A CRITIQUE OF POPPER’S STRATEGY FOR THE GROWTH OF SCIENCE

A CRITIQUE OF POPPER’S STRATEGY FOR THE    GROWTH OF SCIENCE
CHAPTER ONE

1.0           
  TOWARDS ESTABLISHING THE BACKGROUND OF  

POPPERIAN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE.

1.1 CAN FACTS CONSTITUTE THE
TERMINUS A QUO OF    SCIENCE? (THE
PROBLEM OF INDUCTION)   

It is one of the fundamental
canons of the empiricists, the positivists of all sorts and in fact the entire
circle of the inductivists, that the ladder of science can only be climbed
through the collection and assembling of our experiences. Put in another way,
it is the case that scientific knowledge requires primarily and basically the
collection of protocol sentences. The principle of induction can be expressed
in the following statement:

If a large number of A’s have been observed under a wide variety of
conditions, and if all those A’s without exceptions possess the property of B,
then all A’s have the property B.1

Thus
if various forms of metal expanded when heated at various occasions, one can
conclude that all metals expand when heated. This is essentially an inductive
process, which until the time of Popper was in the eyes of its exponents, a
non-optional extra for empirical sciences. This principle of induction, the
principle that scientific knowledge grows through the progressive movement from
the particular statements (i.e. statements about facts) to the general (universal)
statements, which are essentially the form in which, scientific theories
appear, is considered of supreme importance for scientific discovery and
advancement. Hence, Reichenbach makes bold to assert that the elimination of
this principle from the foundational structure of science is tantamount to
divesting science of its power to determine the truth or otherwise the falsity
of its theories. Science will, therefore, be in want of a veritable means by
which the veracity of her theories is established. There is no longer any
intellectual difference between the scientific posits and the fanciful,
arbitrary inventions of the poetic genius.2

Yet,
Popper despite the fact that the principle of induction is unreservedly
accepted by the whole of science and acquiescing to the possibility of
universal error maintained the untenable nature of this inductive procedure.
This skeptical view was already found in Hume and Kant, but only as precursors,
for there are remarkable differences between these and Popper’s. Popper
contended that this principle of induction is a muddle and is superfluous. For
him it is destitute of a strong basis as it is torpedoed by confusion and
riddled with untold logical inconsistencies.3

Scientific laws are always cast in the
form of what the philosophers term universal statements in the sense that they
make reference to all events of a particular kind. The problem emerges in the
face of the observation statements, which allegedly provide evidence for the
general scientific laws. The former are specific claims about a state of
affairs that are recorded at a particular time. They are what philosophers call
singular (or basic) statements or protocol sentences. Popper noted that there
is no logical justification for inferring the truth of the universal statements
from the singular, the numerical strength of the later not withstanding. This
is because there is no guarantee that the contrary will not be the case in the
future. This is fundamentally an impossible endeavour for any account of
experience can primarily and essentially be only a singular statement and not a
universal one. General scientific laws invariably go beyond the finite amount
of the observable evidence that is available to support them. The corollary is
that these evidences can never be established as the efficient progenitors of
the general scientific laws. It is impossible to logically deduce the later
from the available evidence. Any link, therefore, between singular and the
universal statements in which the former serve to authenticate the veracity of
the later is an illogical connexion, which impinges on the acceptance of the
inductive inference. This is the logical problem of induction and is made more
complex by the fact that it is impossible to justify a law by observation or
experience as highlighted above since it transcends experience; that science
proposes and makes use of laws at every point and time despite the paucity of
the observed instances upon which the laws are founded; and by the fact of the
principle of empiricism which asserts that in science, only observation and
experience may decide upon the acceptance or the rejection of scientific
statements including laws and theories.4

But what is the raison d’ etre of this
sort of inference. The issue raised here demands foremost that a principle of
induction be established – a principle which provides “a statement by means of
which we should be able to put inductive inferences into a logically accepted
form.”5 How is the principle of induction to be
vindicated? We have seen that this is impossible logically. What is left is an
appeal to experience. Popper observed that any attempt to justify the practice
of induction by an appeal to experience must lead to an infinite regress. The
principle of induction must be a universal statement. Its justification is
based on a number of individual instances of its successful application. Thus,
use is made of inductive inference. Hence the justification of induction by an
appeal to experience involves assuming what one is trying to prove i.e. begging
the question. It is all about justifying induction by appealing to induction
and so is totally unsatisfactory.6

Hume’s attempt to give a psychological
basis of the principle of induction was in Popper’s estimation mistaken. It
flies in the face of the principle of transference, for what is false in Logic
as we already saw becomes true in psychology. Immediately Hume struck bargain
with the psychological justification of induction, he became an exponent of an
irrationalist epistemology. Popper was dissatisfied with his psychological
explanation of induction in terms custom or habit. If we follow Hume, having
established before now that inductive reasoning lacks any force as an argument
to assert that this sort of reasoning dominates our cognitive life or our
understanding, it means the exaltation of irrationalism for it is obvious then
that argument or reason plays only a minor role in our understanding. Our
knowledge is therefore not only depicted as being of the nature of belief but
also of rationally indefensible belief- of irrational faith.7 It is bizarre, Popper argues to explain
our propensity to expect regularities in terms of repetition. Events would
continue to be isolated unless man has the categories that connect them. Popper
submitted on logical reasons that repetition presupposes a point of view, ‘such
as a system of expectations, anticipations, assumptions or interests.’8 It is only within this climate of
thought that the questions of infinite regress or irrationalism are given a final
blow. This, Popper maintains, depicts the scientific procedure.

1.2 
THE VIENNA CIRCLE’S ATTACK ON METAPHYSICS

The logical positivists in the spirit of
inductive tradition held that science is fundamentally based on the
accumulation of facts. However they made a dogmatic extrapolation by holding a
naïve and naturalistic view of meaning in their verification principle. For
them, the genuine character and the meaningfulness of any alleged proposition
is determined by its being a truth function of, or its being reducible to,
elementary (or atomic) proposition expressing observations or perceptions.
Carnap articulates this somewhat lopsided position of the positivists in a
fascinating fashion:

It is certain that a string of words has
meaning only if its derivability relations from protocol sentences (observation
sentences) are given…that is to say, if the way to (its) verification… is
known.9

The meaning of a
statement is, thus, the method of its verification they concluded, to use the
expressions of Waisman.10 The
result of this unacceptable position of the Positivists is that the
metaphysical sentences stand revealed, by logical analysis, as pseudo-
sentences. The propositions of metaphysics are dismissed by them as
non-sensical, and so lack any relevance and force in the ensemble of
gnoseological acquisitions. This is indeed a calculated strategy towards a
complete destruction of metaphysical principles. They have become ipso facto
avowed worshippers in the temple of that Humean ideology in which metaphysics
is viewed as ‘nonsensical twaddle, sophistry and illusion,’ requiring to be
committed to the flames.11

Popper in his unpublished book entitled Die
beiden Grund probleme der Erkenntnisthorie12,
gave a fairly detailed criticism of this doctrine of elimination or
overthrow (ueberwindung) of metaphysics through meaning-analysis. This
anti-current action was done, not from a metaphysical framework, but from the
springboard of one whose interest is in science, and its unhampered growth and
advancement. Popper observed that this doctrine far from defeating the supposed
enemy, brought the keys of the beleaguered city to the beck and call of the
alleged enemy.13 The proponents were so
much fixated in their determination to oust metaphysics from the circle of all
informative discipline that they failed to realize that most of the scientific
theories, which they purport to shield, have also fallen on the same scrap heap
as the ‘meaningless’ propositions of metaphysics. Should this position of
theirs be taken in the least lightly, their efforts towards the radical
annihilation of metaphysics would also be an effort towards the eclipse of
science as most of the postulations of the later which have metaphysical
features would be destroyed simultaneously. It is an established fact that
scientific laws and theories, which appear in the form of universal
propositions, transcend experience and so are incapable of being logically
reduced to the elementary statements of experience. Were we to hold credence to
the Positivists’ criterion of meaning and apply such a criterion in a way that
is consistent, we shall in the final analysis jettison the natural laws, which
are, as Einstein says, the supreme task of the physicist,14 from the sphere of meaningful
propositions. They can never be welcome into the community of all genuine or
legitimate statements.

Since Bacon, the most widely held view
was that science was characterized by its observational basis while
pseudo-sciences and metaphysics were typified by their speculative method.
Popper hardly accepts this view. The modern theories of physics especially
Einstein’s theories were highly speculative and abstract. They were very far
removed from what might be tagged their observational bases. All attempts to
show the contrary were unconvincing, Popper concluded.15 Most scientific theories originate
from myths. The Copernican system, for instance, was precipitated from a
Neo-Platonic worship of light of the Sun who occupied the pride of place- the
center because of his nobility. Copernicus, it must be noted studied in
Bologna, under the Platonist Novara.16
Atomisms, corpuscular theory of light among others, are myths that have in no
less a measure become vital for physical sciences. It makes no meaning to say,
Popper noted, that these theories in one stage of their development were
nonsensical expressions while they suddenly become meaningful in another.17 Parmenides of Elea seems to have
captured this sequence when he opined that out of non-being comes non-being. No
‘sense’ can ever emerge from ‘non-sense’!

Furthermore, it
is obvious that a lot of realities which science posits are no more observable
than metaphysical entities. Should we have to talk about gravity, and various
forms of forces, Newtonian mass points—Popper calls these ‘occult metaphysical
substances’18 to depict their
non-observable nature. Can we also observe time and space which have among
others formed the fundamentals of scientific knowledge? Thus, if following the
Positivists, we exclude these from all things meaningful, scientific boat would
automatically be rocked and shattered.

We have seen that the broom of the
anti-metaphysicist sweeps away too much. The anti-metaphysicist’s assertion
that metaphysical propositions are sheer gibberish, if a little protracted, throws
science into the wilderness of devastation. No wonder Popper had first to
expose the antiques of this position with regard to science, for his maps for
the growth of science would be irrelevant if the said science has been utterly
extinguished.

1.3 POPPER
SETS OFF AGENDA FOR THE THEORY-DEPENDENCE OF SCIENCE

Popper is not in the least undaunted in
his conviction that the advance of science can hardly result from the
accumulation of perceptual experiences in the course of time. No matter how
dogged we are in gathering and sorting them, it is impossible, he thought, for
science to emerge out of uninterpreted sense-perceptions. The canon of
selection is ever utilized in the scientific observations. Hence, before any
meaningful observation can be embarked upon, there is need for a choice of
object, definite task—all of which presuppose interests, problems and points of
view.19 
In the light of this, all observations involve interpretation. Pure,
unadulterated observational knowledge ‘would, if at all possible be utterly
barren and futile.’20  Chalmers seems to share this view when he
asserts:

How can we establish significant facts
about the world through observation if we do not have some guidance as to what
kind of knowledge we are seeking or what problems we are trying to solve?21

Observation statements cannot be
statements expressing uninterpreted data. They are rather statements of facts
in the light of theories. “How odd it is,” Darwin notes, “that anyone should
not see that all observation must be for or against some view….”22

Nature must be cross-examined on the
basis of the experimenter’s theories, his ideas and his inspirations. Kant was
after all correct when he says that it behoves on the experimenter to question
nature and not wait until it pleases nature to make manifest her secrets.23 It must however be noted that unlike
Kant who asserts that our theories are valid a priori, Popper maintains
that they are only guesses, doubts, which must be tested empirically. This is
an adumbration of what he calls hypotheticism, which is one of the cardinal
points of his strategy. Hence he maintains that:

Bold ideas, unjustified anticipations and
speculative thought are our only means for interpreting nature; our only
organon, our only instrument, for grasping her.24