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RC Series Bundle: The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Routledge Classics)

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This is Popper's early masterpiece, which still deserves to be thoroughly read. Thesis of the book: theories are guesses which have no secure basis and can be at any time overthrown, but which must be able to stick out their necks and face experimental tests. If they pass the tests, this does not make them any more secure or reliable than they were before.

Its first chapter explains two fundamental problems which will be grappled with in the following chapters: the problem of induction and the problem of demarcation (between science and non-science). The solution to the first problem is straightforward: there is no such thing as induction. If you want to learn more on Popper's formulation and purported solution of this problem, you should read the whole book.

The second chapter gives some methodological rules which, though presented as conventions, are set down in order to combat "conventionalism", the attempt to regard theories as irrefutable, as true by convention.

The third chapter, a bit boring, is an analysis of causality, scientific explanation, the kinds of scientific concepts and the structure of theories (these are considered interpreted axiomatic systems).

The fourth chapter deals with the notion of falsifiability, something theories must have in order to be scientific according to Popper's criterion of demarcation. Falsifiability, as here defined, is (roughly) incompatibility with at least one singular statement reporting the existence of an observable event (the distinction between occurrences and events will be found here; it was previously drawn by Bertrand Russell, I may add).

The fifth chapter deals with these last kind of statements (basic statements): their form, their content and their role in science. These statements are in no sense justified by experience, says Popper, even if their acceptance is caused by experience; they are as risky as theories, although in scientific practice there is not (usually) much trouble in agreeing to accept or to reject them. It is a pity that Popper says that basic statements are accepted by a "free choice" or convention, because it is only after observing that the popperian Forscher will agree to accept a basic statement.

The sixth chapter tries to define comparative criteria of falsifiability. Given that all scientific theories have an infinity of observable consequences, how are we to compare their boldness = refutability = their sticking out their necks?

I am running out of words. The seventh chapter deals with the notion of simplicity. Popper's thesis here is: simplicity = boldness = falsifiability; a simple thesis, and a bold one.

The eighth chapter contains a deft and clear discussion of some methodological and mathematical problems of probability. I highly recommend it. It is after reading a chapter like these that you can realize how cheap and misleading the criticisms of Stove are to which some previous reviewers refered.

Chapter 9 contains a plea for objectivism in quantum physics, although it is rather out-dated. But the attack on Heisenberg's programme is still instructive.

The last chapter deals with "corroboration" of theories and includes an important critique of justificationist probabilism. One should read it together with Reichenbach's highly negative Erkenntnis review: "Über Induktion und Wahrscheinlichkeit: Bemerkungen zu K.Popper's Logik der Forschung".

The appendices are also worth reading, even if they tackle mainly with technical problems.

I think that no one has seen with greater clarity the problems and ambiguities of Popper's methodology as displayed in this book than his coleague-rival Imre Lakatos. Even if he is not half as gifted as Popper, and makes many mistakes as regards induction, his critique of popperian demarcation and rules of science is certainly worth reading.

On this book, one can also benefit and enjoy reading Neurath's indignant review of the 1934 edition: "Pseudo-Rationalismus der Falsifikation", and Grelling's review in "Theoria", 1937 (1).

I've been hearing about Popper and his epistemology of science for a long time, so I finally decided to read his masterwork. I am sorry to say but this has been a great disappointment. I am a practicing scientist who has a great appreciation for philosophy and epistemology, and consider myself generally favorably inclined to these kinds of books and topics. I was also hoping to gain a deeper understanding of my own discipline and in general how are the kinds of ideas that we come up in science structured and developed. I reflect a lot on those issues, especially when I feel like I am stuck with research and start to wonder about the deeper meaning of science as a human enterprise. Ideally, I would also like to read a book that can provide me with some sort of actionable insights into how to come up with new theories or new ways of looking at the world. Unfortunately, this book has not satisfied me on any of those levels. I found it to be obtuse without being profound. Popper tends to introduce a lot of technical superstructure that would supposedly shed some light on the way that scientific discoveries work. From the very beginning it was very hard for me to see the motivation for this technical superstructure (most of which was modeled on formal logic and early axiomatic probability theories). I was hoping, however, that as I read along the motivation for those technical tools would eventually become clear. In my opinion, that never happened. I feel that Popper has an uncanny ability to complicate and confuse even the simplest of scientific concepts. In the end I walked away from this book not knowing even what it main points were. I am afraid that other scientists would probably have even less of an appreciation for this work. It might have some value to pure philosophers, but on that account I am not competent to make judgment.

I have to ask myself, "What is the basis for my scientific knowledge?" On a daily basis, as I am a chemist. I have often been struck by arguments for "induction" as lacking credibility, because how can one argue of probabilities with an unknown sample size? Popper argues that a proposing scientific hypothesis is an inductive act, but it is a creative act not a logical one, but that scientific knowledge is dedective.

I agree with him. The nature of science is such that one must put for statements about how the world works and test them. A scientist should always try to find a way of proving himself or herself wrong. If the predictions of the test are shown to be false, then the hypothesis must be false. That is the basis of scientific knowledge. The rest, the best theories we have are just "working models" and we can never justify why they work. They're simply our best working models now.


I don't find Popper's argument disheartening. Popper points out that we don't have to justify our search for explanations of the world, because they may do us benefit (if we happened to live in a world with stable physical laws, for instance).

I think many scientists would fundamentally agree that the laws of nature can never really be proven. They can't, but they speak volumes about what is relevant to us as a species (which is why Popper's argument that "induction" is creative is so interesting). All Popper asks of a scientific hypothesis is that it can, in principle, be demonstrated false by experience.

This is by far one of the most interesting and (I feel) important books I've ever read.

Logic of Scientific Discovery is Popper's magnum opus, and is one of the most important works in twentieth-century philosophy of science. Its title notwithstanding the book is not about the processes for inventing new scientific theories; it is about the criticism of theories and the growth of scientific knowledge.

Eddington's solar eclipse observations in 1919 corroborating Einstein's theory of gravitation led Popper to conclude that when scientists test a theory, they aim to refute the theory rather than verify it. This falsificationist philosophy of scientific criticism is a central thesis of Popper's philosophy of science. Peirce had anticipated Popper's falsificationist thesis, but Popper drew implications that anticipated the contemporary pragmatist philosophy of language and science, even as he rejected pragmatism. His most important anticipation is his rejection of the naturalistic theory of meaning that is fundamental to positivism.

This rejection in turn implies rejecting ontological criteria for criticism in the testing of theories. Contrary to Kuhn, who said the prevailing paradigm functions as the criterion for scientific criticism, Popper maintained that the criteria for criticism are independent of the semantics and ontology of any theory or paradigm. In this sense Popper said that science is "subjectless".

Later, however, Popper compromised his rejection of ontological criteria with his ideas of "metaphysical research programmes" and "commonsense realism" in support of Einstein. He spent much of his career attempting to reconcile his philosophy with quantum theory, and as part of this attempt he developed his own distinctive particle-propensity interpretation of quantum theory and his own interpretation of probability for singular events. But the new string theory has since made this effort irrelevant.

Pragmatist philosophers looked to quantum physics as the paradigm of modern physics and touchstone for philosophy of science, as Popper had looked to Einstein's relativity theory. Thus by the 1970's Popper was cast as the defensive rear guard instead of the aggressive avant garde he had been in the 1930's.

For more of my commentary on Popper see my book, History of Twentieth-Century Philosophy of Science - or Google my com web site called philsci for free downloads, specifically BOOK V. See also my ebook Philosophy of Science: An Introduction.

Thomas J. Hickey

The Logic of Scientific Discovery is in my view Karl Popper's finest work. When I studied science I was amazed at the insight Popper had into the scientific method of inquiry, and I admired his refusal to accept intellectual garbage.

While Popper has come under strong attack from both scientists and philosophers for several shortcomings in his work, in my view Popper has framed one of the most important studies of scientific knowledge and how it is gained, and the difference between science and non-science.

I agree with Popper's argument that the key feature of scientific theories is that they are 'falsifiable.' By this Popper simply meant that a scientific theory, even if beautiful, can be shown wrong by empirical observation. While this account is no doubt oversimplified and leaves out the key social and historical dimensions to science (which thinkers such as Kuhn addressed later on), this principle remains central to science; as Feynman said, 'If it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong.' The fallibility of science in Popper's view was the key to its strength, in contrast to pseudo-sciences such as Marxism and Freudian psychology, which while containing elements of truth, set themselves up as infallible truths and glossed over things which contradicted the belief system.

Popper also wrote many other philosophical works, including an important study of the difference between democratic political societies and ones ruled by totalitarian ideaology. However, he rightly deserves fame as one of the most important 20th century philosophers of science.

Points to consider when reading this book:

First, it is a book about logic and not about science. It was written nearly 80 years ago in response to the questions raised when the mechanistic Newtonian universe was seemingly turned upside down by the introduction of quantum mechanics, and in particular this is a response to the propagation of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. The question it addresses is: of what does our scientific knowledge logically consist? Note the key word, "logically."

Popper basically makes two arguments. One is that there is no inductive logic leading to scientific hypotheses. Again, note the word "logic." This does not mean that in formulating hypotheses scientists do not reason backwards from experience. Of course they do. We all know the famous examples of Newton's apple and Einstein's clock tower. What Popper means to point out is that there are no formal logical rules that govern such reasoning. In other words, there is nothing inherent in the apple that must of necessity lead to the laws of gravity, and nothing inherent in the clock tower that must of necessity lead to the theory of relativity. So why call it inductive logic? Better, argues Popper, to call it "psychologism." In other words, we don't really know what was going on in Newton's or Einstein's mind, but we do know that it was not formal logic.

His second argument is that scientific hypotheses can not be proved to be logically true. Again, note the word "logically." Logically, all we can do is falsify them, and that the wider the field of falsification is, the better they can be "corroborated." (Assuming, of course, that they are in fact not falsified). And that it is this "corroboration" that is the closest we can get to proof. In other words, a hypothesis can never be proved, only disproved, and that in the strictly logical sense, a hypothesis can never make a prediction about a singular occurrence, (much as we can not say that a six will necessarily show up on our first six rolls of the dice). Again, this does not mean that in the real world we do not or can not make scientific predictions. Indeed, if we did not, we would have no computers, no satellites, no automobiles, not much of anything really. It's just that in an infinite world, with an infinite number of occurrences, there is no way to logically - there's that magic word again - prove that in at least one case the scientific theories we use to underpin such technology will not fail.

Of course, Popper is a much deeper thinker than I am, and his arguments more profound, but that's the essence of it the way I see it, and so I guess it's up to you as to whether you are willing to read several hundred pages of this type of thinking. I was. If nothing else, it's good exercise for the brain.

Note: I just wanted to add that if you find yourself getting lost as you plow through this text -- I did myself more times than I care to admit -- don't give up but keep plodding ahead. Eventually you'll come back to familiar ground. And if all else fails, Popper does a very nice job of summing everything up in the final chapters.

Completed some time after he had immigrated to New Zealand upon fleeing Nazi Germany, this, one of Popper's most important and well-known works, is where he first introduces his solution to the problem of induction. According to Popper, scientific theories can never be proven; they can only be tested and confirmed or "falsified." In short, theories are mere hunches: more or less guided speculation, that must undergo continuous and rigorous testing and are subject to being overthrown at any time, including even after they have been rigorously tested. Popper's main point is that theories, are never completely proven, whether tested or not, they must remain available to falsification.

The Logic of Scientific Discovery was thus aimed primarily at pseudo-science and the pseudo-scientist (or at least at what Popper saw as the dangers of pseudo-science). Eventually the attack developed here became a full-scale broadside against the technique and process of inductive reasoning and of all scientific progress and theorizing that had been advanced on the basis of such reasoning.

Popper contends here (as does Hume and his other fellow Logical Positivists) that induction -- and presumably this includes mathematical induction, which many believe to be on a somewhat sounder footing than ordinary inductive reasoning -- was not logical. Among those that Popper considered a practicing pseudo-scientist, was none other than the great Sigmund Freud and his psychoanalytic theories of consciousness, which Popper considered to be dangerous pseudo-science.

Before this book was written, the best defense against the logical hole in induction was that put forth by the other Logical Positivists. They had rested their hat on a technique they coined as the "Principle of Verification," which was designed consciously as a temporary stopgap to close the logical hole that they all knew existed in inductive reasoning. Here Popper analyzes this principle and concludes that even though it is indeed a sounder form of induction, it remains induction no less: that is, it too is not logical. The "Principle of Verification" which required that theories be capable of passing rigorously designed scientific tests in Popper's eyes was just a halfway house between "pure induction" and Popper's more stringent criterion introduced for the first time in this book called the "Principle of "Falsification." Falsification turned the "Principle of Verification" on its head, by requiring that every proposition be falsifiable, and thus logical through the backdoor of being forever open to testing.

For the better part of four decades, Popper's principle of falsification reigned supreme in science, but now cracks have begun to develop, and many scientists, including some of his fellow logical positivists are beginning to give inductive reasoning and the Principle of Verification a second look. Despite these emerging reconsiderations of Popper's work, this book (which is dense and heavy going, and difficult to read in most of the middle parts), and his principle of falsification, Popper has nevertheless assured himself a well-deserved place in the annals of the history of the philosophy of science.

Five Stars

This is a seminal work in the philosophy of empiricism. A must-read for anyone who considers themselves educated in science. Beware comments from nutcase pseudoscience shills such as "Archimedes_tritium" below ("...the foundation and original source it flows from is now identified and recognized to be fouled..."). Time and again it has been shown that science never "proves" anything; it can only show things to be false. Anyone who disputes that is whistling in the dark because he is afraid to think that we might not actually be masters of our own universe.

In chapter 1 he uses the swan analogy to claim that "...any conclusion drawn in this way (that is inductively) may always turn out to be false: no matter how many instances of white swans may be observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white." However this analogy misrepresents the goals and methods of biology. Biologists are interested in allele frequencies which can be accurately approximated with proper sampling techniques. In fairness his book was first published in 1935 before the development of modern statistical methods.

He is not describing the logic of scientific discovery. Instead a physicist reasons that if a regularity in nature persists the generalization based on it will be a good approximation of reality. And he believes it's extremely likely to persist because these regularities are some of the most predictable phenomena in the Universe.

Inductive reasoning depends on the regularity of nature. Popper admits these regularities exist but seems to say they can't be relied on to continue in the future. Assuming that inductive logic can't produce valid generalizations because we can't depend on the regularities to continue leads to an impractical world where we can't infer anything about the future. The fact the Popper failed to understand the foundations of inductive inference did not discredit induction any more than Zeno's paradox proved that Achilles could not overtake the Tortoise.

However when we move from physics and chemistry to biology, history, social sciences etc., the less likely a generalization will hold at all times and locations and the more likely we will need to limit their range. For example, we know that relationships between kin, genders, ethnic groups and social classes are quite variable across cultures and historical periods. And if we talk about inference to the best explanation (abductive reasoning) this is very subject to uncertainty (new answers keep replacing old ones over time.)

I agree that a scientific theory should be falsifiable, but if we only use deduction to try and falsify our hypothesis we will miss important confirmatory evidence.

Popper fails in his attempt to discredit most inductive reasoning as well as his attempt to replace it with deductive reasoning.

Not exactly light reading, but a great reference work, and a clear expostion of Popper's Falsificationism. This methodology is widely regarded as the leading tool for demarcating between science and non-science or pseudo-science.