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Transcript

Karl Popper

Thomas Kuhn

Questions:

- Did human's knowledge increased cumulatively?

- Did the number of problems that are solved through science constantly increased?

- Does the 'conventional knowledge,' which is once recognized as a proper knowledge keeps its status permanently?

Germ Theory

* Germ Theory states that many diseases are caused by the presence and actions of specific microorganisms within the body.

- Superseded existing miasma/contagion theories

POPPER's POV

1. It can be easily verified/confirmed through experimentation

2. It can be easily refuted if there are another organisms/systems that interfere with human's immune system.

3. Has useful predictions and several counterexamples (e.g. metabolic diseases are not caused by microorganisms)

-> refutable, but not disprovable

Thus, it's a 'good' scientific theory!

Kuhn's POV

1. It followed the pattern of paradigm shift; gradually people moved from one theory to another along the general consensus

2. Superseded scientific theories are not completely discarded; they are just the incompatible scientific theories that do not fit to current paradigm.

Germ theory is a scientific theory, but if some scientists reject germ theory, that is also reasonable.

MORE ABOUT POPPER

Mr. Kuhn is a relativist?

- Denies that he is relativist

- Three core values that determine the theory choice: "Objectivity, Value Judgement, and Theory Choice"

The Discovery of the Higgs Boson

Germs Theory

Higgs Boson is an elementary particle initially theorized in 1964, and tentatively confirmed to exist on 14 March 2013. The discovery has been called 'monumental' because it appears to confirm the existence of the Higgs field, which is pivotal to particle physics.

Popper's POV

- This discovery contains testability, falsifibility, and refutability: If new particle is discovered, existence of Higgs Boson can be rejected. Through conjecture and refutation, science is continously developing.

5 criteria that determine theory choice

Kuhn's POV

- There was no sequence of paradigm (Prescience -> NS -> ....)

- 'Old' sciences are totally smashed down

- But this discovery can be accepted; there is no strict line between science/pseudoscience.

* Anything that cannot be falsified = not science:

distinguish genuine science from pseudo-science (Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Karl Marx)

"Every 'good' scentific theory is a prohibition"

"Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory but a vice"

The discovery of Higgs Boson

Accuracy

Broad Scope

Fruitful

Consequences should extend beyond that which it was initially designed to explain

Empirically adequate with experimentation and observation

A theory should disclose new phenomena or new relationships among phenomena

Consistency

Simplicity

Karl Popper is a

Critical Realist (1)

Internally consistent, but also externally consistent

The simplest explanation

Paradigm and Revolution

Four criteria for determining whether a proposed theory is sufficiently "tight"

to be admitted as a "scientific theory"

Logical comparison of the conclusions (testing internal consistency)

Testing with empirical applications of the conclusions

Investigation of the logical form of the theory; determine the character of scientific theory

Comparison with other theories; whether the theory would constitute a scientific advance

- Rejected the logical positivism established by the Vienna Circle, which was influenced by Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Logical Positivism

It has two critical points: (a) Induction, (b) Verifiability

(a) Induction: Science starts with experiencial observation and scientific law is a generalized form of facts from experiencial observations.

(b) Verifiability: Certain statements can be verified as a meaningful statement if and only if the validity can be examined through experience.

- The 'questions' assume one presupposition; knowledge issues (a) did not changed or (b) increased.

- According to Kuhn, this statement cannot be justified because 'past science' and 'present science' cannot be comparatively evaluated.

= they are incommensurable

- Popper considered (a) induction as a fallacy of affirming the consequent; the development of science is achieved through the process of falsifying/refuting, by observing the experiencial fact that rejects the justification of original theory

= falsificationism

Focus points

Logical positivists use the classical method of reasoning: modus ponens

(a) If Socrates is a man, then Socrates is mortal.

(b) Socrates is a man.

(c) Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Karl Popper's philosophy uses modus tolens, or falsifying;

(a) If Socrates is a god, then Socrates is immortal.

(b) Socrates is not immortal.

(c) Therefore, Socrates is not a god.

Karl Popper is a

Critical Realist (2)

- His philosophy is revealed mainly from his controversial book, The Structure of Scientific Revolution (SSR).

What do we acquire from the 'PARADIGM'?

Inquiries that scientists consider important

Paradigm Shift

Way to view the world

Way to solve human world's problems through the observation with the paradigm

- Kuhn claimed that scientific fields undergo periodic (and discontinuous) 'paradigm shifts'

- Paradigm shifts open up new approches to understanding what scientists denided/doubted before

- Scientific truth is established by a consensus of scientific community; nature of scientific inquiry is abruptly transformed.

Process of Scientific Revolution

Prescience

- No dominant paradigm

- Lacks central paradigm

- Immature

"Normal Science"

- Number of scientists share one paradigm

- Attempt to enlarge the central paradigm

- Productive stage

- Failure is not a refutation!!

Crisis

- Unsolved questions increase

- Protestors toward the "normal science" increase

- ex) Classical Mechanics vs Electromagnetism

Revolutionary Science

- New paradigm is accepted

- Creative paradigm that goes beyond the "normal science"

- With consensus, paradigm shifts happen

- But again, rival paradigms are incommensurable

-> "Theory choice is fundamentally irrational" (David Stove)

-> "I'm not a Kuhnian!"

1. Popper/Kuhn's theory (philosophy) + their viewpoints toward 'science.'

2. Their viewpoints of germ theory/discovery of the Higgs Boson

3. Which theory(philosophy) is more appealing? Which theory defines/formalizes the development and maintenance of science more logically?

- Scientific theory is a hypothetical estimation that is suggested to resolve the problems that the original theory could not solve.

- Scientific theorys that endured falsification are relatively closer to the 'genuine truth,' but not always absolutely true.

- Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt of conjecture and refutation.

The criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, refutability, and testability: science develops by confronting the problems, suggesting rational hypothesis, and falsifying those hypothesis.

= Critical Realism

* Critical Reaslism starts from recognizing that human's reason is not perfect, which is also known as fallibilism.

* To go beyond the limit of reason, human must allow each other's critical testing and try to reach the 'genuine truth' through falsification.

POPPER vs. KUHN

The War of Intelligentsia

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