Abstract:
Based on the philosophy of science of “historicism,” represented by Kuhn, this article offers a critique of the scientific-philosophical foundations of Popper’s philosophy of history, and thereby of his anti-historicist philosophy of history. The author points out the close connection between Popper’s view of history and his view of science, and then, around the keywords “falsification,” “science,” “technology,” “wholeness,” “revolution,” and “history,” analyzes in turn the limitations and one-sidedness of Popper’s understanding of these concepts.
Keywords: Popper historicism falsificationism Kuhn holism revolution
January 14, 2007, 2:30 a.m., at Yangroupaoju
The title of this paper seems very strange—Kuhn is a famous philosopher of science, and he had many disagreements with Popper in the field of philosophy of science, but when did he ever refute Popper’s philosophy of history? But it is precisely by means of Kuhn’s philosophy of science that I intend to criticize Popper’s view of history. The connection between the two will be discussed step by step below.
It should be explained that what this article discusses is Popper’s thought and not Kuhn’s; thus Kuhn’s thought is used only as one major weapon for refuting Popper, and many of my objections do not in fact come from Kuhn.
Popper’s most influential, and at the same time most controversial, philosophical claims are, first, the doctrine of “falsificationism” in the philosophy of science, and second, the critique of “historicism” in the philosophy of history—or rather, in political philosophy. For Popper, the passage from philosophy of science to political philosophy is “a consistent whole”; philosophy of science is the starting point and foothold of Popper’s thought, and his views on philosophy of history are in fact an extension and working-out of his falsificationism. But for Popper’s opponents, philosophy of science and philosophy of history were far from closely connected, and had even once been two fields that scarcely interacted at all. This made Popper’s opponents, especially those who objected to Popper’s philosophy of history, easy prey to a passive position—they could at most insist: one cannot simply apply the methods or theories of the natural sciences to history or the social sciences. But Popper’s counterattack was: you think the methods of the social sciences differ from those of the natural sciences, but do you know what the methods of the natural sciences are? In fact, you do not understand the natural sciences at all; by what right, then, do you claim that the social sciences differ from the natural sciences? Popper believed that unless one accepted the most reasonable view of science—that is, the falsificationism he advocated—then whether one claimed the methods of the social sciences were the same as or different from those of the natural sciences, one would be wrong; historicism “is influenced by holist ideas throughout, and all of it stems from a misunderstanding of the methods of the natural sciences.”[①]
And many philosophers of history really do not understand the debates in the philosophy of science, so the most they can do is always to hold their ground and “defend” themselves, making it difficult to mount an effective counterattack. Thus, if one wants to reverse this passive position and launch an active “offensive” against Popper’s philosophy of history, one must necessarily begin with philosophy of science.
Popper’s philosophy of science has been no less controversial than his philosophy of history. First of all, it is not at all as Popper said: that it was he who destroyed the positivist school. On the contrary, positivists had already raised many extremely important objections to falsificationism. Positivism, rather than being destroyed by Popper, disintegrated from within. In this respect, Quine—a holist—had a far greater influence than Popper, and Quine’s holism, together with his philosophy of language, would likewise strike a blow at Popper. However, what concerns me more are the refutations that came after Popper—especially those from Kuhn. Coincidentally, the new school of philosophy of science founded by Kuhn is precisely what is called “historicism.”
Kuhn’s “historicism” is completely different from the “historical determinism” opposed by Popper. However, compared with the historicism described by Popper, this label is actually more fitting for Kuhn. “Kuhn’s view of history is in the same line of descent as historicism in the philosophy of history, and that is why Kuhn is said to be a historicist. This is closely related to the historicization of reason in the philosophy of history.”[②]
As a new current in philosophy of history, so-called “historicism” is precisely “a revolt against the Greek view of history and the rationalist view of history”[③]; that is to say, historicism rejects the search for “general laws” behind history, and the quest for ultimate causes or purposes. And what Popper describes as “historical determinism,” the attempt to find regularities in history and make predictions, is exactly what historicists oppose.
One cannot blame Popper for confusing concepts; Popper himself did not use the English “historism” corresponding to the German “Historismus,” but instead coined “historicism” on his own, presumably precisely in order to mark a distinction. Popper says: “I have tried throughout to describe historicism as a considered and closely woven philosophy. I have not shrunk from constructing arguments in its support, and these supporting arguments have, to my knowledge, all of them not been put forward by historicists themselves. I hope, therefore, that I have succeeded in constructing a genuinely useful attacking position. In other words, I have tried to work out a theory which is often put forward but which has hardly ever been fully formulated. This is why I have carefully chosen the somewhat unusual label ‘historicism.’ By introducing it, I hope to avoid purely verbal quibbles: for I do not want anyone to try to question whether any of the arguments discussed here really and properly live essentially in historicism, or to question what is the true, proper, or essential meaning of the word ‘historicism.’”[④] That is to say, the so-called “historicism” Popper criticized was one that Popper himself had “constructed,” and his benevolent “improvement” of historicism was probably not accepted by any actual school of philosophy of history. Yet in Popper, apart from himself, any philosophical position on history would fall into historicism (because they misunderstand the methods of the natural sciences), and he lumped together a variety of entirely different views of history for criticism. This is somewhat like the once-popular practice of classifying all sorts of rich and varied schools and doctrines under the banner of “idealism” and then attacking them all in one stroke. The greatest feature of this kind of sweeping critique is that it leaves the opponent with no room to fight back, because the opponent’s characteristics are simply pieced together—or even designed—out of thin air. If one adopts a defensive posture from the standpoint of “historicism,” it is easy to fall into the trap built by Popper,
What Popper calls “historicism” mainly refers to “historical determinism.” For example, Popper says: “The central point of the historicist method, and more especially of Marxism, seems to be this. … Just as an eclipse can be predicted, so can a revolution be predicted.”[⑤] The usual response would be something like: “Marx did not mean that, but rather…” or “History is not necessarily entirely unpredictable; one can…”—these responses may well be reasonable, but they remain passive defense, and further discussion is easily governed by the concepts and lines of thought constructed by Popper. Therefore, a more direct response is not to defend some particular view attacked by Popper, but rather to focus one’s mind on examining Popper’s own argument.
Below, I will take several keywords as guides and, beginning with philosophy of science, criticize Popper’s philosophy of history.
Replacing “verification” with “falsification,” and taking “falsifiability” as the criterion and principle of science, is one of Popper’s most influential creations. The superiority of this substitution seems quite obvious: no universal proposition can ever be fully verified in logic, but as soon as one counterexample appears, it is decisively falsified. For example, the proposition “All swans are white” can never be absolutely verified no matter how many white swans one examines; yet once a black swan is found, the proposition is falsified. In this way Popper solved the problem of induction that had troubled philosophers ever since Hume, by wholly abolishing induction.
However, it is precisely the view that “observation is theory-laden,” which Popper himself also advocated, that makes falsificationism far from logically perfect—“if the truth of a certain observational statement O is already given, then it is possible to derive, in logic, the falsity of a theory from which not-O is derived. But it is precisely falsificationists themselves who insist that observational statements, which form the basis of science, are theory-dependent and fallible. Therefore the conflict between T and O does not result in T’s being false. The logical conclusion from the fact that T entails a prediction inconsistent with O is: either T is false or O is false. When observation and experiment provide evidence that conflicts with the predictions of some law or theory, perhaps the evidence is wrong, not the law or theory. … Put bluntly, conclusive falsification of theory by observation is impossible.”[⑥]
In addition, the so-called “Duhem-Quine thesis” reminds us that what leads to a certain observation is not only a theory or hypothesis, but also initial conditions, auxiliary assumptions, and so on—for example, restrictions on conditions such as temperature during an experiment, external disturbances, and the like. Moreover, these conditions and assumptions are often difficult to exhaust; in the end, one often has to add a clause such as “all other things being equal.” And once actual observations are found not to match theoretical predictions, what is at fault is not necessarily the theory itself; more often, some experimental condition has not been properly controlled, or there exists some unknown interfering factor. Thus, an experimenter can never have a logical standard for deciding whether to continue searching for unknown interfering factors or to reject the original theory.
Popper’s answer might be: as long as a prediction turns out wrong, it can be regarded as falsified; we can learn from the error and thereby propose new hypotheses and initiate change. And Popper distinguishes conservative change from revolutionary change, while within the more conservative kind of change he distinguishes between “ad hoc hypotheses” and “auxiliary hypotheses.”[⑦] For example, when it was discovered that Uranus’s motion did not accord with the predictions of Newton’s theory, the hypothesis “there exists a new planet” was auxiliary, because it was “independently testable.” However, what Popper says is falsified is actually only the prediction that “Uranus will move in such and such a way.” But science is not composed of such individual assertions, as Popper also fully understood: the main part of a scientific theory consists of universal propositions. People expect falsificationism to handle the problem of universal propositions more effectively than verificationism. When Popper says scientific theories must be “falsifiable,” what he wants to express is things like “Newton’s first law is logically falsifiable,” “Einstein’s theory of relativity is logically falsifiable,” and so on. Merely saying that the prediction about “Uranus will move in such and such a way” has been refuted does not teach us anything—we do not know where the problem lies. Only when we are clear that the error lies in the auxiliary conditions rather than the basic theory do we know that Newton’s law has not been falsified by this event; on the contrary, it has become even more convincing. Finally, the event that is decisive is precisely Neptune’s discovery, which “confirms” the hypothesis that “there exists a new planet.” Similarly, only when the perihelion advance of Mercury, a genuine counterexample to Newton’s law of gravitation, became a “confirmation” of Einstein’s theory of relativity was it truly established as a “falsification” of Newton’s law.
Imagine if Neptune had not been found in the expected place? Would Newton’s law then have been “falsified”? One could further propose new hypotheses, for example that there existed a dark star that did not reflect light, or that a cloud of interstellar dust was obscuring it, and so on. Of course, at certain times one may also need to resort to the so-called “ad hoc hypotheses” that are temporarily untestable. Popper’s attitude toward this sort of hypothesis is rather contradictory; he says: “Do not issue over-severe decrees against ad hoc hypotheses: they may finally turn testable, just as a metaphysical hypothesis may change. But in general our criterion of testability warns us against ad hoc hypotheses. … Ad hoc hypotheses, that is to say auxiliary hypotheses which are untestable at the time, can save almost any theory from any particular refutation.”[⑧] It is clear that Popper too recognized the ambiguity of his scientific criterion, but he never proposed an effective improvement.
Compared with the earlier positivists, Popper was one of the earlier philosophers of science to advocate paying attention to the history of science. He remarks: “Only he who understands science (that is, the scientific problems) can understand the history of science. Only he who has a true understanding of the history of science (the history of the situation of scientific problems) can understand science.”[⑨] Yet the historical fact is: “if the methodology [of falsificationism] were rigidly followed by scientists, then those theories regarded as the best exemplars in scientific theory would never have had a chance to develop, because they would have been rejected in their infancy. One may take any classic scientific theory as an example: whether at the time of its proposal or later on, one can find observational statements that were then accepted and regarded as inconsistent with that theory. Nevertheless, those theories were not rejected, and the fact that they were not abandoned has been the good fortune of science.”[⑩]
For example, in the sixty years after Newton’s law of universal gravitation was proposed, the predicted value for the moon’s apogee motion always remained only half the observed value; physicists were also never able to find the source of the problem or propose a reasonable hypothesis, but no one seriously considered modifying the law of universal gravitation. It was not until 1750 that people understood: the mathematics applied was wrong, while Newton’s theory had been valid from beginning to end.[11] And when Maxwell first published the detailed content of the theory of gases in 1859, he admitted in the very same paper that this theory had been falsified by measurements of the specific heat of gases.[12] Copernicus’s heliocentric theory, at the time of its proposal, not only had to face objections such as the impossibility of observing parallax, but its predictive accuracy was no higher than that of the Ptolemaic system. Its advantage lay merely in the theory’s “simplicity.”
As Kuhn said, in the history of science, “the early formulation of new theories, including inadequate formulations of novel concepts, persevered and developed in the face of repeated apparent refutations. Only after centuries of intellectual labor and practical activity by many scientists, and after the new system of physics had finally been established, could the new theory succeed in matching observation and experiment even in detail.”[13]
Popper also understood these facts of the history of science; for example, he too mentioned: “When Copernicus put forward his system, the Ptolemaic system had not yet been refuted.”[14] He also spoke of the necessity of defending old theories: “A limited dogmatism is necessary for progress. Without a serious struggle for survival, a stubborn defense of old theories, the competing theories cannot display their mettle — that is, they cannot display their explanatory power and their truth content.”[15] But he never proposed an effective solution. When criticizing Popper’s criterion of falsification, Kuhn said, with no little irony: “Sir Karl is of course no naïve falsificationist; he understands everything that has just been said, and he has emphasized this from the beginning of his career. For example, as early as The Logic of Scientific Discovery, he wrote: ‘A theory can never, as a matter of fact, be finally refuted; we can always say that the experimental results are unreliable, and that any alleged discrepancy between the experimental results and the theory is merely apparent and will disappear with the progress of our understanding.’ These statements show that in scientific outlook he and I are much more in agreement, though our understanding is again utterly different. To my mind this is fundamental, both as an argument and as a source. But Sir Karl thinks exactly the opposite: that this is merely a substantive limitation threatening the integrity of his basic position. He rules out the final refutation, but cannot find anything to replace it with; hence the account he gives remains logical falsification. So, although Sir Karl is by no means a naïve falsificationist, I think there is reason to view him that way.”[16]
Regarding the mismatch between facts from the history of science and falsificationism, some writers defend Popper by saying that his doctrine is not descriptive but transcendental — that is, it does not explain the actual development of science but provides norms and guidance for scientific research, and so on. Yet the key issue is, as Kuhn said, that falsificationism is not sufficient to characterize the main features of science; certain things Popper evaded are precisely the parts of scientific activity that cannot be ignored. I will discuss these in the next part.
By the way, at least some claims commonly regarded as scientific are also unfalsifiable; for example, “all human beings die.” It cannot be logically verified, but it also cannot be logically falsified — to falsify this proposition is to find a person who will not die. Suppose such an immortal person really did exist, say he lived to be a thousand years old; even then we still could not prove that he would not die in the next few years. Interestingly, Popper himself also mentioned this statement, “all mortals must die,” and pointed out that this “accepted law” had already been refuted! He said: this law “was part of Aristotle’s theory — all living things must, after a certain period, weaken and die. Although the length of this period is determined by the nature of the organism, it also varies with accidental circumstances. This theory was refuted by the discovery that bacteria do not necessarily die; division and reproduction are not death; and later it was recognized that although it seems that all forms of living things can be killed by violent means, in general, living beings are not doomed to perish… For example, … cancer cells can continue to live.”[17] But how did this “discovery” that “cancer cells do not necessarily die” come about? First of all, this claim too cannot be verified, because even if we observe a certain cancer cell still showing no signs of weakening after 100 million divisions, that still does not prove it will not die after 100 trillion divisions. So saying that cancer cells do not necessarily die is at most a new hypothesis — that is to say, falsifying a hypothesis with a hypothesis? Then how is this new hypothesis, supposedly qualified to falsify the old one, to be established? Unfortunately, even as a hypothesis this claim is not up to standard, because logically it cannot be falsified either — its negation, the universal statement “all cancer cells also die,” cannot be verified by observation. This example shows that even for Popper himself, the practical application of the criterion of falsifiability is highly problematic.
Popper took “falsifiability” as the criterion for distinguishing science from pseudoscience and non-science. Scientific theories must be capable of being falsified, whereas ambiguous theories that can never be refuted are not science. This criterion is quite enlightening; however, if taken only as such, it is still far from sufficient.
As Kuhn pointed out, some pseudosciences also make predictions that are highly falsifiable: for example, “astrology has had a history of intellectually refutable predictions over the course of several centuries, recording many plainly failed prophecies.”[18] Imagine a mysterious cult leader declaring that the world will turn to ashes in an instant on November 10, 2010; this prophecy is obviously falsifiable. By contrast, the claim that the world will not turn to ashes on November 10, 2010 is not falsifiable at all — to falsify the latter claim, one would have to observe that at that very moment the world was indeed completely destroyed. Yet if one observer survived, that would show that the world had not been entirely destroyed, and so falsification of this claim would in principle be impossible. Then is the prophecy of world destruction scientific, while the assertion that the world will not be destroyed is pseudoscientific? This is clearly hard to accept.
The key issue is that, as I have already mentioned, science is not built up out of one prediction after another. Popper consistently carried through his anti-holistic position: for him, science is only an activity undertaken by individuals, testing and revising one assertion after another. For Kuhn, by contrast, science is a collective human enterprise.
Popper believed: “Science should be conceived as a continuous advance from problem to problem”[19]; yet in his concrete discussions, Popper in fact still interpreted scientific progress as the replacement of one set of assertions by another. Still, even if one says that science is an advance from problem to problem, what exactly is a scientific problem? Where do scientists get the standards by which they judge which scientific problems are legitimate and worth researching, and which solutions are reasonable and convincing?
Kuhn noticed that scientists’ preferences in choosing problems and solutions are not governed by a set of universal standards transcending history; in different eras and under different theoretical backgrounds, scientists’ worldviews are different. Kuhn used the term “paradigm” to summarize the theoretical background, worldview, methodological habits, standards of judgment, and so on of a scientific community: “… a paradigm not only gives scientists a map, but also gives them map-making instructions. In learning a paradigm, scientists simultaneously learn theory, method, and standards, which are usually entangled with one another and hard to disentangle. Thus when paradigms change, the standards that determine the legitimacy of problems and solutions also usually undergo major change.”[20]
Popper also noticed the influence of the “problem situation” in history, and even maintained that “the chief aim of historical understanding is entirely to reconstruct hypothetically a historical problem situation.”[21] To take an example, why did Galileo not accept the theory that the moon affects the tides? Popper pointed out: “Galileo’s tentative theory was not merely an attempt to explain the changing tides; it was also an attempt, within a certain background and within a given theoretical framework, to explain the changing tides.”[22] Popper also realized that comparison within different “theoretical frameworks” is difficult, but he believed that this difficulty could and must be overcome. In “The Myth of the Framework,” Popper criticized doctrines represented by Kuhn, saying: “Frameworks may be obstacles, just as language may be, but different frameworks are like foreign languages and are not absolute obstacles.”[23]
Yet for Kuhn, comparing paradigms to translation between different languages is precisely an apt metaphor. The “incommensurability” between paradigms that Kuhn emphasized does not mean that they cannot be compared at all. The term “incommensurable” originally refers to the relation between the diagonal of a square and its side length, that is, “not divisible evenly” or “without a common measure,” and their lengths are obviously comparable. The point of using translation between languages as a metaphor for incommensurability is not whether translation is possible or difficult, but rather to emphasize the ambiguity and uncertainty of translation. A rabbit in one language may be a duck in another; the meaning of one word in one language may require thousands of characters to explain in another. A language system, just like a scientific paradigm, is a whole, not an accumulation of one word after another. Behind every word are a series of related meanings involving worldview, values, linguistic habits, historical background, and so on. Therefore, translation between languages cannot have a mechanical, determinate method, such as mapping some words onto others. Merely following a vocabulary list and grammatical rules cannot accomplish translation well; more accurate translation can only be completed on the basis of an overall understanding of another language system — including the culture, history, and worldview behind it. In other words, translation or communication between languages is not based on comparisons between one word and another, one sentence and another, but on communication and transformation between wholes and wholes. The same is true of Popper’s so-called “theoretical framework” or Kuhn’s so-called “paradigm”: a theoretical framework is not simply built out of a pile of individual statements, nor can the transition between paradigms be achieved by modifying statements one by one. Therefore, a paradigm revolution must be “holistic,” not “piecemeal and gradual.” This point will be discussed again later in the section on “wholes” and “revolution.”
Beyond their understanding of scientific revolutions, the more important difference between Kuhn and Popper lies in their understanding of “normal science.” In their debate, Popper thanked Kuhn for reminding him of the existence of “normal science.” Yet their understandings of “normal science” were worlds apart. Popper said: “Normal science in Kuhn’s sense exists. It is a non-revolutionary activity, or, to put it more precisely, a non-critical professional activity.”[24] Popper thought normal science was conservative, dogmatic, and embarrassing. Kuhn, however, took normal science as the main characteristic of scientific activity; it is precisely in normal science that science is distinguished from philosophy and pseudoscience.
What Popper regarded as the main feature of science, Kuhn saw as science’s special performance in extraordinary periods. Kuhn noted: “The examples he (Popper) likes are, in the end, frightening and destructive, such as Lavoisier’s calcination experiments, the 1919 eclipse expedition, and the recent mass-energy conservation experiments. These are classic tests, but if Sir Karl uses them to indicate where the characteristics of scientific activity lie, he will miss the essential point. Such cases are rare in the development of science. They occur either because a crisis already exists here (Lavoisier’s experiment or the Lee-Yang experiment), or because some other theory is competing with the existing research rules (Einstein’s general relativity). These are what I call the enterprise of ‘extraordinary research,’ where scientists do indeed display many of the characteristics Sir Karl emphasizes; but this kind of research, at least in the past, appeared intermittently only under very special conditions in a given scientific specialty.”[25] “Only when a choice must be made among competing theories do scientists act like philosophers.”[26] As Chalmers said: “Popper’s method is very good for describing the epic picture of Einstein bringing his originality into play and making great progress by challenging some basic principles of physics, but we should not forget the fact that two hundred years of detailed work within the Newtonian paradigm, and one hundred years of detailed work within electromagnetic theory, were needed to reveal the problems Einstein was able to identify and solve with his theory of relativity. Constant criticism of basic principles is a characteristic of philosophy, not of science.”[27]
What Kuhn emphasized precisely is this “normal science” of doing detailed work under a fixed paradigm. The main activity of normal science is not criticism and debate, but the solving of “difficult problems,” or, in other words, “puzzle-solving.” In Kuhn’s view, the anomalous experiences that troubled falsificationism — those mismatches with prediction that had never in fact been treated as refutations — precisely define the main task of normal science. Kuhn said: “… anomalous experience is not the same as refuting experience. I even doubt the existence of the latter. As I have repeatedly emphasized earlier, no theory can solve all the puzzles it faces in a given period; even the solutions already obtained are rarely perfect. Quite the contrary, it is precisely this incompleteness and imperfection in the fit between theory and data that define many of the puzzles characteristic of normal science. If a slight discrepancy between theory and data were enough to justify abandoning the theory, then all theories ought to be abandoned at any time.”[28]
No theory can solve everything; no theory is without flaws. At any stage in the development of science, there are always many “unsolved puzzles” awaiting scientists to crack. For example: “Why does the orbit of Uranus not match prediction?” “How is the phenomenon of Mercury’s perihelion advance to be explained?” “Why are only one third of the solar neutrinos observed on Earth as many as expected?” “How is ball lightning formed?” and so on. These puzzles are generally the “research topics” of normal scientific work. Scientists take the current theory as the “rules of the game” for solving problems; of course they will put forward “hypotheses,” but those hypotheses generally do not negate the current theory — rather, they seek to explain the phenomenon within the current theoretical framework. They will produce papers such as “Speculations on the Formation Mechanism of Ball Lightning,” and design experiments to test them. Yet their speculations are usually only about how to use existing theories of mechanics, electricity, and chemistry to explain the phenomenon; few people would believe that explaining ball lightning would actually require rewriting certain laws of physics. And the tests they design “are usually not aimed at the current theory” — “… they are only tests of his own conjectures. If the conjectures cannot withstand the test, then what should be blamed is only his personal ability, not the entire scientific system of today. In short, although normal science is continually subjected to tests, it is a special kind of testing: what is tested after all is only the individual scientist, not the current theory.”[29] And if the conjecture passes the test, that means precisely the success of the current theory rather than its failure; its result is a supplement, improvement, or refinement of the current theory, not a refutation of it.
Only when certain serious inconsistencies long remain unresolved, and people increasingly lose patience and confidence in the possibility that the current paradigm can ultimately solve these puzzles, do some begin to propose all kinds of ways of breaking with the current paradigm, and science enters the “extraordinary period,” that is, the period of “crisis” in Kuhn’s sense. At this point various new paradigms are proposed and compete with one another. The motive for abandoning the old paradigm and choosing the new one is not that the old paradigm has been falsified, or that the new paradigm is necessarily stronger than the old one in problem-solving ability, but rather that people have lost confidence in the old paradigm’s ability to solve puzzles and hope and believe that the new paradigm will in the future solve these puzzles better. This is the motive of scientific revolution; in fact, it is very similar to what happens in political revolution, and I will discuss it further in the later section on “revolution.”
In short, we can see that Popper’s view of science is highly idealized, and also “privatized”; it ignores the public and holistic character of science, and therefore remains far removed from real scientific activity. This has something to do with Popper’s anti-holistic stance. I will discuss holism shortly, but before that, the question “what is science” is still not finished. I think Popper not only failed to grasp the characteristics of scientific activity in full, but also had a very one-sided understanding of scientific method, for example in his understanding of “experiment” and “technology.”
What Popper especially valued, and what he praised, were the scientists he called “pure scientists.” He referred to those scientists who merely learned the usable techniques without criticism as “applied scientists.”[30] Perhaps precisely out of contempt, Popper never seriously paid attention to the issue of “applied science.” But unfortunately, what we call “technology” and “engineering,” especially the latter, are to a great extent precisely so-called “applied science”; indeed, historically speaking, they originally were not part of science at all — and yet these distinctions were completely ignored by Popper.
The neglect of the features that distinguish engineering and technology from pure science is not really much of a problem in Popper’s philosophy of science—since he simply never talks about them at all. But when Popper frequently uses terms like “social engineering” in his philosophy of history, this issue becomes crucial.
Popper believed that “the true method of the social sciences is not the historicist method of predicting social development, but the trial-and-error method that has proved effective in the natural sciences. The task of the social sciences is not to control society as a whole, to carry out utopian engineering for the wholesale transformation of society, but to treat social ills step by step, one by one, and gently.”[31] Yet whether the aim is wholesale transformation or gradual improvement, Popper also recognized that the task of the social sciences is to carry out a certain kind of social engineering. The purpose of engineering is practical construction, whereas the purpose of pure science is the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake; this difference is fundamental.
Technology and engineering, which aim at practical utility, are utterly different from experiments carried out to test scientific theories. Although “experimentation” is often also regarded as part of technology, the two are nonetheless different things—if an engineer said this when bidding on a project: “Building this structure will be an experiment, whose purpose is to see whether my knowledge is wrong!” who would dare hire such an engineer? Even if one says that pure scientists should sincerely hope their theories will be falsified, does that mean an architect should hope that the bridge he builds will collapse?
Confusing experiment with engineering led Popper to misunderstand other claims about social transformation. Popper said: “The experimentalism of holism seems to contribute very little to our experimental knowledge; and indeed these activities can only be called ‘experiments’ in a sense in which the word is synonymous with action whose outcome is uncertain. Yet in another sense the word is used to designate a means of acquiring knowledge by comparing the results obtained with the results expected.”[32] But holists probably never thought of themselves as “doing experiments”; they are not architects hoping for bridge collapses. Nor have they ever thought of obtaining any knowledge in the process of social transformation. A project of transformation is the application of theories already firmly believed to be reliable, not a test of them.
Popper also commented: “This view is shared by utopianism and historicism, namely that if carried out on a sufficiently large scale, social experiments (if there really is such a thing) can be valuable. This widely held prejudice includes the belief that in the social sphere we can seldom be in a position to carry out the results of ‘planned experiments,’ and therefore we must turn to history.” Popper pointed out, “I have two objections to this view: (a) it ignores those piecemeal experiments that are fundamental to all social knowledge—pre-scientific as well as scientific—and (b) holistic experiments are unlikely to contribute much to our experimental knowledge; they may be called ‘experiments’ only in the sense of a synonym for an action whose outcome is not certain, not in the sense of a means of acquiring knowledge by comparing the results obtained with the results expected.”[33]
Against Popper, I also have two objections: first, since this is an anti-naturalist doctrine, why should one also hold that historical research must “do experiments”? As Popper quotes Mill in a note: “We plainly are not able to try any social experiments. We can only observe the things which Nature produces. … the succession of phenomena recorded in history …”[34] — knowledge in history comes from “observation” rather than experiment; an anti-naturalist doctrine holds that the methods of historical research differ from those of the natural sciences, much less that one must rely on experiments to obtain knowledge. Further, even in the natural sciences, experiment is not the only method of acquiring knowledge. The experimental method in science arose together with modern science, but in premodern science (not to mention pre-science), there were two more traditional ways of scientific inquiry: mathematical deduction and natural history—the astronomy of ancient Greece, Aristotle’s natural history, never used the experimental method. Especially until Darwin, natural history remained a scientific tradition whose primary means of acquiring knowledge was observation rather than experiment. The method of history is in fact closer to natural history; the Western name for natural history, translated literally, is “natural history,” and its original meaning was precisely to study nature by historical methods. Popper’s assumption that “all theories are experiments”[35] is obviously too simplistic.
Second, as noted above, Popper confuses science and technology. From the perspective of the history of human technology, the development of science and technology has basically been independent of one another. Engineering specialists do not necessarily need to understand science (as in the case of ancient China), and scientists do not necessarily need to use engineering technology to verify their theories. Even in modern times, when science and technology have become increasingly intertwined, Popper still confuses the distinction between experiment and engineering: what helps scientists confirm or falsify theories is scientific experiment, not engineering technology. Engineering is the practical use of scientific theories that have already been confirmed; in engineering, what is applied is always those scientific theories that have been verified as sufficiently reliable. Scientists never ask or hope to learn from engineering; a failed arch bridge does not add anything to theoretical science. At most, what can be learned from it are lessons for engineers (their carelessness or lack of knowledge, and so on), not for physics. Popper failed to distinguish the similarities and differences between science and technology, and equated “social engineering” with “social experiments.” Perhaps for the “piecemeal engineering” he advocates, experiment and engineering are the same thing; however, for the holist claims he criticizes, it is also wrong to equate their social engineering with social experiment. Holists’ “social blueprints” and “social planning” cannot be regarded as “experiments.” I will discuss “holism” further in the next section.
By the way, even within so-called pure science, the significance of experiment is not always supreme. Popper often mentions Einstein’s influence on him, but he does not mention Einstein’s even more famous remark: it is said that when Einstein’s prediction about the bending of light was confirmed by experiment after experiment, someone asked Einstein what he would think if his prediction were proved wrong, and Einstein replied: “I would feel sorry for dear God; after all, my theory is correct.” — Einstein was never concerned with experimental verification, and cared instead about the beauty and harmony of theory itself. This tendency toward “rationalism” and even “a priorism” can be found among the most advanced theoretical physicists such as Dirac and Feynman.
Back to the topic: can the experimental method be applied to the social sciences? Popper said: “The historicist argues that the experimental method cannot be applied in the social sciences because we cannot arbitrarily reproduce precisely similar experimental conditions in the social sphere. … Yet I would say that the historicist argument rests on a complete misunderstanding of the experimental method in physics. … Every experimental physicist knows that very different things can appear under conditions that seem extremely similar. Two wires may look almost exactly alike at first sight, yet if one is replaced by the other in an electrical instrument, the result may differ greatly. … To find out what kind of similarity is relevant and what degree of similarity is sufficient may require long-term theoretical and experimental research. …”[36] Here Popper overlooks a crucial issue: in electrical experiments one can replace one wire with another, and then replace it back again; one can repeatedly adjust and fine-tune, while keeping the other variables constant, and, as Popper says, such fine-tuning requires long-term research. But in history and most social sciences, the development of events is one-way and irreversible. In microeconomics perhaps one can carry out some experiments, but in macroeconomics this is very difficult—once a policy mistake causes economic collapse, or a diplomatic blunder sparks war, can we, like in an electrical experiment, say, “Something went wrong! Quick, put the original wire back!”?
Of course, Popper might say that precisely because of this one must oppose the holists’ social experiments (Popper imagines that holism also does experiments), and so he advocates piecemeal social engineering: a series of small-scale experiments, which, even if they fail, do little harm, rather than holistic, comprehensive experimentation. But the question is whether such a reductionist strategy is possible, and whether it works.
In Popper’s own terms, we can say: Popper’s criticism of holism rests on a complete misunderstanding of holistic science. Yet these misunderstandings cannot really be blamed on Popper, because the holist trend in the true sense did not arise until the second half of the twentieth century—more precisely, not until the 1970s. But now, of course, we can look back and examine the shortcomings in Popper’s position.
First, Popper held that “the whole” is not a suitable empirical object of scientific research. He said: “The first theory believes that the social sciences study the behavior of social wholes such as groups, nations, classes, society, the civilized world, and so on. These social wholes are regarded as empirical objects, and social science studies them in the way biology studies plants and animals.” “This view is naïve and must be refuted. It completely ignores the fact that these so-called social wholes are not empirical objects at all, but are basically postulates of popular social theory. Although it is generally acknowledged that empirical objects such as the crowd gathered here exist, it is entirely wrong to say that names like ‘the middle class’ represent such empirical groups. What they represent are conceptual objects whose existence depends on theoretical assumptions.”[37]
Yet what holism maintains is precisely that the whole is different from the sum of its parts, and that the whole cannot simply be studied in the same way as individuals are studied. To say that holism treats the whole as a general “physical entity” or a general “empirical object” is Popper’s simplification of holism. Holism takes the whole as an object of study, but never as an object like an animal or plant individual. Take biology, for example: holistic claims in biology require special attention to objects such as “populations,” “communities,” and “ecospheres,” and the existence of these objects likewise depends on theoretical assumptions, yet they are still objects that can and deserve to be studied.
Second, Popper believed that experiments on wholes not only have serious consequences, but also that it is difficult for us to learn from major mistakes—“since so much has been done at once, it is impossible to say which special method is responsible for any of these results; … such experiments do not help us attribute specific results to specific methods; all we can do is … and whatever that may mean, it is certainly difficult to estimate.”[38] Popper declared: “The blueprint of piecemeal engineering is relatively simple. They are blueprints for single institutions, such as health insurance or unemployment insurance, or blueprints for educational reform. If they go wrong, the harm is not great, and readjustment is not very difficult.”[39]
Yet, on the one hand, as I have already noted above, holism does not necessarily require using the whole as an experiment; it can obtain knowledge through “observation” and transform the whole through applied engineering. On the other hand, can the piecemeal experiments Popper advocates really provide us with a comprehensive understanding of society as a whole? I am afraid that this is wishful thinking:
First, drawing definite conclusions from piecemeal experiments is probably harder than drawing conclusions from holistic reforms. For example, if we make some adjustments to unemployment insurance policy and, after a period of time, find that the social economy and public satisfaction have both improved, does that mean the policy is successful? But there may be many reasons for the improvement in economic conditions: perhaps the weather was especially good that year, or the international environment was favorable, or perhaps the birth policy thirty years ago affected current employment conditions, and so on. Moreover, even if no policies are adjusted at all, economic and various social conditions fluctuate from time to time; on what basis, then, can we conclude that a slight improvement in the economy was caused by a slight adjustment in unemployment insurance? We could also say: “Since so little was done at one time, it is impossible to distinguish the result from all the other disturbing factors.” At the very least, we can still ascribe “the overall result” to the holistic experiment, but we can hardly ascribe anything at all to a piecemeal experiment!
Second, holism points out: piecemeal probing into parts is very difficult to reveal the behavior tendency of the whole. Perhaps even a housewife can understand this. For example, if we try to find a way to make fried chicken wings tastier…
To fry a chicken wing, roughly speaking, one needs to control factors such as the amount of oil, the strength of the heat, and the length of time. Suppose the current method is: use less oil, lower heat, and a longer frying time. The result? It is barely acceptable (at least it is cooked).
Following Popper’s line of thought, do not make a comprehensive reform; instead, test factors one by one: first keep everything else unchanged and try adding some oil. The result is that not only is this wasteful, it also lowers the oil temperature, leaving the wings half-cooked; failure. Then keep the original amount of oil and the time unchanged, and try high heat. The result is that the oil is almost burned dry; of course that is also failure. Finally, keep the oil and the heat, but reduce the time. No doubt, it is simply not cooked through; failure! The final conclusion is that increasing the amount of oil, increasing the heat, or reducing the time are all inappropriate!
But the holist line of thought suggests that the original plan needs to be changed wholesale—use more oil, fiercer heat, and less time, and only then can one fry chicken wings that are golden and appetizing—and this optimal solution can never be discovered through piecemeal probing!
This is not to say that research into parts cannot reveal certain features of the whole. Reductionism remains the main method of scientific research, after all, but it is not the only or absolute method. In many situations, especially in sciences that are marginal relative to physics, such as biology and the social sciences, holistic methods are not only effective but necessary.
Popper’s rejection of holism is connected with his aversion to “revolution,” and in the next section I will analyze Popper’s view of revolution by combining philosophy of science and philosophy of history.
Popper’s view of scientific progress is called “continuous revolutionism,” but in substance, like his philosophy of history, it is a theory of “continuous improvement.” I will show that Popper’s opposition to Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions is similar to his opposition to political revolution.
On scientific progress, Popper wrote: “First, for a new theory to count as a new discovery or a step forward, it should conflict with the original theory—that is, it should at least lead to some conflicting results. But from a logical point of view, this means that it should refute the original theory; it should overthrow the original theory. In this sense, progress in science—at least significant progress—is always revolutionary.” “My second point is that although progress in science is revolutionary rather than cumulative, it is in a sense always conservative; no matter how revolutionary a new theory may be, it must still be able to adequately explain the successes of its predecessor, and wherever the predecessor succeeded, it must yield results at least as good as those of the original theory, if possible better.”[40]
As noted above, for Popper a scientific theory is only a set of assertions. As Chalmers put it, “For Popper, one theory replacing another is nothing more than one set of assertions being replaced by another different set of assertions; from Kuhn’s point of view, scientific revolution does not stop there. A revolution includes not only changes in universal laws, but also changes in the way the world is understood and changes in the standards by which theories are evaluated.”[41]
Kuhn pointed out: “Every revolution will produce a shift in the questions science investigates, and the standards by which experts determine what counts as an acceptable question or a reasonable solution to a problem undergo a corresponding shift. And every revolution also changes the style of scientific thinking, so that in the end we will need descriptions in which the world within which scientific research is carried out has itself changed. These changes, together with the debates that almost always accompany them, are the defining features of scientific revolutions.”[42]
That is to say, the “revolution” Kuhn has in mind is not the replacement of one set of assertions by another; even updating all the assertions does not amount to the true essence of revolution. The key to revolution lies in the change in the standard of what counts as “reasonable” and in the “world” in which scientific inquiry is conducted—in simple terms, it is a change in values and worldviews.
Kuhn’s divergence from Popper’s view of science has already been mentioned earlier. Since this article is concerned with Popper’s philosophy of history, I will暂时 not展开 some of the more technical disputes about the Scientific Revolution. Let us first look at Kuhn’s view of political revolution:
In Chapter 9 of *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions*, “The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions,” Kuhn uses political revolution as an analogy to explain the necessity of scientific revolution. We might as well reverse the perspective: why are political revolutions as inevitable as scientific revolutions?
Kuhn writes: “Political revolutions are initiated by a growing sense, often restricted to a small segment of the political community, that the existing institutions have ceased adequately to meet the problems posed by an environment that they have in part created. In much the same way, scientific revolutions are initiated by a growing sense, again often restricted to a narrow subdivision of the scientific community, that an existing paradigm has ceased to function adequately in the exploration of an aspect of nature to which that paradigm itself had previously led the way. In both political and scientific development the sense of malfunction that can lead to crisis is a prerequisite to revolution.”[43] “…There is another and more profound sense in which the analogy is appropriate… The political institutions that are changed by a revolution are, for men, the institutions they change in ways that are not permitted by the existing political institutions themselves. The success of a revolution thus necessitates a partial abandonment of one set of institutions in favor of another, and in the interim society is not entirely ruled by institutions at all. At first only the crisis weakens the functioning of political institutions, just as scientific crisis weakens the dominance of a paradigm. More and more individuals begin to clarify political life and gradually deviate from the norm. As the crisis deepens, many of them commit themselves to concrete reform measures in the hope of changing institutions and reconstructing society. At this point society inevitably splits into competing camps or parties, some advocating the preservation of the old institutions, others seeking to establish new ones. Once this polarization has occurred, a political solution to the crisis is bound to fail. For the parties disagree about the institutional model by which political change is to be brought about and judged; and because they do not acknowledge any standard beyond the institutional framework by which their respective disagreements might be adjudicated, in the conflict over revolution they are ultimately forced to resort to techniques of mobilizing the masses, often including force. Although revolution occupies a crucial place in the evolution of political institutions, that is precisely because revolution is not merely a political event, concerned only with institutions.”[44] “Just as in the choice between competing political institutions, the choice between competing paradigms turns out to be a choice between incompatible modes of social life. For this reason, paradigm choice cannot be decided by the distinctive evaluative procedures of normal science, because those procedures are themselves partly based upon a particular paradigm. And it is precisely that particular paradigm which has gone wrong and come under dispute, while other paradigms are trying to replace it. When different paradigms compete with and argue against one another in paradigm choice, each paradigm is simultaneously both the starting point and the endpoint of argument. Each school defends that paradigm by means of its own paradigm.”[45]
Please forgive this rather long quotation from Kuhn, because his explanation of political revolution is in fact well worth pondering carefully. Kuhn’s view of political revolution is obviously exactly what Popper disliked! By this point, Kuhn’s divergence from Popper in the philosophy of science has directly become linked to Popper’s philosophy of history.
Notice the key point Kuhn emphasizes: “The political institutions that are changed by a revolution are, for men, the institutions they change in ways that are not permitted by the existing political institutions themselves”; different political institutions mean “incompatible modes of social life”; in the final analysis, “revolution is not merely a political event, concerned only with institutions.” Popper, however, precisely failed to see the complexity of revolution, overlooking the fact that revolution seeks not only new institutions but also different ways of life. The differences between political systems are not only differences in specific policy provisions; they also include differences in worldview and values.
The first question one must face when comparing different political systems is not “What policies can make society better?” but “What is better?” Popper’s ideal is not a bad one. He says that “piecemeal engineering will proceed by identifying and combating the greatest and most urgent evils in society, rather than by pursuing and fighting for its greatest ultimate good.”[46] But this ideal is also extremely naïve. If one does not know the direction of the good, how can one know what evil is? From the standpoint of capitalism, the increase of wealth is good and totalitarianism is evil; but in ancient China, the stability of imperial rule was good and the pursuit of money was evil. From the standpoint of technological rationalism, conquering and using nature is splendid; from the standpoint of environmentalism, however, this is a great evil. To the ancient Greeks, the polis was simply the mode of existence, whereas to the Romans war was the art of freedom… No matter how much we experiment, no matter how much evidence we marshal, it is still difficult for us to prove to someone who adheres to Confucian traditional values how this modern society, rife with material desires and in collapse of rites and music, could possibly be superior to the Western Zhou period; this is precisely the significance of “paradigm shift” in political revolution.
So, what sort of people are revolutionaries? First, perhaps they can be compared to engineers, but in any case they are not scientists. Revolutionaries never expect to use revolution as an experiment to test anything; rather, they hope to bring into reality what they already firmly believe. Nor do they expect revolution to bring about any appreciable improvement right away; instead, they place their hopes in the future outlook. In fact, the advantages of a more advanced theory are seldom visible immediately after the revolution. For example, as mentioned above, Copernicus’s new system was not initially more accurate than Ptolemy’s, and only after these new theories had undergone a relatively stable development in the “normal” phase would their superiority gradually become apparent. And in the social sciences it is even more so: even if one does not speak of comprehensive transformation, the benefits of local adjustments often require a long wait before they can emerge—for example, environmental protection, family planning, and so on. We certainly cannot reject a policy because strengthening environmental protection causes the economy to dip somewhat the following year; these policies are based on consideration of a distant future.
Kuhn also mentioned the reasons revolutionaries choose a new paradigm: “Which paradigm will in the future guide research? Many of the questions raised in such research are not yet claims that the existing competitors dare to say they can fully solve. A choice must be made among these different ways of doing science, and in such cases that choice must inevitably depend on the future outlook rather than on past achievements. Those who support a new paradigm in its early stages are usually unconcerned with its problem-solving record. They must have confidence in the new paradigm, believe that it will successfully solve the many major problems it faces—problems that they know only some of the old paradigms can no longer solve. Such a choice can be based only on faith.”[47]
Of course, this is by no means to oppose piecemeal policy adjustments. On the contrary, Kuhn places enormous importance on the “normal period” in which local repairs are carried out. The task of the normal period is the gradual refinement of the entire system in its details and local parts; and in this period we need to maintain the stability of the paradigm, not allowing success or failure in some detail to easily affect our faith in the basic paradigm. If one lacks patience and casually rejects the basic direction and ideas, one will instead fall into chaos or confusion.
The normal period is crucial in the historical process. It both nurtures revolution and makes revolution possible. Without a normal period, revolution would be impossible, and even more, meaningless. So let us discuss Popper’s understanding of history.
The concept of “history” that Popper discusses is even narrower. When speaking of the claim that history has no meaning, Popper says: “When people speak of the history of mankind … what they mean, and what they learn in school, is the history of political power.”[48] In Popper’s view, what is called “history” is “the history of political power.” Thus Popper’s philosophy of history becomes, at the same time, a political philosophy. This narrow understanding can hardly be blamed on Popper alone. The excessive emphasis on politics and power in writing history is indeed a habit of many historians, and it is also something many of the modern schools of philosophy of history have reflected upon. In any case, human history cannot be seen merely as the history of political power; this perspective is undeniably limited.
A history of political power is also a history written for rulers and power holders. This is the perspective of traditional historical narrative—in simple terms, the perspective that focuses only on heroes and great men. Yet, as Marx criticized, this perspective is extremely one-sided. With such a perspective, one can certainly see a history that is thrilling and magnificent, but one misses many of the more important parts of history, and one misses the social background and material basis behind political change. The originality of Marx’s materialist conception of history, so often attacked by Popper, lies precisely here.
The limitations of this historical perspective appear in the same way in Popper’s understanding of the history of science. Popper complains: “If there are such things as Kuhnian ‘normal’ scientists, then there are very few of them recorded in the history of science.”[49] His meaning is that the history of science proves normal science to be unimportant, whereas in Kuhn’s view and in the view of later historians of science, this very point shows the limitations of the traditional perspective on the history of science—seeing science only as the deeds of one great scientist after another, while ignoring the fact that science is also a collective human undertaking and neglecting the social and cultural factors in scientific development. Kuhn, and the SSK influenced by Kuhn, are original precisely in emphasizing these long-overlooked elements.
Another aspect of historical outlook concerns the understanding of the meaning of history. I agree with Popper’s claim that “history itself has neither purpose nor meaning”[50]; the purpose and meaning of history are bestowed by people.[51] I also agree that historical development has no “law,” only “trend.” But Popper’s view that science cannot study “trend” is questionable.
Popper says: “But it may be said that the existence of trends or tendencies in social change is almost beyond doubt: every statistician is able to compute trends. Are these trends not comparable with Newton’s law of inertia? The answer is: trends do exist; or, more exactly, the hypothesis that a trend exists is often a useful statistical device. But trends are not laws. The statement that there exists a trend is an existential statement, not a universal statement. And the statement that there exists a trend in a given place and time would be a singular historical statement, not a universal law. … When we can base scientific prediction on laws, we cannot, as every statistician knows, base it merely on the existence of trends. A trend that has lasted for hundreds or even thousands of years (we may once again take population growth as an example) may change within ten years, or even more rapidly than that.”[52]
So, does Popper mean that statistics is not science? That studying statistics has no meaning? Popper also admits that the hypothesis of trend is a “useful” statistical device, though not science; so then, if useful statistics can be non-scientific, why must history be scientific?
Moreover, is the distinction between law and trend really so clear-cut? On the one hand, even predictions based on law can be unreliable. For example, people initially used the law relating the resistance of a conductor to temperature to predict that a certain conductor’s resistance would decrease smoothly along some curve as temperature fell; yet later it was discovered that the resistance of some conductors would suddenly drop to zero below a very low temperature—this was the discovery of superconductors. This new discovery modified the original law, but it should not therefore be forbidden to make predictions based on law merely because existing laws can always be unexpectedly revised. On the other hand, even if population change may suddenly undergo unforeseen and dramatic shifts, we should not deny the rationality of basing predictions on trends. In fact, we often have to rely on predictions about population growth and economic development in order to formulate better social planning. These clearly effective forms of social planning are, in Popper’s view, unscientific—but even if they are unscientific, are they not effective and necessary? Perhaps Popper, as a thoroughgoing liberal, truly rejects all forms of macro-regulation. But history has proven that kind of liberalism unworkable: to this day, no country can achieve healthy economic development by completely abandoning macro-regulation. Even if such regulation based on “trend” is not science, we have to admit that it is necessary.
Finally, if history itself has no meaning, how should people endow history with meaning? In other words, what is the meaning of historiography? In Popper’s view, historiography is still supposed to study laws; in his eyes, it seems that only science that studies laws has meaning. But if that is so, then natural history, statistics, literature, art, and so forth would also have no meaning. Obviously, a discipline need not study laws in order to be meaningful. Popper praises the “pure scientist,” but in fact the most important implication of “pure science” is its “non-utilitarian” character. As for “pure” historiography, it is simply learning for the sake of learning, just like natural history: observing nature is not for anything else, but simply because we long to know more about her. The most “pure” mathematicians and theoretical physicists are often also driven into their work of exploration by just such a state of mind. As for what inspiration people may derive from such pure research, that has nothing to do with the nature of research itself. This more important scientific spirit is what Popper denies.
[UK] Karl Popper:
*The Open Mind and the Society*, ed. David Miller, trans. Zhang Zhicang, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2000
*The Poverty of Historicism*, trans. He Lin Zhao Ping, China Social Sciences Press, 1998
*The Open Society and Its Enemies*, trans. Lu Heng et al., China Social Sciences Press, 1999
*Conjectures and Refutations*, trans. Fu Jizhong Ji Shuli Zhou Changzhong Jiang Ge, China Academy of Art Publishing House, 2003
*Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Knowledge*, trans. Li Benzheng Fan Jingzhong, China Academy of Art Publishing House, 2001
*Objective Knowledge*, trans. Shu Weiguang Zhuo Rufei Zhou Boqiao Zeng Congming et al., Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2005
[Australia] Alan Chalmers: *What Is This Thing Called Science?*, trans. Qiu Renzong, Hebei Science and Technology Press, 2002
[US] Thomas Kuhn: *The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change*, trans. Fan Dainian Ji Shuli et al., Peking University Press, 2004
[US] Thomas Kuhn: *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions*, trans. Jin Wulun Hu Xinhe, Peking University Press, 2003
[UK] Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, eds.: *Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge*, trans. Zhou Jizhong, Huaxia Publishing House, 1987
Zhao Dunhua: *Zhao Dunhua Lectures on Popper*, Peking University Press, 2006
Wang Shuming and Wan Dan: *From Philosophy of Science to Philosophy of Culture*, Social Sciences Academic Press, 2006
Other
Page 165
Speaking of the “purpose” of scientific activity may sound somewhat naïve; for clearly different scientists have different purposes, while science itself (in whatever sense) has no purpose. I fully acknowledge this view. And yet when we talk about science, we do seem to feel, more or less clearly, that there is some characteristic about scientific activity; and since scientific activity very much resembles a rational activity, and rational activity must surely have some purpose, then trying to describe the purpose of science may not be entirely useless.
I think the purpose of science is: to find satisfactory explanations for all those things that impress us deeply and require explanation. ////—Then does human historical activity have a “purpose” as well?[53]
Page 257: There has hardly been any truly rigorous testing of the theory of natural selection, and compared with other comparable theories in physics and chemistry, it is even more difficult.[54]
Page 258
In the past, I have always tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be unfalsifiable (as if it were a kind of repetitive assent), yet still possess immense scientific value. My answer was: the theory of natural selection is the most successful metaphysical research programme. In many respects it raised detailed questions and told us to expect acceptable answers to them. ………… However, as for the falsifiability and logical status of the theory of natural selection, I have changed my mind;[55]
Page 259
In its boldest and most thoroughgoing form, the theory of natural selection asserts that all organisms, especially all those highly complex organs whose existence may perhaps be explained as evidence of design, and moreover all forms of animal behavior, are the result of evolution through natural selection; that is to say, the result of accidental hereditary variation; in these variations, useless variants are eliminated, so that only useful variants are retained. If stated in such a thoroughgoing way, then the theory is not merely refutable; in fact, it has already been refuted. For not all organs are regarded as designed for a useful purpose: as Darwin himself pointed out, there are organs like the peacock’s tail, and behavioral displays like the peacock’s fanning out its tail, that cannot be explained by their utility……[56]
Page 260
The theory of natural selection…… is far from being a repetitive assent. In this case, not only is it testable, but strictly speaking, it is not universally true in the first place. Like many theories in biology, it seems to admit exceptions; given the character of the random variation through which natural selection operates, the occurrence of such exceptions is not surprising. Thus not all evolutionary phenomena can be explained solely by natural selection. But in every specific case, if one wants to prove how much responsibility natural selection may bear for the evolution of a particular organ or a particular behavior, the theory of natural selection is a challenging research programme.[57]
Page 325
These historicist reflections can be applied to all the social sciences, including economics. Therefore economics can never provide us with any valuable information concerning social reform. Only a pseudo-economics can provide a background for seeking a rational economic programme. True scientific economics can only help us uncover the driving forces of economic development in different historical periods. It can help us foresee the broad outline of future periods, but it cannot help us develop or implement any detailed plan for any new period. What belongs to the other social sciences must also belong to economics; its ultimate aim may be only to “reveal the economic laws of motion of human society” (Marx)[58]
Page 428 p337
In some respects I sympathize with Marxists, one of them being that they insist that the social problems of our time are urgent, and that philosophers should face up to these problems; we should not be satisfied with merely interpreting the world, but should also promote its transformation. I very much approve of this attitude………… But what contribution can philosophers make—not merely as human beings, not merely as citizens, but as philosophers? Some Marxists insist that the problems are too urgent to allow for further reflection; we should make a decision immediately. But if, as philosophers, we can make some contribution, then undoubtedly we must refuse to accept blindly and hastily the ready-made answers, no matter how urgent the time may be; as philosophers, all we can do is critically examine the problems we face and the various solutions offered by different parties. More specifically, I think that, as a philosopher, I can at most investigate these problems with the weapon of methodological criticism. That is what I intend to do.[59]
Page 40
Just as when Copernicus’s heliocentric theory first appeared, scientists could, on grounds of accuracy, insist on Ptolemy’s geocentric theory, or accept heliocentrism on grounds of simplicity. This judgment of whether to accept it or not is not algorithmic, but ideological.[60]
In an interview in his later years, Popper’s criticism of Marx may perhaps be more fittingly applied to himself. He said: “I already said long ago that Marxism was wrong from the beginning, because Marxism has always been looking for enemies, not for friends. For example, you and I should work hand in hand to solve difficult problems together. But Marx wanted to find enemies that had to be eliminated, and in the end he went after capitalism.”[61] This evaluation of Marx seems more appropriate as a judgment on Popper himself: Popper has always been looking for enemies, and he went after historicism.
Page 133 p147
But although falsification does indeed occur, it does not occur along with, nor simply because of, the sudden appearance of anomalies or instances of falsification. Rather, it is a subsequent process of separation, which may equally well be called verification, because it consists in the victory of a new paradigm over the old one.[62]
Page 116
Neither Aristarchus nor Copernicus devised a workable, decisive experiment. In fact, they gave no hint that the traditional appearances contained any error: they simply let those accepted appearances take their natural course; they merely revealed them anew. They would not worry about getting into trouble by predicting new observable appearances. ………… The theories of Aristarchus and Copernicus, in my terms, can both be regarded as unscientific or metaphysical. On the other hand, Copernicus also made many minor predictions; according to my terminology, his theory was scientific. Yet even as a metaphysical theory, it was far from meaningless; and insofar as he proposed a new and daring cosmology, he also made a tremendous contribution to the birth of the new science.[63]
Page 157 p122 Now I do not think that we can completely free ourselves from the shackles of tradition. What is called freedom is in fact merely a transition from one tradition to another.[64]
Page 241 p188
So, historically, Kepler’s laws were not the result of observation. The actual situation was that Kepler tried to interpret Tycho’s observational data with his original hypothesis of circular orbits, and this effort failed. These observational data refuted that hypothesis, so he then tried the next best solution—the ovoid, elliptical hypothesis. The observational data still did not prove the ellipse hypothesis to be correct, but now they could be explained by this hypothesis: they could be made consistent with it. ////—not refuted.[65]
Page 75 p81 This crisis (the motion of Mercury) played no role in the emergence of general relativity.[66]
Page 309 p241 We demand that new theories be independently testable.[67]
Page 262~263 p267
We are all more concerned with the dynamic process of acquiring scientific knowledge than with the logical structure of scientific products. Hence we both emphasize that only the facts of actual scientific life are legitimate material, and therefore we often turn to history for materials. From this common reservoir of material, we draw many common conclusions. We both oppose the view that science advances through cumulative progress, and both emphasize the revolutionary process by which new theories discard and replace old theories incompatible with them. We also pay special attention to the role played in this process by the occasional failure of old theories in the face of challenges from logic, experiment, and observation. Finally, Sir Karl and I also jointly oppose some of the most characteristic propositions of classical positivism. For example, we both emphasize that scientific observation is inevitably entangled with scientific theory, and therefore both express skepticism toward efforts to create some neutral observational language; both firmly believe that scientists can perfectly well expect to invent theories to explain observational phenomena, and to do so in the language of real objects. No matter what real objects may mean.[68]
Page 264 p269
We often speak of one thing, yet our intentions are entirely different. The lines are the same, but the figures formed by those lines are not. It is precisely for this reason that I call the cause of our disagreement a Gestalt switch, rather than a divergence;[69]
Page 265 p270
The opening lines of Chapter 1 of The Logic of Scientific Discovery: “A scientist, whether theorist or experimenter, always advances statements or systems of statements step by step, and then tests them step by step. Especially in the empirical sciences, he constructs hypotheses or systems of theory and subjects them to empirical tests through observation and experiment.” This is really a cliché, and if one uses it there are three problems: it is ambiguous and fails to indicate what kind of “statement” or “theory” is to be tested; of course this ambiguity can also be removed by referring to other writings of Sir Karl’s, but such a generalization is also historically wrong, and this error is itself significant, for if one were to speak without ambiguity, one would in fact miss precisely the main feature of scientific practice, namely the feature that distinguishes science from other creative activities.[70]
Page 59 (The research approach of piecemeal engineers) aims to achieve its goal through small adjustments and readjustments that can be continually improved.[71]
Page 333
……I believe that the combination of “piecemeal repair” with critical analysis is the principal way in which social science and natural science achieve practical results. Social science has made enormous progress by criticizing social reform, or, more accurately, by tentatively discovering whether some particular economic behavior or practical act will likewise produce an expected or desired result.[72]
c
Page 336
In my mind there exist laws or hypotheses of sociology analogous to the laws or hypotheses of the natural sciences. …… Some examples: you cannot introduce agricultural tariffs and at the same time reduce living consumption. — In an industrial society, you cannot prevent pressure groups of consumers as effectively as you can prevent certain pressure groups of producers. — If you do not provoke some kind of reaction, you cannot bring about a political reform; such reactions are often undesirable from the standpoint of the ultimate goal. — If you do not provoke a reaction, you cannot launch a revolution.[73]
Page 143
Since the “piecemeal social engineering” of improved capitalism is in a process of constant revision, adjustment, and falsification, why demand of Marxism that it foresee future developments once and for all, and refuse to allow it to continually revise itself in socialist practice? Popper’s criticism is effective against the rigid mindset that regards Marxism as an unchanging dogma, but it does not necessarily apply to Marxism that keeps pace with the times.[74]
Page 143
A. O’Hear, in his book commenting on Popper’s philosophy, says: “It is something we cannot agree with to call Marxism unscientific merely because Marxists use new hypotheses to defuse the falsification of certain Marxian predictions. Even if those predictions were not very precise, could not these remedial hypotheses themselves be said to be new, reasonable, and successful predictions concerning the Third World movement and the resentment of alienated groups in industrial society?”[75]
The “normal” scientists in Kuhn’s sense, if there are any, are also rather few in the history of science.[76]
Page 406
History has no meaning. ………… When people speak of human history……, what they mean, and what they learn in school, is the history of political power.[77]
Page 417
Although history has no purpose, we can assign our purpose to it; and although history has no meaning, we can give it meaning.[78]
Page 417
History itself—of course I mean the history of power politics, not the nonexistent history of human development—has neither purpose nor meaning.[79]
Conjectures and Refutations, pp. 277–278, p216-217
Do not misunderstand me as believing in any law of historical progress. In fact, I have criticized the belief in laws of progress from many directions, and I firmly believe that even science does not in any way obey such laws. The history of science, like the history of human thought, is nothing but a history of unreliable dreams, stubborn obstinacy, and error; but science is such a rare—perhaps the only—human activity in which errors can be systematically criticized and often corrected in time. Precisely for this reason, only in the case of science can we say that we often learn from mistakes, and can speak clearly and unambiguously of progress. By contrast, although most other fields of human activity do change, they seldom progress; ……）////—here Popper’s explanation is strained: why does science progress, while human history, affected by the growth of knowledge, does not? Here he says that “only in science can we often learn from errors,” yet in other places Popper says that any animal from amoeba to Einstein learns from errors. Since human beings, like any animal, must survive by trial and error, and since human beings also possess “history,” which can accumulate the experience learned by our predecessors from mistakes, then human history ought to be progressive, should it not?
Page 284 What we need to do is this: understand how non-physical things such as purposes, thinking, plans, decisions, theories, intentions, and values can act upon physical changes in the physical world. ………… Page 285
Mere physical indeterminism is not enough. Truly, we have to be indeterminists, but we must also try to understand how human beings, and perhaps animals as well, can be “affected” or “controlled” by things such as goals, purposes, rules, or agreements.[80]
Normal periods are crucial in historical development: they both nurture revolutions and are the realization of revolutions. Without normal periods, revolutions would be impossible, and even less meaningful. So, let us discuss Popper’s understanding of history.
What is history?
The concept of “history” that Popper talks about is even more narrowly defined. When discussing the claim that history has no meaning, Popper believes: “When people speak of human history……, what they mean, and what they learn in school, is the history of political power.”[81] In Popper’s view, “history” means “the history of political power.” Thus Popper’s philosophy of history simultaneously becomes political philosophy. This narrow understanding cannot really be blamed on Popper, for historians have indeed often given excessive weight to politics and power when writing history, and this is something many schools of philosophy of history that arose in the modern era have also reflected upon. In any case, human history cannot be seen merely as the history of political power; this perspective is undoubtedly limited.
A history of political power—that is, a history written for rulers and for those who hold power—is the perspective of traditional historical narrative; simply put, it is the perspective that focuses only on heroes and great men. Yet, as Marx criticized, this perspective is highly one-sided. From this standpoint, one can indeed see a history that is gripping and grand in scope, but one also overlooks many of the more important parts of history, overlooking the social background and material basis behind political change.
The limitation of this historical perspective is the same in Popper’s understanding of the history of science. Popper complained: “If there are ‘normal’ scientists in Kuhn’s sense, there are very few of them recorded in the history of science.”[82] What he meant was that the history of science proves normal science to be unimportant; but in Kuhn’s and later historians of science’s view, this is precisely what demonstrates the limitations of the traditional perspective on the history of science—one that treats science merely as the deeds of one great scientist after another, while ignoring the fact that science is also a collective human enterprise.
And the originality of Marx’s materialist conception of history, so heavily attacked by Popper, lies precisely here,
[①] [UK] Karl Popper: *The Poverty of Historicism*, trans. He Lin and Zhao Ping, China Social Sciences Press, 1998, p. 92
[②] Wang Shuming and Wan Dan: *From Philosophy of Science to Cultural Philosophy*, Social Sciences Academic Press, 2006, p. 19
[③] Ibid., p. 22
[④] “Historicism (1936),” in [UK] David Miller, ed., *Open Ideas and the Society*, trans. Zhang Zhicang, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2000, p. 317
[⑤]
[UK] Karl Popper: *Conjectures and Refutations*, trans. Fu Jizhong, Ji Shuli, Zhou Changzhong, and Jiang Ge, China Academy of Art Press, 2003, p. 429 (p. 338)
[⑥] [Australia] Alan Chalmers: *What Is This Thing Called Science?*, trans. Qiu Renzong, Hebei Science and Technology Press, 2002, pp. 137–138
[⑦] See “The Demarcation Problem (1974),” in [UK] David Miller, ed., *Open Ideas and the Society*, trans. Zhang Zhicang, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2000, p. 126
[⑧] The Demarcation Problem (1974) [UK] David Miller, ed., *Open Ideas and the Society*, trans. Zhang Zhicang, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2000, p. 126
[⑨] [UK] Karl Popper: *Objective Knowledge*, trans. Shu Weiguang et al., Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2005, p. 211
[⑩] [Australia] Alan Chalmers: *What Is This Thing Called Science?*, trans. Qiu Renzong, Hebei Science and Technology Press, 2002, p. 143
[11] See [US] Thomas Kuhn: *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions*, trans. Jin Wulun and Hu Xinhe, Peking University Press, 2003, pp. 74–75 (p. 81)
[12] [Australia] Alan Chalmers: *What Is This Thing Called Science?*, trans. Qiu Renzong, Hebei Science and Technology Press, 2002, p. 144
[13] Ibid., p. 156
[14]
[UK] Karl Popper: *Conjectures and Refutations*, trans. Fu Jizhong, Ji Shuli, Zhou Changzhong, and Jiang Ge, China Academy of Art Press, 2003, p. 315 (p. 246)
[15] [UK] Karl Popper: *Towards an Evolutionary Theory of Knowledge*, trans. Li Benzheng and Fan Jingzhong, China Academy of Art Press, 2001, p. 182
[16] Kuhn: “The Logic of Discovery or the Psychology of Research,” in [US] Thomas Kuhn: *The Essential Tension*, trans. Fan Dainian, Ji Shuli, et al., Peking University Press, 2004, p. 274 (p. 281–282)
[17] [UK] Karl Popper: *Objective Knowledge*, trans. Shu Weiguang et al., Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2005, p. 12
[18] Kuhn: “The Logic of Discovery or the Psychology of Research,” in [US] Thomas Kuhn: *The Essential Tension—Selected Essays on Tradition and Change in Science*, trans. Fan Dainian, Ji Shuli, et al., Peking University Press, 2004, p. 268 (p. 274)
[19]
[UK] Karl Popper: *Conjectures and Refutations*, trans. Fu Jizhong, Ji Shuli, Zhou Changzhong, and Jiang Ge, China Academy of Art Press, 2003, p. 284 (p. 222)
[20]
[US] Thomas Kuhn: *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions*, trans. Jin Wulun and Hu Xinhe, Peking University Press, 2003, p. 100 (p. 109)
[21] [UK] Karl Popper: *Objective Knowledge*, trans. Shu Weiguang et al., Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2005, p. 195
[22] Ibid., p. 197
[23] [UK] Karl Popper: *Through the Knowledge to Liberation*, trans. Fan Jingzhong and Li Benzheng, China Academy of Art Press, 1996, p. 93
[24] Popper: “Normal Science and Its Dangers,” in *Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge*, trans. Zhou Jizhong, Huaxia Publishing House, 1987, p. 64
[25] Kuhn: “The Logic of Discovery or the Psychology of Research,” in *The Essential Tension*, trans. Fan Dainian, Ji Shuli, et al., Peking University Press, 2004, p. 266 (p. 271)
[26] Ibid., p. 267 (p. 273)
[27] [Australia] Alan Chalmers: *What Is This Thing Called Science?*, trans. Qiu Renzong, Hebei Science and Technology Press, 2002, pp. 183–184
[28]
[US] Thomas Kuhn: *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions*, trans. Jin Wulun and Hu Xinhe, Peking University Press, 2003, p. 132 (p. 146)
[29]Kuhn: “The Logic of Discovery or the Psychology of Research,” in *The Essential Tension*, trans. Fan Dainian, Ji Shuli, et al., Peking University Press, 2004, p. 265 (p. 270–271)
[30] See Popper: “Normal Science and Its Dangers,” in *Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge*, trans. Zhou Jizhong, Huaxia Publishing House, 1987, p. 65
[31] Zhao Dunhua: *Zhao Dunhua Talks About Popper*, Peking University Press, 2006, p. 76
[32] Piecemeal Social Engineering (1944) [UK] David Miller, ed., *Open Ideas and the Society*, trans. Zhang Zhicang, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2000, p. 343
[33] [UK] Karl Popper: *The Poverty of Historicism*, trans. He Lin and Zhao Ping, China Social Sciences Press, 1998, pp. 75–76
[34] Ibid., pp. 75–76
[35] Ibid., p. 78
[36] [UK] Karl Popper: *The Poverty of Historicism*, trans. He Lin and Zhao Ping, China Social Sciences Press, 1998, p. 83
[37]
[UK] Karl Popper: *Conjectures and Refutations*, trans. Fu Jizhong, Ji Shuli, Zhou Changzhong, and Jiang Ge, China Academy of Art Press, 2003, p. 433 (p. 341)
[38]Piecemeal Social Engineering (1944)
[UK] David Miller, ed., *Open Ideas and the Society*, trans. Zhang Zhicang, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2000, p. 346
[39]
[UK] Karl Popper: *The Open Society and Its Enemies* (Vol. 1), trans. Lu Heng et al., China Social Sciences Press, 1999, p. 294
[40] [UK] Karl Popper: *Towards an Evolutionary Theory of Knowledge*, trans. Li Benzheng and Fan Jingzhong, China Academy of Art Press, 2001, p. 176
[41] [Australia] Alan Chalmers: *What Is This Thing Called Science?*, trans. Qiu Renzong, Hebei Science and Technology Press, 2002, p. 185
[42] [US] Thomas Kuhn: *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions*, trans. Jin Wulun and Hu Xinhe, Peking University Press, 2003, pp. 5–6 (p. 6)
[43] Ibid., p. 85 (p. 92)
[44] Ibid., p. 86 (p. 93)
[45] Ibid., p. 86 (p. 94)
[46]
[UK] Karl Popper: *The Open Society and Its Enemies* (Vol. 1), trans. Lu Heng et al., China Social Sciences Press, 1999, p. 293
[47]
[US] Thomas Kuhn: *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions*, trans. Jin Wulun and Hu Xinhe, Peking University Press, 2003, p. 142 (p. 157–158)
[48] [UK] Karl Popper: *The Open Society and Its Enemies* (Vol. 2), trans. Lu Heng et al., China Social Sciences Press, 1999, p. 406
[49] Popper: “Normal Science and Its Dangers,” in *Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge*, trans. Zhou Jizhong, Huaxia Publishing House, 1987, p. 66
[50]
[UK] Karl Popper: *The Open Society and Its Enemies* (Vol. 2), trans. Lu Heng et al., China Social Sciences Press, 1999, p. 417
[51] Ibid.
[52] Historicism (1936) [UK] David Miller, ed., *Open Ideas and the Society*, trans. Zhang Zhicang, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2000, p. 329
[53] The Aim of Science (1957) [UK] David Miller, ed., *Open Ideas and the Society—A Selection of Popper’s Thoughts*, trans. Zhang Zhicang, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2000
[54] Natural Selection and Its Scientific Status (1977) [UK] David Miller, ed., *Open Ideas and the Society—A Selection of Popper’s Thoughts*, trans. Zhang Zhicang, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2000
[55] Natural Selection and Its Scientific Status (1977) [UK] David Miller, ed., *Open Ideas and the Society—A Selection of Popper’s Thoughts*, trans. Zhang Zhicang, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2000
[56] Natural Selection and Its Scientific Status (1977) [UK] David Miller, ed., *Open Ideas and the Society—A Selection of Popper’s Thoughts*, trans. Zhang Zhicang, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2000
[57] Natural Selection and Its Scientific Status (1977)
[UK] David Miller, ed., *Open Ideas and the Society—A Selection of Popper’s Thoughts*, trans. Zhang Zhicang, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2000
[58] Historicism (1936)
[UK] David Miller, ed., *Open Ideas and the Society—A Selection of Popper’s Thoughts*, trans. Zhang Zhicang, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2000
[59]
[UK] Karl Popper: *Conjectures and Refutations—The Growth of Scientific Knowledge*, trans. Fu Jizhong, Ji Shuli, Zhou Changzhong, and Jiang Ge, China Academy of Art Press, 2003
[60] Wang Shuming and Wan Dan: *From Philosophy of Science to Cultural Philosophy—The Postmodern Turn of Kuhn and Feyerabend*, Social Sciences Academic Press, 2006
[61]
[UK] Karl Popper: *Lessons of the Twentieth Century—An Interview and Lecture Record of Karl Popper*, trans. Wang Lingxiao, Guangxi Normal University Press, 2004, p. 59
[62] [U.S.] Thomas Kuhn: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, trans. Jin Wulun and Hu Xinhe, Peking University Press, 2003
[63] The demarcation problem (1974), in [UK] David Miller, ed., Open Ideas and Society — Selected Essays of Popper’s Thought, trans. Zhang Zhicang, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2000
[64]
[UK] Karl Popper: Conjectures and Refutations — The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, trans. Fu Jizhong, Ji Shuli, Zhou Changzhong, and Jiang Ge, China Academy of Art Press, 2003
[65]
[UK] Karl Popper: Conjectures and Refutations — The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, trans. Fu Jizhong, Ji Shuli, Zhou Changzhong, and Jiang Ge, China Academy of Art Press, 2003
[66] [U.S.] Thomas Kuhn: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, trans. Jin Wulun and Hu Xinhe, Peking University Press, 2003
[67]
[UK] Karl Popper: Conjectures and Refutations — The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, trans. Fu Jizhong, Ji Shuli, Zhou Changzhong, and Jiang Ge, China Academy of Art Press, 2003
[68]
[U.S.] Thomas Kuhn: The Essential Tension — Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change, trans. Fan Dainian, Ji Shuli, et al., Peking University Press, 2004, “The Logic of Discovery or the Psychology of Research”
[69]
[U.S.] Thomas Kuhn: The Essential Tension — Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change, trans. Fan Dainian, Ji Shuli, et al., Peking University Press, 2004, “The Logic of Discovery or the Psychology of Research”
[70]
[U.S.] Thomas Kuhn: The Essential Tension — Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change, trans. Fan Dainian, Ji Shuli, et al., Peking University Press, 2004, “The Logic of Discovery or the Psychology of Research”
[71] [UK] Karl Popper: The Poverty of Historicism, trans. He Lin and Zhao Ping, China Social Sciences Press, 1998
[72] Piecemeal social engineering (1944), in [UK] David Miller, ed., Open Ideas and Society — Selected Essays of Popper’s Thought, trans. Zhang Zhicang, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2000
[73] Piecemeal social engineering (1944), in [UK] David Miller, ed., Open Ideas and Society — Selected Essays of Popper’s Thought, trans. Zhang Zhicang, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2000, p. 336
[74] Zhao Dunhua: Zhao Dunhua Lectures on Popper, Peking University Press, 2006
[75] Zhao Dunhua: Zhao Dunhua Lectures on Popper, Peking University Press, 2006
[76] Popper: “Normal Science and Its Dangers,” in Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, eds., Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, trans. Zhou Jizhong, Huaxia Publishing House, 1987, p. 66
[77] [UK] Karl Popper: The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2, trans. Lu Heng et al., China Social Sciences Press, 1999
[78] [UK] Karl Popper: The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2, trans. Lu Heng et al., China Social Sciences Press, 1999
[79] [UK] Karl Popper: The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2, trans. Lu Heng et al., China Social Sciences Press, 1999
[80] Natural selection and its scientific status (1977), in [UK] David Miller, ed., Open Ideas and Society — Selected Essays of Popper’s Thought, trans. Zhang Zhicang, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2000
[81] [UK] Karl Popper: The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2, trans. Lu Heng et al., China Social Sciences Press, 1999, p. 406
[82] Popper: “Normal Science and Its Dangers,” in Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, eds., Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, trans. Zhou Jizhong, Huaxia Publishing House, 1987, p. 66
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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