Popper: Critical Rationalist, Conventionalist, and Virtue Epistemologist

Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 13 (1):54-90 (2023)
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Abstract

This article revisits Karl Popper’s falsificationist methodology with respect to three tasks. The first is to illuminate and systematize Popper’s methodological views in light of his core epistemological commitments. A second and related objective is to gauge which aspects of falsificationism should be identified as “conventionalist”—a label that Popper himself uses (albeit with qualifications) but that is compromised by and, thus, stands in need of elucidation because of Popper’s idiosyncratic understanding of conventionalism. Third, by elaborating Popper’s virtue-epistemological, dialogical model of rationality, I show how Popper’s conventionalism, fallibilism, and critical rationalism form a coherent system. This system allows Popper to accord science the status of a privileged source of knowledge—without naïve appeal to authority. My systematization of Popper’s views yields an intrinsically and exegetically more satisfactory reading of Popper’s falsificationism than usual presentations. Thanks to its marked flexibility and methodological liberalism, it bypasses many standard objections but still offers sound and relevant methodological advice. With its “virtue-methodological” thrust, Popper sketches an original and promising approach to methodology, the fertility of which deserves further exploration for contemporary debates.

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Citations of this work

Methodological reflections on the MOND/dark matter debate.Patrick M. Duerr & William J. Wolf - 2023 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 101 (C):1-23.
The Change-Driver Account of Scientific Discovery: Philosophical and Historical Dimensions of the Discovery of the Expanding Universe.Patrick M. Duerr & Abigail Holmes Mills - forthcoming - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie:1-46.

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References found in this work

The Logic of Scientific Discovery.Karl Popper - 1959 - Studia Logica 9:262-265.
The Fixation of Belief.C. S. Peirce - 1877 - Popular Science Monthly 12 (1):1-15.
Speech Acts.J. Searle - 1969 - Foundations of Language 11 (3):433-446.
Against Method.P. Feyerabend - 1975 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 26 (4):331-342.

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