The epistemology of Karl Popper

Popper’s epistemology goes under the name of Critical rationalism. It is a theory which he developed throughout his career and which heavily influenced the philosophy of science (more particularly, laid grounds for his demarcation of science from pseudoscience). In Hegelian terms, critical rationalism can be thought of as the synthesis between the traditional objective notion of knowledge, mostly associated with the Enlightenment and positivism, on the one side (which would be the thesis), and epistemological relativism of postmodernism on the other (the antithesis). Seeing that Popper’s theory posits itself in between those two “extremes”, one could turn to Aristotle and his golden mean and conclude from it that such a middle ground is the best position to be. However, further examination of why that is the case must be provided.

 

Initially, the main difference between critical rationalism and both postmodernism and positivism will be noted.

 

 Before proclaiming himself as the murderer of positivism, Popper was something like an outside associate of that school of thought while having many friends in some of their most influential representatives. He found their thinking valuable because of their serious and structured approach to philosophical problems. However, he disagreed with their methodology as its main focus was not trying to falsify their theories, but to justify them. He gathered that such an approach is wrong for the same reasons as those which David Hume provided to oppose inductive logic some 300 years earlier; namely, no matter how much evidence of justification one finds for a certain theory, there is always the possibility that the next piece of evidence will prove the contrary (falsify it) which will consequently bring the whole theory down. In other words, forming final general conclusions on particulars is not possible. Because of this, what must be done to find the most solid theory is not to find supporting evidence, but to try everything in one’s power to disprove each theory and see which one keeps standing the longest. For the time being, the theory that underwent the highest number of falsification trials and wasn’t falsified can be considered the best (similarly, the theories that do not provide the possibility of falsification, to begin with, are not considered scientific and, therefore, do not enter the discussion[1]). Furthermore, due to the aforementioned inability of forming final general conclusions, Popper argues that it is impossible for humans to ever attain absolute knowledge[2]. What is more, even if one was to receive absolute knowledge on a given problem, he could never have the necessary tools to ever fully prove to anyone (including himself) that that knowledge is, in fact, correct without the possibility of refutation at some future point. Thus, critical rationalism differs from positivist/Enlightenment epistemology insofar as it rejects the possibility of attaining absolute knowledge while disagreeing with the methodology of gaining knowledge which focuses on justification of a theory rather than falsification.

 

From this, one could conclude that Popper’s epistemology is relativistic seeing that postmodernist relativism argues something similar with its rejection of both absolute knowledge and objective truth. It does so by arguing that truth is formed either individually or through the lens of a certain culture (truth is, in this view, somewhat of an illusion created by language – the essence of things is not intrinsic to things themselves, but are rather known only in opposition to other things[3]) and is thus subjective). Consequently, absolute knowledge must be a false term altogether as knowledge is formed upon subjective truths and solely in the context of language and is, therefore, not part of the objective world which would be the precondition for it to be absolute. Truth and knowledge are, in other words, always constrained to the human/societal/linguistic context. The (in)famous Derridean quote which states that there is nothing outside the text illustrates this. Conversely, what would be Popper’s response to such a view? Firstly, despite his insistence on the inability of individuals to attain absolute knowledge, Popper didn’t exactly argue that absolute knowledge doesn’t exist – rather, he thought that it must be perceived as an ideal that regulates our scientific inquiry and towards which we must strive despite not being able to attain it. What we can do, however, seeing that absolute knowledge does exist - at least as an idea[4] - is to categorize particular "knowledges" into a hierarchy with some being better than the others (i.e., closer to the unattainable absolute) by applying the method of falsifiability. To put it another way, the theories that withstand a higher number of falsifications (but are not falsified) are closer to the ideal and, consequently, objectively better. Therefore, Popper’s epistemology not only differs from postmodernism but can be viewed as somewhat of a counterargument to it as it provides the answer to the postmodernist conundrum – i.e., the inability to prefer one truth over the next - by using an objective method in the form of falsifiability with which we can make objective value judgments on theories.

 

Karl Popper is a revolutionary figure in the philosophy of science as his demarcation and definition of the scientific method remains the overarching outlook to this day. The modesty behind his epistemology may remind many of Socrates and his insistence on the importance of understanding the limitations of human knowledge. In turn, such modesty proved not only to be correct and important in regards to the philosophy of science but also as it overflew into politics and served to caution against totalitarian tendencies which were often based on false promises of utopias in which the implication was the absolute knowledge of those in charge.

 

 

 [1] Popper’s famous examples for these were Freudian psychoanalysis and Marxism – theories that give an account of something but cannot be proven to be false (as opposed to Einstein’s theories)

[2] By “absolute knowledge” it is meant such a knowledge which is finally and invariably correct/true

[3] E.g., a table is known to be a table through the fact that it is not a chair, not a car, not a wall, etc. – this being a counterargument to Plato’s theory of forms in which the essence of things by which we recognize them is in a world of its own

[4] “Existence” of absolute knowledge is here used loosely to avoid entering the complex topic of Popper’s beliefs whether knowledge exists as a part of the objective world for which the discussion of his theory of 3 worlds would be needed which is beyond the scope of this essay