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A Critique Of Popper’s Strategy For The Growth Of Science
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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.â€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.
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