third World includes our language, stories, legends, religions, myths, hypotheses and theories, music, songs, paintings, sculptures, and all artifacts. According to the symbiotic relationship, knowledge is the product of the mental world, the work of the mind. The mode of existence of mental activity requires a material carrier, and the activity of knowledge must also have the material world as a carrier.
But Popper did not believe that the worlds of mind and knowledge could not exist apart from the physical world. Their activities have material carriers, but they can exist independently. It's like a man making something, and although you make it, the thing exists independently of the maker. Popper emphasized the independent existence of the second world when considering the relationship between the first world and the second world, and also emphasized the independent existence of knowledge when considering the third world. The independent existence of knowledge cannot interact directly with the physical world, but needs to interact through the psychological world and the physical world.
Popper's theory of three worlds has two important applications. One application is used to deconstruct the concept of a principal. In his autobiography, Popper said that he had been very confused about the problem of mind-body relationships, and it was not until he discovered the theory of the three worlds that he gradually saw hope for solving the problem of mind-body relations. The problem is that we have always thought of things like subjects, egos, minds, etc. as some kind of entity. In fact, the actions of the mind are actually based on our language, which determines what we think and how we think.
The second application of Popper's conception of the three worlds doctrine is the idea that the world of knowledge, language, and culture is autonomous and develops autonomously. Knowledge is a concept in the narrow sense, in a broad sense, all artificial products are members of the Third World, including intangible knowledge, concepts, attitudes, but also tangible works of art, technical products, daily necessities, etc., are members of the Third World. Since Popper was primarily a philosopher of epistemology, he understood the development of knowledge in terms of understanding the "content" of the Third World. Popper believed that the content of knowledge developed autonomously, and we could not change the content of knowledge at will, but the development of knowledge itself basically proceeded according to the logic of knowledge itself.
The autonomous development of knowledge is reflected in all links and factors. Science begins with problems, problems are not invented by you or me, in the content of knowledge, in the connection of different contents of knowledge, problems arise. Einstein revolutionized physics, not just because Einstein was a creative scientist, but because the theory of space-time in Newtonian mechanics itself had problems that needed to be examined. It is the job of scientists to discover problems, but scientists do not have the ability to discover problems that do not exist. The relationship between hypothesis and hypothesis is the same. Our theory of knowledge is not dedicated to understanding how scientists are, but to understanding the development of knowledge from the objective and autonomous aspects of the "content" of knowledge. The problem, the situation of the problem, the possibility of solution, and the choices made among the possibilities are not arbitrary, but rather a manifestation of the autonomous development of knowledge. Popper thus called knowledge objective knowledge, and the epistemology of this knowledge reached an epistemology with no subject, only the development of objective content itself.
The development of scientific knowledge is close to truth
Popper's theory of knowledge is a self-developing theory, a theory of objective knowledge. This objectivity is manifested in the fact that the existence of knowledge is objective, and the development of knowledge is also objective and autonomous. So how does this view of knowledge development evaluate the basic epistemological characteristics of scientific development? Or is there a law or purpose for the development of such knowledge?
The traditional positivist conception of scientific progress requires that it be clearly embodied in the practical results of scientific theories. The average positivist advocates a cumulative scientific outlook on development, arguing that truth is constantly accumulated in the process of scientific development. The development of scientific theories conforms to the law of coverage. The so-called law of coverage means that every major development of scientific theory will make the field of facts covered by the theory continue to expand, the degree of theoretical universality will continue to increase, the accumulated true propositions will increase, and the theoretical form will be simpler.
Popper's philosophy placed special emphasis on the invalidity of confirmation, and he emphasized verifiability. Thus Popper could not possibly recognize the cumulative view of scientific progress; Popper had his own view of the law of coverage. Positivism emphasizes that the way knowledge develops is by accumulating truth through proof. Popper, on the other hand, argues that knowledge progresses through competition between hypotheses and through strict denial of merit. This process is largely objective and autonomous, and the progress of knowledge is evolutionary. For in principle there should be an infinite number of hypotheses about things in the world, but not all hypotheses can survive, only a very few of them remain, and most of them have disappeared into the history of the development of knowledge. So what mechanism allows a small amount of knowledge to be retained and most hypotheses to be eliminated? Popper argues that strict rebuttals play a decisive role in the competition between hypotheses. Hypotheses that could not withstand strict rebuttals were naturally eliminated.
Measuring the degree of rigor of rebuttal, Popper proposed the concept of falsification degree. Verifiability means that if the theory can cover a wider field of facts, the more likely it is that there will be potential falsifications in the wider field, and the more likely it is that the theory will be rejected. Of course, a large degree of defiance does not mean that it is actually denied, it is a logical concept, not a factual concept. The degree of deprogibility of the theory means that the theory covers a larger field of facts, the form of the theory is simpler and more beautiful, and the universality of the theory is also greater.
The development of science in the direction of greater verifiability also means that science is close to the truth. In contrast to the logical positivist idea of cumulative truth, Popper proposed his concept of verisimilitude. Popper believed that science is always hypothetical, that science seeks to deny, to seek greater degree of verifiability, then it is impossible to accumulate truth, but science can discard error. What is not proven becomes a mistake and is eliminated by science. The more wrong things are discarded, the closer they are to what is purely true, and this is Popper's concept of realism. The elimination of all false truths is a state of limit of knowledge that cannot become a reality. Science can only ever approach the truth, not the truth.
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