Talk:Critical rationalism

Swan caption
Is the swan caption quite correct? It states that, "Falsificationism thus strives for questioning, for falsification, of hypotheses instead of proving them." I would think, with quite different goals. That is, falsification is performed with a view of determining whether a theory is within the interest of science, not touted as a means necessarily of proving or disproving theories. Just a question.

Falsifiability determines whether something is empirical. Falsification is when something has been classified as false due to a conflict with evidence. The goal of falsificationism is to attempt to test a theory rigorously to see if it stands up to tests, if it does then it is retained. Just because a theory is falsifiable does not mean it will be accepted into science, it just means that it has empirical content. Falsifiability, then, is a necessary but not a sufficient criterion for acceptance into science. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.31.226.69 (talk) 01:47, 19 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I also came here because of the swan, but for different reason. I would have called it; "Deceptive Swan Image and Caption." But "confusing" or "unclear" might be better. I see no technical errors in the caption, but it could lead to a wrong meaning. Keep in mind that many people will read the caption without attempting to decipher the main text.  The most powerful communication part of that is the image itself, hence the deceptiveness.  An actual black swan is not needed, only a realistic imagined possibility of a black swan is needed.

"However, if we find one single black swan, logic allows us to conclude that the statement that all swans are white is false. Falsificationism thus strives for questioning, for falsification, of hypotheses instead of proving them."


 * That could be taken as; A black swan must be found to..." Like we need a real black swan.


 * Example silly but valid argument Paraphrase: "Unlike Creationism, evolution theory is scientific because it can be falsified a zillion ways, for example; a modern screwdriver, dog, or flowering plants found in the belly of a T Rex found in undisturbed rock would falsify the theory of evolution." No real swan needed. The illustration, even without the caption implies the opposite. Suggest deleting the confusing image. Cheers!  --2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:C5FF:F292:7567:1FB5 (talk) 15:24, 28 October 2018 (UTC)Doug Bashford

Hayek
I realize Hayek is known and very well regarded among critical rationalists, (mainly because of jeremy shearmur), but he is not a critical rationalist. He never spoke about it, or engaged with the field itself, or progressed it; if a link to Hayek be made it should be made indirectly through linking this page to Shearmur. The hayek link is a plug, and not in anyway furthering of the knowledge of critical rationalism. May I suggest that it be taken down. (194.80.232.158 (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2014 (UTC))

It is not just because of Jeremy Shearmur. One of the foremost critical rationalists, William Warren Bartley, was also a proponent of Hayek. Hayek does allude to Critical Rationalism in 'The Fatal Conceit" But there is controversy about the extent to which the editor, William Warren Bartley, revised it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.31.226.69 (talk) 01:51, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

My criticism still stands - Hayek was not a critical rationalist, whether Bartley or Shearmur were influenced by him. There is also a debate about who wrote what in The Fatal Conceit. Please see the controversy on The Fatal Conceit Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fatal_Conceit 155.192.180.10 (talk) 17:16, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Falsificationism
If nobody has the time to make corrections, I will be glad to do so and to return to this entry as soon as possible.--hjn 12:04, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Critical rationalism is not a generalization of Popper's falsificationism (but a kind of transfer).
 * Falsificationism is applicable only to scientific theories: A falsification is the contradiction between theoretical prediction and experience.
 * Falsificationism must not be mixed up with fallibilism.
 * What Popper wrote about critical rationalism (e.g. in his The Open Society) is based on his fallibilism...
 * All sections in this article "critical rationalism" can only be understood from the view of an ubiquitous fallibilism. Therefore there is a general problem of justification, therefore his and Bartley's concept of universal criticism even in the non-scientific fields (where no scientific predictions are possible) of politics, moral, social life, and so on.

I think some discussion has to go to the two difference types of critical rationalism. The variation that bartley suggested has not been widely accepted among the Criticial Rationalist commmunity. It would be interesting if somebody could have a subsection of the debates still going on within the critical rationalist community, about critical and pancritical rationalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.235.251 (talk) 19:49, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Popper & Miller thesis is controversial if not invalid
The second so-called pitfall should be taken out of the text as it misleads the reader. A number of authors discussed against that thesis of Popper and Miller (P & M) and showed that the implication of the proof of P & M [1983] was not the same as it was interpreted by P & M (see Elby (1994) and its references). T Andrew Elby (March 1994): "Contentious Contents: For Inductive Probability" in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 45(1): 193--200.

Kayaalp 18:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Popper died just as he was about to finish the reply to Elby and before he could publish it. You can find correspondence and typescript in his box 583:23; "On Excess Content: A Reply to Elby" (co-authored with David Miller; August 26, 1994). Here is an incomplete list of replies and counter-replies about the issue: --rtc 04:54, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Karl R. Popper, David W. Miller: A proof of the impossibility of inductive probability. Nature 302 (1983), 687–688;
 * Karl Popper: Logic of Scientific Discovery, new appendix *XIX;
 * Nature 310 (1984), 433–434
 * R. C. Jeffrey: Letter concerning Popper and Miller
 * I. Levi: The impossibility of inductive probability
 * I. J. Good: The impossibility of inductive probability
 * Karl R. Popper, David W. Miller: The impossibility of inductive probability.
 * G. Blandino: Critical Remarks on an Argumentation by K. Popper and D. Miller. Discussion about Induction. Epistemologia 7 (1984), 183–206;
 * I. Levi: Probabilistic Pettifoggery. Erkenntnis 25 (1986), 133–140
 * Nature 315 (1985), 461
 * J. Wise, P. T. Landsberg: Has inductive probability been proved impossible?
 * Karl R. Popper, David W. Miller: Has inductive probability been proved impossible?
 * J. Wise, P. T. Landsberg: On the possibility of inductive probability. Nature 316 (1985), 22
 * M. L. G. Redhead: On the Impossibility of Inductive Probability. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 36 (1985), 185–191
 * I. J. Good: Probabilistic Induction Is Inevitable. Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation 20 (1985), 323–324, C216
 * H. Gaifman: On Inductive Support and Some Recent Tricks. Erkenntnis 22 (1985), 5–21
 * D. Gillies: In Defense of the Popper-Miller Argument. Philosophy of Science 53 (1986), 110–113
 * J. M. Dunn, G. Hellman: Dualling: A Critique of an Argument of Popper and Miller. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 37 (1986), 220–223
 * Karl R. Popper, David W. Miller: Why probabilistic support is not inductive. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 321A (1987), 569–591
 * A. Rivadulla: On Popper-Miller's Proof of the Impossibility of Inductive Probability. Erkenntnis 27 (1987), 353–357
 * I. J. Good: A Restatement, in Response to Gillies, of Redhead's Argument in Support of Induction. Philosophy of Science 54 (1987), 470–472
 * E. Eells: On the alleged impossibility of inductive probability. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 39 (1988), 111–116
 * N. C. A. da Costa, S. French: Pragmatic Probability, Logical Omniscience and the Popper-Miller Argument. Fundamenta Scientiae 9 (1988), 43–53
 * C. S. Chihara, D. A. Gillies: An Interchange on the Popper-Miller Argument. Philosophical Studies 54 (1988), 1–8
 * C. Howson: On a Recent Objection to Popper and Miller’s 'Disproof' of Probabilistic Induction. Philosophy of Science 56 (1989), 675-680
 * D. Zwirn, H. Zwirn: L'argument de Popper et Miller contre la justification probabiliste de l'induction, L'âge de la science 2 (Paris: Éditions Odile Jacob, 1989), 59–81
 * C. Howson: Some Further Relections on the Popper-Miller Disproof of Probabilistic Induction. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 68 (1990), 221-28
 * I. J. Good: Discussion: A Suspicious Feature of the Popper/Miller Argument. Philosophy of Science 57 (1990): 535–536
 * David W. Miller: Reply to Zwirn & Zwirn. Cahiers du CREA 14 (1990), 149–153
 * A. Mura: When Probabilistic Support is Inductive. Philosophy of Science 57 (1990), 278–289.
 * A. Boyer: Une logique inductive probabiliste est-elle seulement possible? Cahiers du CREA 14 (1990): 123-145
 * G. Dorn: Popper's Laws of the Excess of the Probability of the Conditional over the Conditional Probability. Conceptus 26 (1992/1993): 3-61
 * Andrew Elby: Contentious contents: For inductive probablitiy. Brit. J. Phil. Sci 45 (1994), 193–200
 * G. Dorn: Inductive Countersupport. Journal for General Philosophy of Science 26 (1995), 187–189
 * J. Cussens: Deduction, Induction and Probalistic Support. Synthese 108 (1996): 1–10
 * E. Eells: Popper and Miller, and Induction and Deduction. Proceedings of the Seventh Asian Logic Conference (1999)

Can anyone provide an electronic version to the box that Rtc referenced? Karl R. Popper, David Miller: On Excess Content: A Reply to Elby. Hoover Institution Archives Box 583:23 (August 26, 1994). I'm very interested in this issue because I'm trying to decide on switching from a run-of-the-mill positivist to critical rationalist, and further information would be helpful. Any recommendations on material that gives a good overview of the latest state of the discussion on this topic (post the 1999 papers referenced)? I also have some questions, if one of you gentlemen would be kind enough to help out a layman. ThVa (talk) 01:14, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

ThVa 11:00, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

You know, that a few irresponsible academic bureaucrats want to avoid the responsibility of hard scientific method, that doesn't mean it's actually controversial. What you have, really, is frauds who find they can weasel more funds with their bad methodology, if they pooh-pooh scientific realism and cower down under the junk science of instrumentalism. All they can argue is "we get easy, quickie results, and the mistakes should end up being fixed later", not any serious, logical superiority of their sloppiness. --Kaz (talk) 02:36, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Are you saying Andrew Elby is an irresponsible academic bureaucrat? ThVa (talk) 02:00, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

GERMAN TRANSLATION
In my view it would be promising to translate the german article which is indeed quite excellent. Is there anybody who would endorse the translation? I am actually a native german speaker... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Avidandur (talk • contribs) 16:15, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. Maybe the translation could be done by us outside of the article, so someone can proofread it. I am also a native German speaker. Especially the Society and Ethics (Gesellschaft und Ethik) is important, because supporters of critical rationalism appear to think a lot of practical implementation and its meaning in other contexts than theory of science, which is what the English article covers so far. I mostly have done smaller changes on Wikipedia, so I hope someone with more experience could give me a hint on how such things are done. Is there a place to put in progress articles/translations until they reach a certain quality? A link to a help text related to this would be great, because I don't really know what to look for.--Athaba (talk) 13:01, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Dense Sentence
The second sentence in "Criticism, not support" is: "Thus claims to knowledge may be contrastingly and normatively evaluated." I submit that this sentence either needs more preceding support or needs to be removed completely. What is meant by "contrast" and what is meant by "normative" in this context? The sentence does not explain, it attempts enrichment, but almost certainly falls completely flat. If "contrast" is meant to as comparing predictions with empirical results, it does nothing but confuse. With respect to "normative", what "norm" is being used for evaluation? If it is Popperian falsifiability, then this part of the sentence is adds nothing. If there is an additional norm Critical Rationalism brings to bear in addition to falsifiability, then such a norm needs to be named.

Either there is some sophisticated understanding that motivates this sentence--in which case additional information needs to be added to explain it--or it the sentence is (at least, in effect) confused, and should be removed. TBadonsky (talk) 05:03, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps falsifiability should be better explained.
I suggest that we better explain falsifiability and falsifiable in some section or paragraph. It should be defined in such a way that it could be used more comfortably in sentences like this one in the article:

Normally, one would write that a sentence is considered empirical if it falsifiable, not potentially falsifiable. This is because the definition of falsifiable as given by Popper includes the "potentially". He says explicitly that "falsifiable" means "falsifiable in principle". In fact, much more than that is included in the epistemological notion of falsifiability. It also includes a separation/connection with the actual process of observation. It's not the same thing at all as the naive notion of falsifiability.

Here are some examples that explains the separation/connection with the actual process of observation. The formal statement "this duck weigh two tons" logically make sense - we can parse it and attach a meaning to it. This is the logical part. Not only it makes sense logically, but we further accept it as a valid observation for the purpose of falsification, because in the background knowledge we have the notion of mass and how to measure the mass of any object. In contrast, the statement "this man is immortal", even though we only replaced the property "weigh two tons" by "is immortal" and we can parse it and understand it, it is not accepted as a valid observation. The reason is not that it is impossible, because a duck of two tons is also impossible. It is because in our background knowledge, there is no measurement, no process that leads to the property "immortal". The epistemological notion of falsifiability includes the fact that the basic statements that are used to falsify a theory are conventional, but not any convention, a convention that corresponds to our background knowledge about observations. This is very simple, very basic, but it must be mentioned.

Dominic Mayers (talk) 14:51, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Actually, my goal is to better connect the falsifiability article with this one. I am not happy at all with the current article falsifiability. So, I am not even adding a wikilink to it here at this time, but these two articles should be more connected and they should be wikiklinked in a way that is meaningful. It seems to me that both articles will gain from this. Dominic Mayers (talk) 15:18, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I am going to slowly works on this article. I have a problem with the first section "Criticism, not support" which begins with:

This is not what critical rationalism is about. If it was that, it would be disconnected from reality. Clearly, when a scientist makes a conjecture, he is looking to corroborate it. It's true that to be convincing, scientists will test novel predictions that are likely to be wrong, but the goal is not to criticize. Also, a very crucial part in Popper's philosophy is the separation between subjective and objective knowledge. Popper did not say that subjective knowledge plays no role in science. On the contrary, he viewed biological expectations and predispositions as important forms of subjective knowledge that are necessary to explain (not justify logically) progress in science. These expectations and predispositions are not criticisms, they do not negate laws, they influence our creativity and critical discussions and, in this manner, are on the contrary at the source of scientific conjectures. So, critical rationalism is far from being centered on criticisms. The term "critical rationalism" is there because the logical part, the part that follows logical rules, can only show that a law is false (and only after many conventional decisions, as Lakatos explained, are taken). Dominic Mayers (talk) 15:43, 19 April 2021 (UTC)