''The Logic of Scientific Discovery'' is a 1959 book about the

philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...

by the philosopher

Karl Popper Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the ...

. Popper rewrote his book in English from the 1934 (imprint '1935')

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

original, titled ''Logik der Forschung. Zur Erkenntnistheorie der modernen Naturwissenschaft'', which literally translates as, "Logic of Research: On the Epistemology of Modern Natural Science"'.

Summary

Popper argues that science should adopt a methodology based on

falsifiability Falsifiability is a standard of evaluation of scientific theories and hypotheses that was introduced by the philosopher of science Karl Popper in his book '' The Logic of Scientific Discovery'' (1934). He proposed it as the cornerstone of a s ...

, because no number of experiments can ever prove a theory, but a reproducible experiment or observation can refute one. According to Popper: "non-reproducible single occurrences are of no significance to science. Thus a few stray basic statements contradicting a theory will hardly induce us to reject it as falsified. We shall take it as falsified only if we discover a reproducible effect which refutes the theory". Popper argues that science should adopt a methodology based on "an ''asymmetry'' between

verifiability Verify or verification may refer to: General * Verification and validation, in engineering or quality management systems, is the act of reviewing, inspecting or testing, in order to establish and document that a product, service or system meets ...

and falsifiability; an asymmetry which results from the logical form of universal statements. For these are never derivable from singular statements, but can be contradicted by singular statements".

Reception

The psychologist

Harry Guntrip Henry James Samuel Guntrip (29 May 1901 – 1975) was a British psychologist known for his major contributions to object relations theory or school of Freudian thought. He was a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a psychotherapist a ...

wrote that its publication "greatly stimulated the discussion of the nature of scientific knowledge", including by philosophers who did not completely agree with Popper, such as

Thomas Kuhn Thomas Samuel Kuhn (; July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American philosopher of science whose 1962 book '' The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' was influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term ''paradig ...

and Horace Romano Harré. The psychiatrist

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, ph ...

, founder of

analytical psychology Analytical psychology ( de , Analytische Psychologie, sometimes translated as analytic psychology and referred to as Jungian analysis) is a term coined by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, to describe research into his new "empirical science" ...

, valued the work. The biographer

Vincent Brome Vincent Brome (14 July 1910 – 16 October 2004) was an English writer, who gradually established himself as a man of letters. He is best known for a series of biographies of politicians, writers and followers of Sigmund Freud. He also wrote ...

recalls Jung remarking in 1938 that it exposed "some of the shortcomings of science". The philosopher

Paul Ricœur Jean Paul Gustave Ricœur (; ; 27 February 1913 – 20 May 2005) was a French philosopher best known for combining phenomenological description with hermeneutics. As such, his thought is within the same tradition as other major hermeneutic ...

endorsed "procedures of invalidation" similar to Popper's criteria for falsifiability. The historian

Peter Gay Peter Joachim Gay (né Fröhlich; June 20, 1923 – May 12, 2015) was a German-American historian, educator, and author. He was a Sterling Professor of History at Yale University and former director of the New York Public Library's Center for Sc ...

described the work as "an important treatise in epistemology". The philosopher Bryan Magee considered Popper's criticisms of

logical positivism Logical positivism, later called logical empiricism, and both of which together are also known as neopositivism, is a movement in Western philosophy whose central thesis was the verification principle (also known as the verifiability criterion o ...

"devastating". In his view, Popper's most important argument against logical positivism is that, while it claimed to be a scientific theory of the world, its central tenet, the verification principle, effectively destroyed all of science. The physicists

Alan Sokal Alan David Sokal (; born January 24, 1955) is an American professor of mathematics at University College London and professor emeritus of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics. He is a critic of postmo ...

and

Jean Bricmont Jean Bricmont (; born 12 April 1952) is a Belgian theoretical physicist and philosopher of science. Professor at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCLouvain), he works on renormalization group and nonlinear differential equations. Since 2004 ...

argued that critiques of Popper's work have provoked an "irrationalist drift", and that a significant part of the problems that currently affect the philosophy of science "can be traced to ambiguities or inadequacies" in ''The Logic of Scientific Discovery''. The essayist

Nassim Nicholas Taleb Nassim Nicholas Taleb (; alternatively ''Nessim ''or'' Nissim''; born 12 September 1960) is a Lebanese-American essayist, mathematical statistician, former option trader, risk analyst, and aphorist whose work concerns problems of randomness ...

, in his book The Black Swan, mentions Popper's theory of falsification as a way to combat the effects of

confirmation bias Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring ...

, crediting his "insight concerning the fundamental, severe, and incurable unpredictability of the world."

Notes

External links

English version publisher's website

German version publisher's website

The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Philotextes)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Logic Of Scientific Discovery, The Logik der Forschung, Die 1959 non-fiction books Analytic philosophy literature Books by Karl Popper German non-fiction books Philosophy of science literature