{"agent_id":"popper","agent_name":"Karl Popper","slug":"falsifiability-and-the-demarcation-problem","label":"Falsifiability and the demarcation problem: is the criterion defensible against Quine-Duhem holism, Kuhn's paradigms, and Lakatos's research programs?","topic":"Falsifiability and the demarcation problem","question":"Is the criterion defensible against Quine-Duhem holism, Kuhn's paradigms, and Lakatos's research programs?","position":"A theory is scientific iff it is falsifiable — iff it forbids certain observable states of affairs and is therefore exposed to refutation by experience. Non-falsifiable claims (Marxism- as-prophecy in its strong form, Freudian psychoanalysis, Adlerian individual psychology, astrology) are pseudo-science not because they are false but because they are constructed so that no possible observation can refute them. Refutation is deductive (modus tollens); corroboration is the provisional survival of severe tests; the demarcation criterion is logical, not sociological. Bold conjectures, severe tests, error-elimination — that is the method.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"A theory is scientific iff it is falsifiable — iff it forbids certain observable states of affairs and is therefore exposed to refutation by experience.","n":[1,2]},{"t":"Non-falsifiable claims (Marxism- as-prophecy in its strong form, Freudian psychoanalysis, Adlerian individual psychology, astrology) are pseudo-science not because they are false but because they are constructed so that no possible observation can refute them.","n":[]}],[{"t":"Refutation is deductive (modus tollens); corroboration is the provisional survival of severe tests; the demarcation criterion is logical, not sociological.","n":[]},{"t":"Bold conjectures, severe tests, error-elimination — that is the method.","n":[3,4,5]}]],"texts":"The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934/1959), especially Chapter 1 ('A Survey of Some Fundamental Problems') and Chapter 4 ('Falsifiability'); Conjectures and Refutations (1963), especially the title essay; Realism and the Aim of Science (Postscript I, 1983) on the methodological refinements; Replies to My Critics (Schilpp 1974) on the responses to Lakatos, Kuhn, Putnam. Reception: Imre Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes (1978); Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962); Paul Feyerabend, Against Method (1975); W.V.O. Quine, 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' (1951); Pierre Duhem, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (1906); Hilary Putnam's various responses.","works":["The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934/1959), especially Chapter 1 ('A Survey of Some Fundamental Problems') and Chapter 4 ('Falsifiability')","Conjectures and Refutations (1963), especially the title essay","Realism and the Aim of Science (Postscript I, 1983) on the methodological refinements","Replies to My Critics (Schilpp 1974) on the responses to Lakatos, Kuhn, Putnam"],"reception":"Imre Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes (1978); Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962); Paul Feyerabend, Against Method (1975); W.V.O. Quine, 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' (1951); Pierre Duhem, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (1906); Hilary Putnam's various responses.","status":"The most-attacked Popper claim. Quine-Duhem holism (Quine 1951, Duhem 1906) shows that no individual hypothesis is falsified in isolation; auxiliary hypotheses can always be adjusted to save the central theory. Kuhn's paradigms (1962) reframe science as paradigm-bound problem-solving; revolutions are not refutations but gestalt-switches. Lakatos's research programs (1978) treat falsification as a sophisticated process at the level of programs (with hard cores and protective belts), not individual theories. Feyerabend's anything-goes treats methodology as repressive.","era":"1902-1994","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Conjectures and Refutations","page":"pp. 37–38","canonical":"","quote":"Every 'good' scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is. 4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is nonscientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice. 5. Every genuine *test* of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it.","label":"Conjectures and Refutations, pp. 37–38"},{"n":2,"work":"The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge","page":"pp. xxxi–xxxii","canonical":"","quote":"A theory may be refuted empirically or falsified, if there exist observation statements (\"basic statements\", \"test statements\") whose truth would refute the theory; that 4 See especially Book I: Section 6, text to note *1 and the phrase \"finally decidable\" occurring there, as well as the term \"truth value\" in the subsequent paragraph. 5 See Book I: Section 34, notes *4 and *5 as well as the text to these notes.","label":"The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge, pp. xxxi–xxxii"},{"n":3,"work":"Replies to My Critics","page":"p. 25","canonical":"","quote":"Marxism was once a scientific theory: it predicted that capitalism would lead to increasing misery and, through a more or less mild > 7.","label":"Replies to My Critics, p. 25"},{"n":4,"work":"Conjectures and Refutations","page":"pp. 34–35","canonical":"","quote":"ANTHONY TROLLOPE I WHEN I received the list of participants in this course and realized that I had been asked to speak to philosophical colleagues I thought, after some hesitation and consultation, that you would probably prefer me to speak about those problems which interest me most, and about those developments with which I am most intimately acquainted.","label":"Conjectures and Refutations, pp. 34–35"},{"n":5,"work":"Popper Selections","page":"pp. 130–131","canonical":"","quote":"Ever since then, it can be described only as non-science — as a metaphysical dream, if you like, married to a cruel reality. Psychoanalysis is a very different case. It is an interesting psychological metaphysics (and no doubt there is some truth in it, as there is so often in metaphysical ideas), but it never was a science.","label":"Popper Selections, pp. 130–131"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-problem-of-induction","label":"The problem of induction: did Hume's problem need to be solved, or is it dissolved?"}]}