Reading Questions for Popper’s “Science: Conjectures and Refutations” and Kuhn’s “Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?”

Due Date: 9/6

Remember, this is to be NO MORE than 1 single spaced, typewritten page, no title page, no plastic cover, no title, just the name of the work read at upper left, your name at upper right. You must bring 2 COPIES of this to class, one to hand in, one to keep. Using your own words, answer all of the ASSIGNED QUESTIONS (the numbered ones). Use textual evidence to support your answers where appropriate. Remember to include one or two questions of your own.

Popper claims that in his work, he was not looking for a criterion of truth or acceptability, nor (as he says toward the end of the selection) was he looking for a criterion of meaningfulness. What sort of criterion was he looking for? Why wasn’t he looking for one of these other criterions?

What is wrong with the traditional answer to his problem—the answer that science is distinctive in being empirical and inductive?

1. How, according to Popper, does Einstein’s theory importantly differ from Freud’s, Adler’s, and the Marxists’? I.e., what property does Einstein’s have in virtue of which it is scientific? Explain what this property is and why it functions as Popper’s criterion, rather than the property of being well-confirmed (a property which the other three theories each apparently have). What’s the problem with the sort of confirmation those theories have?

Does Popper insist on actual or practical testability or only on in principle or possible testability?

In what sense does Popper think Marxism and psychoanalysis are like myths? If a theory is like a myth in this sense, is it necessarily useless to science?

2. Kuhn agrees with Popper that scientists frequently perform tests, yet Kuhn differs from Popper on the nature of these tests. What sort of tests does Kuhn see as most frequent in science, and how do they differ from the tests which Popper discusses? What, according to Kuhn, do these tests reveal about the nature of science, and scientific progress, and how is this view contrary to Popper’s?

3. Briefly explain Kuhn’s conceptions of (and differences between) normal science and revolutionary science (the commentary may help here, as this article takes these concepts somewhat for granted).

4. In light of your answers to the above two questions, explain Kuhn’s provocative claim that “it is precisely the abandonment of critical discourse that marks the transition to a science” (14).

5. How does Kuhn argue that astrology actually does meet Popper’s criterion? How does Kuhn rule out astrology as a science?

Kuhn claims that even in the rare cases of revolutionary change (which is the type of change Kuhn thinks Popper focuses on to the exclusion of everything else), testing is not always a factor. Explain.