Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-5nwft Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-26T14:23:12.035Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On Popper's Philosophy of Social Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

N. Koertge
N. Koertge*
Affiliation:
Dept. of History and Philosophy of Science, Indiana University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Partly through reading the works of Paul Feyerabend I have become intrigued with the following questions:

  1. (1) Is it possible to have a non-trivial theory of scientific method - that is, a fairly detailed and comprehensive theory of the best way(s) to try to increase and improve our knowledge? Is it possible to have a unified theory which would apply both to physical science and social science, and perhaps even to technological innovation as well?

  2. (2) If we could find such a theory of the scientific process, how would it have to be modified if we were to decide that our aim were not just ultimately to understand the world (i.e., to find well-tested explanatory theories of high empirical content) but also continually to change the world - to improve the human condition?

Type
Part V Philosophical Problems of the Social Sciences
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1972 , 1972 , pp. 195 - 207
Copyright
Copyright © 1974 by D. Reidel Publishing Company

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This paper has been modified somewhat in the light of helpful comments made by participants in the PSA meeting. I would especially like to thank Professor Imre Lakatos for his detailed written criticisms. I have followed many of his editorial corrections, but have rejected most of his philosophical suggestions, especially his attempts to ‘Lakatosianize and de-Bayesianize’ (his terms) the content!

References

Notes

1 See especially Feyerabend, Paul K., ‘Against Method’, in Analysis of Theories and Methods of Physics and Psychology (ed. by Radner, M. and Winokur, S.), Vol. IV, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science (ed. by Feigl, H. and Maxwell, G.), University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1970.Google Scholar

2 See especially: Agassi, Joseph, ‘The Nature of Scientific Problems and Their Roots in Metaphysics’, in The Critical Approach to Science and Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Karl R. Popper (ed. by Bunge, Mario ), Free Press, New York, 1964.Google Scholar

Feyerabend, Paul K., ‘Problems of Empiricism, Part II’, in The Nature and Function of Scientific Theories (ed. by Colodny, R. G. ), University of Pittsburgh Series in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. IV, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1970.Google Scholar

Koertge, Noretta , ‘Inter-Theoretic Criticism and the Growth of Science’, in Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VIII (ed. by Buck, R. C. and Cohen, R. S.), Reidel, Dordrecht, 1971.Google Scholar

Lakatos, Imre, ‘Falsification and the Methodology of Research Programmes’, in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (ed. by Lakatos, I. and Musgrave, A.), Cambridge University Press, London, 1970.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Although I would also stress the importance of inter-theoretic criticism. (See the paper cited in note 2.)

4 Popper himself tends to stress the similarities. See for example Section 29, ‘The Unity of Method” in The Poverty of Historicism, 3rd. ed., Harper Torchbooks, New York, 1964, and his remarks on explanation in Chapter 25, ‘Has History Any Meaning?’ of The Open Society and its Enemies, 4th ed., Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1962. Both the supporters and the critics of the so-called ‘Popper-Hempel model of explanation’ assume that Popper finds no interesting or fundamental differences between explanations in the social sciences and in physics. However, I think Popper would agree that there are some interesting differences, namely, the ones I am about to describe.

5 Feyerabend, , ‘Against Method’, op. cit., p. 76.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., p. 105.

7 Ibid., p. 116.

8 For example: “…I hold that institutions (and traditions) must be analysed in individualistic terms - that is to say, in terms of the relations of individuals acting in certain situations, and of the unintended consequences of their actions.” Open Society, II, op. cit., p. 324.

9 Perhaps I should say that there seem to be no arguments based on internal, scientific considerations for this view. If one is doing research within a society which makes the welfare of individual people subordinate to vague holistic goals such as ‘national prestige’ to such an extent that great hardship results, then there may be moral reasons in that situation for refusing to work with theories which do not refer directly to individuals. A scientist is to some extent responsible for misunderstandings and misapplications of his work if, given the social situation, it is easy to predict that such misuses or abuses of his work will occur.

10 Watkins, J. W. N., ‘Methodological Individualism and Social Tendencies’, in Readings in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences (ed. by Brodbeck, May), Macmillan, New York, 1968, pp. 269-280.Google Scholar

11 Popper, Karl R., ‘La rationalite et le statut du principe de rationalite’, in Les Fondements Philosophique des Systemes Economiques (ed. by Claassen, E. M.), Paris 1967, p. 14.Google Scholar

12 Reprinted in Popper, Karl R., Conjectures and Refutations, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 1963, p. 124.Google Scholar

13 Poverty of Historicism, p. 66.

14 Popper, , ‘La Rationalite’, loc. cit., p. 145.Google Scholar

15 For a full account of explanations using the Rationality Principle, see Watkins, J. W. N., ‘Imperfect Rationality’, in Explanation in the Behaviorial Sciences (ed. by Borger, R. and Cioffi, F.), Cambridge University Press, London, 1970, p. 173.Google Scholar

16 Watkins, J. W. N., ‘Confirmable and Influential Metaphysics’, Mind, N. S. 67 (1958) 344-365.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 There seems to be an interesting difference between Hempel's theory of deductive explanation and Popper's. It would appear that for Hempel a well-confirmed, unfalsifiable generalization such as ‘Every metal has a melting point’ could serve as the basic law in an explanation while for Popper presumably it could not. Note that all of Lakatos’ scientific explanations are metaphysical in this sense. For an account of Lakato's position, see his ‘Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes’. I present an alternative both to Lakatos’ and Popper's accounts of the role of methodologically unfalsifiable statements in the search for scientific explanations. See the theory of preferred statements which is described in my ‘Theory Change in Science’ in Conceptual Change (ed. by Glenn Pearce et al), Reidel, Dordrecht, 1972, pp. 164-192.

18 I have extracted these criteria from a discussion by Watkins, J. W. N. in ‘Social Knowledge and the Public Interest’, a manuscript of a lecture delivered at the London School of Economics on February 23, 1972.Google Scholar

19 This point is discussed further in my ‘Theory Change in Science’.