vinc456 · August 30, 2020 14:41 · vinc456 · Aug 30, 2020
diff --git a/gistfile1.txt b/gistfile1.txt
 On Popper’s view, the growth of knowledge begins with a problem, which is usually an inconsistency discovered either within an inherited theory, or between inherited theories, or between an inherited theory and an accepted observation statement. We attempt to solve the problem by proposing new explanatory theories.
 We criticise these theories in various ways and we evaluate them as better or worse solutions to our problem. As a result, we usually come to understand the problem better, which leads us to suggest further new theories, which are in turn criticised and evaluated. It may be that we eventually settle on one theory as clearly better than its available rivals (as happened in the case of Newton’s theory in the eighteenth century). That dominant theory may then become a main focus for our criticism, identification of new problems and further development of theory. The attempt to resolve the problems that the criticism of the dominant theory generates may lead to new conjectures which are rivals to that theory and which manage to stand up to criticism better than that theory does, thus leading to its revolutionary overthrow.
 The growth of knowledge is thus a process of conjecture and criticism. An important kind of criticism is empirical, that is, the discovery of points at which a conjecture clashes with reality as we experience it. Popper proposes that what makes a conjecture scientific is its susceptibility to empirical criticism, that is, its falsifiability. A conjecture incapable of such an empirical clash is deemed metaphysical. However, falsifiability may be either direct or indirect; and that enables some conjectures, which are metaphysical in that they are not directly falsifiable, to qualify as scientific because they are indirectly falsifiable. The process of conjecture and criticism leads to progress only when criticisms are not evaded in pseudo-scientific ways. What distinguishes science is not just that its theories are, directly or indirectly, falsifiable but also that its procedures are not ad hoc. That requires that an amendment to a theory that removes an inconsistency identified by criticism is acceptable only if it solves some problem in addition to the problem of removing the inconsistency.”
 Danny Frederick, ‘Against the Philosophical Tide’.
	On Popper’s view, the growth of knowledge begins with a problem, which is usually an inconsistency discovered either within an inherited theory, or between inherited theories, or between an inherited theory and an accepted observation statement. We attempt to solve the problem by proposing new explanatory theories.
	We criticise these theories in various ways and we evaluate them as better or worse solutions to our problem. As a result, we usually come to understand the problem better, which leads us to suggest further new theories, which are in turn criticised and evaluated. It may be that we eventually settle on one theory as clearly better than its available rivals (as happened in the case of Newton’s theory in the eighteenth century). That dominant theory may then become a main focus for our criticism, identification of new problems and further development of theory. The attempt to resolve the problems that the criticism of the dominant theory generates may lead to new conjectures which are rivals to that theory and which manage to stand up to criticism better than that theory does, thus leading to its revolutionary overthrow.
	The growth of knowledge is thus a process of conjecture and criticism. An important kind of criticism is empirical, that is, the discovery of points at which a conjecture clashes with reality as we experience it. Popper proposes that what makes a conjecture scientific is its susceptibility to empirical criticism, that is, its falsifiability. A conjecture incapable of such an empirical clash is deemed metaphysical. However, falsifiability may be either direct or indirect; and that enables some conjectures, which are metaphysical in that they are not directly falsifiable, to qualify as scientific because they are indirectly falsifiable. The process of conjecture and criticism leads to progress only when criticisms are not evaded in pseudo-scientific ways. What distinguishes science is not just that its theories are, directly or indirectly, falsifiable but also that its procedures are not ad hoc. That requires that an amendment to a theory that removes an inconsistency identified by criticism is acceptable only if it solves some problem in addition to the problem of removing the inconsistency.”
	Danny Frederick, ‘Against the Philosophical Tide’.