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Sources of Knowledge
Popper, Science & Democracy
Brian King follows Popper’s idea of the evolution of knowledge, life and society.
In an age in which both science and pseudo-science are more prominent than ever, it is useful to have a way to distinguish between them. The Austrian-British philosopher of science Sir Karl Popper (1902-94) gave us just that, in his 1934 book The Logic of Scientific Discovery. He called it falsification. A truly scientific theory, he said, consists of statements that can be rigorously tested against the evidence and potentially found to be false. Popper claimed that falsifiability is the key feature differentiating science from all other ways of thinking.
Ever since Aristotle in ancient times and Francis Bacon four hundred years ago, inductive logic was thought of as the method by which scientists discovered laws of nature. The sight of one white swan after another leads us to the theory that ‘all swans are white’ – in effect, a generalisation. However, as David Hume (1711-76) noted, the problem is that the generalisation does not logically follow. The more white swans you see, the more you might think the law ‘All swans are white’ is true – but this is just a psychological point about the way we think, not a point about the natural world, or swans. In fact, the only legitimate derivation would be that ‘all swans seen so far are white’. And to argue that the future will always be like the past because it always has been, would be a circular argument – assuming what you are trying to prove. Moreover, the observation of black swans in Australia immediately disproved the law that ‘all swans are white’, showing that inductive generalisations can be disproved with one counter-instance. Popper develops this point in a falsificationist direction by writing,
“as implied by Hume, we certainly are not justified in reasoning from an instance to the truth of the corresponding law. But to this negative result a second result… may be added: we are justified in reasoning from a counter-instance to the falsity of the corresponding universal law… Induction is logically invalid; but refutation or falsification is a logically valid way of arguing from a single counter-instance to – or, rather, against – the corresponding law.”
(The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1934).
Popper’s Theory of Science
Popper’s model for how science develops is that scientists propose a theory that enables them to makes predictions about what will be observed under certain conditions. They then test it by looking to see whether what the theory predicts actually happens. If the observations do not match the predictions then the theory is discarded or modified for another one that will explain both the previous data and the new data that contradicted the earlier prediction. Where a scientific theory comes from is unimportant. The important thing is that the theory is tested not so much to see if it’s right, but to see if it can be shown to be wrong.
Take for instance the phlogiston theory of fire. This once-popular theory said that when things burn they give off an element called ‘phlogiston’. This was found to be wrong by weighing the materials before and after burning, and the overall continuity in weight proved that the theory was wrong. Similarly, in astronomy, the position of Mars was observed to not be where Copernicus’s theory predicted it would be; and Kepler used this to show that planets did not orbit in perfect circles as Copernicus thought. Kepler then used his imagination and a lot of calculation to show that planets move in ellipses. There are many other examples of scientific ideas being disproved by observations. However, one big consequence of all this is that scientific theories are only provisionally true, and the important thing is that we ruthlessly test them to try to disprove them. Only then will a better theory develop that takes account of the observations – including the observations that disproved the previous theory.
In this way, science develops by a kind of ‘natural selection’: by constantly disproving theories, new ones emerge, and we continually get nearer and nearer the Truth. But it does mean that theories have to be falsifiable or refutable in order to be scientific – meaning, that it must be possible that some observation could disprove the theory. If not, then the theory is just a product of the imagination that would fit any possible circumstances – which is precisely what Popper claimed about Freudian psychoanalysis and astrology, among other examples. Due to the clarity and force of this distinction Popper continues to be a highly influential philosopher among scientists today. When you occasionally hear some scientist say “This theory is so bad, it’s not even wrong!”, this is usually what they’re trying to express. The finding of ‘non-scientific because non-falsifiable’ also applies to aspects of world views such as determinism, to some religious views, and arguably (and even more controversially), to the idea of ‘the survival of the fittest’ as the principle driving evolution. These ideas are not testable, in that all conceivable outcomes could be made to fit them. In other words, there is nothing specifically predictable from them, because anything that happens is explainable in their terms. Further, because it is not possible to falsify them, they do not lead to new, better theories. To that extent, they are intellectual dead ends.
Sir Karl Popper by Athamos Stradis
Evolution
Yet Popper does see this process of science gradually explaining more and more, as a kind of survival-of-the-fittest-theory. Life involves problem-solving, says Popper, and when lifeforms don’t solve the problems of their own survival then they die, and better-adapted lifeforms prosper instead.
The similarity between biological evolution and the evolution of science can be seen in terms of knowledge. But Popper means more than just knowledge couched in propositions. He means expectations of the world, which in many lifeforms would be unconscious, and in most cases would be inherited genetically in the form of dispositions to behave in and react to the environment in particular ways – such as a spider’s ability to create a web, or an amoeba’s ability to surround and ingest its food, or a baby mammal’s ability to find its milk source, or a sunflower’s ability to turn towards the sun. This is a form of innate ‘knowledge’, as instinct, or just chemical reaction; but it is knowledge in that it tells the organism what to do to survive. Similarly, in a very rudimentary form, theories are expectations or predispositions to believe and behave. If an organism’s expectations or predispositions are misleading, the organism does not thrive; and the same goes with theories – if they prove to be erroneous, they’re abandoned.
As I mentioned, the origin of a scientific theory isn’t important to Popper – what matters is that is that it can be tested and is capable of disproof. Nevertheless, according to Popper, the earliest origins of our scientific theories are out of what Immanuel Kant called ‘categories’ – that is, innate knowledge that enables our sense of the world to make sense. Popper would include in these kind of (non-linguistic) ideas: the idea that there is a three-dimensional world; that events have causes; that being on the edge of a high structure is dangerous; that there other minds than our own; and so on. These predispositions to think and feel would have been passed down genetically since they had survival advantages. We evolved as animals full of this kind of innate knowledge of our surroundings, in inherited biological systems such as our neural wiring, all of it derived from organisms finding ways to survive long enough to reproduce.
Language, Knowledge and Society
So forPopper the development of life and the development of human knowledge is a continuous process. This implies that the main difference between natural evolution and the evolution of science is that the latter is a conscious process which is made possible by the development of language. A brief discursion on language and thought will be helpful here.
‘Thought’ is a highly ambiguous word. Day-dreaming, enjoying a beautiful view, recalling moments of the past, wishing for a better future, feeling sad, happy, or remorseful, are all aspects of thought, in that they involve consciousness. These aspects seem not to require the use of language. But then there is thinking in a calculated, deliberate way, as when you try to work out the best way to assemble a machine, or to extricate yourself from a bad situation in a game of chess. Unlike the former ‘merely conscious’ aspects of thought, these latter situations require some accuracy and detail for their successful operation – but that does not mean they need words. Finally then, there is the more abstract type of thinking, such as when you’re considering the relative merits of a liberal democracy versus an authoritarian political system in a time of crisis, or whether a clear concept of God would involve self-contradictions, or whether Pythagoras’s proof would work in curved space. These last three examples involve the use of words or numbers for successful thinking. In these examples, thinking is more like talking to yourself in your mind.
But that’s weird: when you talk to someone else, the function is to transfer your thoughts to the other person, but when talking to yourself you presumably already know your thoughts (or you wouldn’t be able to formulate them in the first place); so why do you need to put them into words? Perhaps the function of words is not just to communicate ideas, but also to give your thoughts well defined form. This also enables you to put a complex line of thinking into one concept, denoted by one word – such as ‘love’, ‘justice’, ‘infinity’, etc.
For Lev Vygotsky, a twentieth century Russian psychologist, language use and thought are initially separate systems from birth, merging at about three years of age to produce verbal thought (inner speech). Speech, he argues, is social in origin. It is learned from others, and, at first, used for personal feelings and social functions. He argues that words’ uses develop as the child grows. Crucially, this development is linked to the child’s ability to think in increasingly general ways – in concepts, and using classes whereby words have meanings beyond just referring to concrete objects. In time, the child comes to have a self-directive aspect to his or her thinking, that eventually result in internalized verbal thought. Thus the acquisition of language by children moulds every aspect of their higher mental functions, enabling the emergence of meaning, imagination, action planning, and critical thinking. As Vygotsky says, “A word void of thought is a dead thing, the same way that a thought not accompanied by words remains in the shadows” and “Thought is not merely expressed in words; it comes into existence through them” (Thought and Language, 1934).
So words enable us to control our thinking in a deliberate, intentional way: instead of flights of feelings and the uninhibited flow of images, we have specific ideas couched in words. This is enabled by recursive thinking – the ability to contain one set of ideas labelled by a word within another idea that takes the form of a proposition, then more complex ideas made from many propositions. And once ideas can be grasped by words, then a person can develop critical thinking, which is perhaps the biggest development in human history. Thus language enables rational thinking and criticism. Or another way of looking at this is to consider the function of language, which as the German psychologist Karl Bühler says, gives humans the ability to formulate propositions which purport to describe the world and can be true or false, so the idea of truth is a consequence of the use of language to represent the world. This linguistic ability enables man to consider his assertions, in a more exact and more detached way.
The evolutionary process moves from the organism – homo sapiens – on to the development of thinking and beliefs, formulated in language, and shared so that others can consider their truth in relation to their own observations and beliefs, and if they do not match, to reject or modify them The development of criticism seems to arise with the idea that articulated beliefs can be true or false. And criticism of beliefs can lead to their rejection and replacement by more accurate ones. Progress in knowledge seems to be the result. In this sense, science is simply a more exact and demanding example of the common sense notion that we reject those ideas we do not find to correspond to the world.
Popper endorses the idea that there is an objective world’, and therefore that there are statements which can be objectively true, or at least nearer the truth than other statements. However, language also enables man to tell stories which create emotional resonance, enabling people to feel they share common values, and so belong to a group. So a further new dimension is that people become emotionally attached to ideas, and do not like to reject them – as can be seen with various religious and political ideas (including atheism).
However, things do not always work out socially: sometimes the beliefs behind social or political institutions and interactions can make things worse rather than better. Then, just like a scientific theory, the previous methodology of politics and society needs to be abandoned or adapted to ensure future success. To do this a society needs the ability to be critical of how it conducts its business, and the theory behind it – just as scientists need to be critical of their theories.
If social/political institutions and values, just like scientific laws, are only valid until disproved, then we should not believe in them unquestioningly. A good scientist should be pleased if his or her pet theory is shown to be false; it will afford an opportunity to come up with a better one, and that’s how science progresses. Similarly, people should not hold unquestioningly to political and social ideologies, institutions, or presuppositions, in case they’re preventing progress or blocking happiness. Popper’s call is for modesty and open-mindedness in our knowledge claims, whether about society or science – we all will be wrong somewhere! So we should all question our basic beliefs and values – and society should have institutions which enable us to do this socially. In other words, free speech is essential to a society developing.
Democracy and Open Societies
In The Open Society & Its Enemies (1945), Popper extends his thoughts about falsification into the realm of politics. Popper by this time was living in exile in New Zealand, and unsurprisingly after the traumas of the previous decade, was intensely concerned with how societies should be governed. Regimes are acceptable as long as they work towards man’s happiness. But they do not always do so. To put it mildly.
As we saw, language enable both criticism and storytelling: societies have been held together by ideologies, including religions or loyalty to monarchs and nations. To induce loyalty, these ways of thinking are supported by propaganda. This support can prevent criticism and fossilise societies, often with the aim of preserving the ruling classes. When this is to the extreme detriment of many people, revolutions can occur. But for Popper, revolutions do not work. He ascribes this to a theoretical point about ideal societies; to what he calls ‘historicism’; and also to an empirical point about revolutions.
Researchers in laboratory Rhoda Baer 2008 Public Domain
Popper dismisses the concept of ideal societies because we cannot know what the future will hold, except for the fact that change is inevitable; but this means that we would require some form of dictatorship to ensure people complied with the values of a utopia. Furthermore, the culture of ideal societies, such as a Marxist state, would promote what’s beneficial to the regime at the expense of truth. The propensity of utopian dictatorships to bend truth to conform to party or state interests undermines truth. In contrast with what Popper called ‘open societies’, which develop an inbuilt, institutionalised ability to deal with and adapt to criticism, utopian societies would believe their own propaganda and crush dissent. A utopia would become fossilised, incapable of change, and cruel in its imposition of control.
Popper also dismisses what he calls historicism – the idea that there is a law, direction or purpose to history, by which we will end up in some kind of better place (as is exemplified in Marxism). Laws of historical development cannot exist, Popper claims, because societies change in unforeseeable ways. This is partly a result of the connection between society and our knowledge, which changes over time in ways we cannot possibly predict. Take science, for instance: we cannot know what future scientific knowledge will be, otherwise we would already know it! Popper does acknowledge that we can have trends or patterns in history – such as the cyclical pattern of downturns in a free market economy – but that cannot be a universal law of history because it depends on a particular economic system, in this case free market capitalism, and we cannot know how long that system will last. We cannot even know that science and technology will continue to grow: they could become forgotten in some future scenarios. So laws governing the process of history are not possible, Popper says.
Popper’s empirical point about revolutions is based on the observation that historically, revolutions involve violence, propaganda, lies, and a utilitarian ethic that justifies whatever wrongs may be committed in order to achieve the revolution’s final success. This in turn this leads to repression and distortions of truth for the sake of ‘ends’. So while some revolutionaries may be more educated and humane than many conservatives (Popper was writing these ideas eighty years ago, and clearly had sympathy for many of the aims of, for instance, Marxists), they often do not take into account the will of the majority, for whom security, loyalty, and other non-revolutionary values are more important than, say, equality or social justice. Indeed, revolutionaries often dismiss the concerns of more conservative people as nothing more than preventing their aims, and so justify violence against them as legitimate.
Popper’s response to utopias such as Plato’s Republic or Marxist states, is that they ask the wrong question. They ask ‘Who should rule?’, and couch the values of the society in terms of peoples’ duties and responsibilities to the state. But for Popper, the questions should rather be, ‘How can we minimise misrule?’ and ‘How can we get rid of bad rulers without violence?’. He suggests that openness to change and criticism is the essential requirement –in other words, free speech imbedded in institutions such as parliaments to ensure both that societies are well governed, and that there are no revolutions. His answer is democracy, to ensure the minimisation of suffering through piecemeal practical reforms.
All this is a continuation of Popper’s ideas regarding the evolution of knowledge and the process of science. By being able to openly criticise theories, institutions, people, and policies, we can ensure that we have a chance of safeguarding the mass of peoples’ interests and the thriving of societies. Open societies can bend with the wind, and improve themselves through small incremental changes and institutions (themselves the result of previous criticisms and changes) which should be respected, but in a critical way. Here Popper sounds very much like Edmund Burke – but with perhaps a more sympathetic ear for socialist thinking. He also sounds very much like Darwin, as his description of societal evolution is based on survival of what works. Tellingly, there is no way future outcomes can be predicted – just as there is no way that the organisms produced by Darwinian evolution can be predicted.
© Brian King 2025
Brian King is a retired Philosophy and History teacher. He has published an eBook, Arguing About Philosophy, and now runs adult Philosophy and History groups via the University of the Third Age.