Popper's Falsification Theory

Compare and contrast Kuhn’s explanation of scientific revolution with Popper’s falsification theory

Kuhn and Popper are two well established philosopher who introduced ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolution’ and the ‘Theory of Falsifiability’ respectively. Kuhn was a critique of Popper’s work. He introduced the terms normal science, revolutionary science and paradigm. Popper on the other hand refuted logical positivism and established the Theory of Falsifiability. He suggested the usage of deduction rather than induction in scientific work. His theory also accepts that truth is not attainable and theories are rejected when they can be falsified. Falsification was also used as the distinguisher between science and non-science, something which

However, Popper did not formally acknowledge his involvement with Pragmatism although a high affinity to that philosophical concept can be noticed in his work. Popper’s knowledge of natural science with his views on social science are limited to economics. Popper’s main aim was to provide guidelines to scientists on the progression and development of normative philosophy of science. Popper agreed with Rudolph Carnap, one of the members of the Vienna Circle that philosophy would earn from how natural science work. He also agreed with the two characteristics of Vienna Circle; first, the empiricist and positivist, where knowledge can only be obtained from experience and secondly that scientific conception can be obtained by logical analysis. Thus, Popper believed that scientist should be critical and they should be able to test their views with empirical evidence and rational discussion. However, he rejected positivism especially logical positivism and questioned the principles of ‘inductivism’ and ‘verificationism’. Popper rejected classical inductivist views on the scientific method and was in favor of empirical falsification which he is well known for. Furthermore, as David Hume had already showed that experience cannot be verified, Popper believes that only falsification can be used for empirical process of

In order to maintain the empirical certainty of inferences obtained through the deductive method, ‘the universal law premise must be empirically certain’. However, Popper pointed out that there is no proof that the universal law premise is empirically certain, because the sun rises every day, there is no proof that the sun will rise tomorrow. Popper argued on the relevance of induction and furthermore, he agreed with Hume’s problem of induction. He pointed out that induction cannot be logically justified. Although there is a psychological belief that the sun will rise tomorrow because sun has risen every day in the pass, there is no rational justification for that conception. Uniformity of nature cannot be