PHIL 160D3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Flat Earth, Classical Adlerian Psychology, Falsifiability

• School: University of Arizona
• Department: Philosophy Main
• Course: PHIL 160D3
• Professor: Marc Johansen

Document Summary

Karl popper proposed a deductive model of scientific methodology. The problem all inductive reasoning assumes the uniformity principle. Unsuccessful predictions provide disconfirmation of a scientific theory. Science is about falsifying theories, not confirming them. Step 1: conjecture; propose hypothesis, hypothesis should be bold. Step 2: refutation; test the hypothesis and try to refute it. Pro(cid:448)ides (cid:374)o support for the h(cid:455)pothesis (cid:894)does (cid:374)ot sho(cid:449) it"s true(cid:895) After many unsuccessful disconfirmations, the hypothesis has been corroborated. Theor(cid:455) 1 is (cid:373)ore ratio(cid:374)al (cid:271)ut popper (cid:272)a(cid:374)"t sa(cid:455) that we have any reason to think that 1 is more likely to be true than 2. Popper: we have less reason to think 1 is false. A theory is scientific if and only if it has the potential to be refuted by some possible observation. Freudian, adlerian psychology and astrology would all seem to count as unscientific. Ei(cid:374)stei(cid:374)"s ge(cid:374)eral relati(cid:448)it(cid:455) theor(cid:455) would seem to count as scientific.