Logical positivism and critical rationalism understand scientific truth differently. Logical positivism seeks to establish scientific truth through objective observation, while critical rationalism approaches truth provisionally through the disprovability of scientific theories. This debate is an important topic in the philosophy of science.
Logical positivism holds that a statement is scientifically significant if it can be determined with certainty as true or false through objective observation, uninfluenced by existing theories, and that universal statements are established through the accumulation of singular statements. A singular statement refers to a specific event that occurred in a specific time and space, and a universal statement is a generalization of singular statements that can be established as a scientific theory. For example, if the unitary proposition ‘This litmus test paper turns red when put in acid’ is observed without exception, then the universal proposition ‘All litmus test papers turn red when put in acid’ can be established as a scientific theory.
This view of logical positivism stems from the belief that scientific knowledge should be based on thoroughly objective and solid evidence. In the course of scientific inquiry, logical positivists aimed to derive universal laws by accumulating single statements obtained through observation and experimentation. While this approach has contributed to the rigorous and systematic development of science, it also has its limitations.
This idea faced the criticism that even if a scientific theory is guaranteed to be true by the accumulation of single propositions, it cannot be guaranteed to be true as a universal proposition in the future. For example, the observation that litmus test papers have always turned red when dipped in acid does not guarantee that any future litmus test paper will turn red when dipped in acid. To overcome this difficulty, some logical positivists have shifted to the relaxed position that the accumulation of univocal statements makes it increasingly likely that a scientific theory will be determined to be true. However, this does not solve the problem that it is not known whether a generalization of a proposition from previous propositions will remain true.
This problem stems specifically from the limitations of inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning is the process of deriving general laws from individual cases, which is inevitably incomplete. No matter how many singular statements are accumulated, it is impossible to completely rule out the possibility that a new observation could overturn the law. This makes it difficult to guarantee the certainty of scientific theories.
Critical rationalism, unlike logical positivism, believes that propositions are formed in relation to existing scientific theories, and argues that it is almost impossible to observe phenomena as they are. It is not possible to know for sure that a hypothesis or scientific theory is true through true propositions, but it is possible to show that it is false through true propositions. For example, from the singular statement, ‘A certain litmus test paper does not turn red when put in acid,’ it is clear that the universal statement, ‘All litmus test papers turn red when put in acid,’ is false. Based on this, critical rationalism proposes disprovability as a criterion for distinguishing between science and non-science, and argues that only statements that can be disproved by observation should be recognized as scientifically meaningful.
Critical rationalism holds that new scientific theories arise from the observation of facts that cannot be explained by existing scientific theories. In this case, existing scientific theories are immediately discarded and cannot be used to modify existing scientific theories. Scientists formulate new hypotheses to solve problematic situations where facts that cannot be explained by existing scientific theories are found, and come up with cases that can test the hypotheses. If no such cases are observed, the hypothesis is given the status of a provisional scientific theory. Critical rationalism argued that science can never arrive at the truth, but that it can approach it incrementally. All scientific theories are provisional. This is because a scientific theory can consistently survive repeated attempts to disprove it, but it can be disproven at any time. The problem with critical rationalism, however, is that it does not accurately describe the realities of science, in that in the real world of science, there are frequent attempts to improve upon existing scientific theories rather than discard them, even when such instances have been found and they should be discarded.
The debate between logical positivism and critical rationalism occupies an important place in the philosophy of science. Logical positivism sought the certainty of scientific truth, but faced empirical limitations and the incompleteness of inductive arguments. Critical rationalism, on the other hand, emphasized the dynamism of scientific progress, emphasizing that science is inherently provisional. It suggests that science is constantly disproving, correcting, and evolving itself, and that we can only move toward better understanding and explanation. This perspective serves as an important philosophical foundation for modern scientific research and theory development.
