#1 Popper on Scientific Theory, Natural and Social
I think Karl Popper would be a good source to start my new newsletter.
The central idea I should like to present in this talk may be expressed in the following way. The natural as well as the social sciences always start from problems, from the fact that something inspires amazement in us, as the Greek philosophers used to say. To solve these problems, the sciences use fundamentally the same method that common sense employs, the method of trial and error. To be more precise, it is the method of trying out solutions to our problem and then discarding the false ones as erroneous. This method assumes that we work with a large number of experimental solutions. One solution after another is put to the test and eliminated.
At bottom, this procedure seems to be the only logical one. It is also the procedure that a lower organism, even a single-cell amoeba, uses when trying to solve a problem. In this case we speak of testing movements through which the organism tries to rid itself of a troublesome problem. Higher organisms are able to learn through trial and error how a certain problem should be solved. We may say that they too make testing movements - mental testings - and that to learn is essentially to tryout one testing movement after another until one is found that solves the problem. We might compare the animal's successful solution to an expectation and hence to a hypothesis or a theory …
The behaviour of animals, and of plants too, shows that organisms are geared to laws or regularities. They expect laws or regularities in their surroundings … If a higher organism is too often disappointed in its expectations, it caves in. It cannot solve the problem; it perishes.
‘The Logic and Evolution of Scientific Theory’. A talk given on North German Radio (NDR), 7 March 1972. In Karl Popper, All Life is Problem Solving, Routledge 1999
As can be seen, Popper was quite Darwinian. Later posts will explore the idea that whole societies evolve much as ‘higher organisms’ do. Popper did not like such ideas. He did not think the social sciences should study the behavior of social wholes, such as societies. Instead, social science should focus on the actions and interactions of individuals, i.e. people.
More to come on this topic!