In my last post, I wrote somewhat glowingly of Popper’s epistemology based on Conjecture and Refutation. In a previous (older) post on Millennial Star I even went so far as to explain why I felt there were some touch points between conjecture and refutation and the Gospel. To summarize, Popper believes all knowledge of all types growths through a process of having problems, conjecturing solutions to those problems, then refuting those conjectures based on the discovery of new problems. Through this process we ‘evolve’ our explanations and they improve over time. The end result is increasing verisimilitude – i.e. closeness to reality – of our knowledge. (I note here that this produces increasing verisimilitude without use of induction.)

Now I will consider the strongest challenger to Popper’s epistemology as elucidated by Thomas S. Kuhn, author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Popper and Kuhn are often considered to be two dynamically opposed views of scientific growth that are in struggle for the heart and soul of science. (See, for example, this book here. I have not read it and don’t intend to.) In actuality, Kuhn and Popper have far more in common than they have different from each other. But Kuhn’s view of science does ultimately pose a threat to the very concept of Scientific Realism and proposes, in it’s place, a Positivist view of the world as our ultimate reality. [1] Continue reading →