Karl Popper's Falsificationism: Understanding Scientific Theories

Karl Popper's Falsificationism

The principal topic of this text from The Logic of Scientific Discovery is the vision that Popper has on science, according to his falsificationism method. First, the author argues that science is not certain knowledge and that it is not possible to reach the truth. Instead, we can only elaborate simple conjectures. He affirms that these scientific conjectures must be subjected to rigorous and systematic tests, not to verify them but to demonstrate that the conjectures are false. To conclude, Popper says that the purpose of science is not to reach absolute truth but to provide increasingly deep answers to new problems and to submit them to progressively more complex refutations.

The Doctrine of the Point of View

This text by Ortega y Gasset discusses the different ways of seeing life, using a landscape as an example. The fragment from the Revista de Occidente alludes to the fact that every person is different and that, as such, they will have different perspectives. We might wonder, which is the correct one? In this case, there would not be a third correct perspective since the last person would also have a different way of perceiving things. On the other hand, the text speaks about a cosmic reality defined as a sight under a certain perspective, and the perspective is one of the components of reality. A reality that, viewed from any point, always turns out to be identical is an absurd concept. To conclude, the author ends by saying that every life is a different point in the universe, which is present in one. It cannot be in another, and therefore, different perspectives will be seen.

The Dogmatic Attitude and the Critical Attitude

In this fragment of Conjectures and Refutations, Popper distinguishes between the dogmatic attitude and the critical attitude. In the text, he starts by identifying the dogmatic attitude with a tendency to verify (to corroborate absolutely) our theories, and he contrasts it with the critical attitude, which is characterized by constantly testing our theories to try to demonstrate their falsehood. He identifies the critical attitude with a scientific attitude and the dogmatic attitude with a pseudoscientific attitude. Later, Popper clarifies that the critical attitude is not opposed to the dogmatic attitude but, in a certain way, is complementary since to develop, it needs theories and beliefs defended dogmatically, whose supposed truth it tries to refute. Finally, the text ends by elaborating a reflection in evolutionary terms, indicating that critical thought, unlike dogmatism, allows us to reject and replace our theories with more suitable ones without needing to eliminate the individuals who defend them, as dogmatism does.