later analytic philosophers- Popper and Kuhn?

Question

how do popper and kuhn transform and/or undermine the analytic tradition's pursuit of philosophy as a science? please explain.

Answer 1

Karl Popper is famous for (and most frequently associated with) his critique of the scientific method as a means of finding information out. Particularly what Popper railed against was a trend during his time of defining information as truth because it had been observed. Though something which is observed is obviously more true than something which is not, Popper held that this is not enough to actually prove something is true.

The argument has a lot to do with what it takes to prove something true. How do you prove definitively that gravity works? Arguably, the only way to absolutely prove it is to show that gravity affects every object in the universe at all times in the universe and under every possible circumstance in the universe. Or, in other words, since there is no way to do this, it is IMPOSSIBLE to prove any theory true. Bummer for any scientist out there.

One idea that Popper put forward that remains with us to this day is the idea of falsification. This is sort of the reverse of the above formulation - it is impossible to prove something true, but it is QUITE possible to prove something false. This, then, is the pursuit of science: not proving all their theories true, but disproving all the false theories. And thus any theory that cannot be proven false is unscientific and meaningless.

You can probably see how this might be a blow for philosophers who might want their subjects to be considered a science. How can you form a theory about 'what is real' that can be disproven? How do you go about constructing an ethical experiment to disprove a universal good? In vitually all cases, you can't. Philosophy, under Popper's critical eye, was only a thought game, and definitely NOT a science.

Thomas Kuhn is indirectly well known as he was the originator of the term 'paradigm' as it is used in modern discussion. Unfortunately, in becoming popularized it has often been misinterpreted from his original use.

In Kuhn's parlance, a 'paradigm' was a collection of scientific theories and world-views that collectively made up and explanation of how things work. He argued that if you were in one paradigm, theories and ideas which did not fit in were seen as completely irrational. Progress, then, was accomplished not be a slow exchange of old ideas for new ones, but in a rapid jump to a completely different paradigm which tended to discard all the old ideas at once and adopt completely different ones.

If this is true (it doubtlessly SEEMS to have been true in a general sense during certain points of history) then it makes a systematic pursuit of any body of knowledge, be it science or philosophy, very difficult. People in one paradigm will have no way of knowing what ideas produced will be adopted in the next paradigm, and have no basis of judgment other than the paradigm they're in - a judgement that will be outdated when the next shift occurs.

This has been less influential than Popper's work. Even if it is true that all our judgements will end up being false, what is the alternative? To not make judgements at all, or make them at random? That is chaos and nonsense. Instead, it has more of a use in understanding certain aspects of psychology and sociology, but even in this limited usage it might be considered to be a hindrance to philosophers, in that people might be said to be in one philosophical paradigm or another, but that they can never truly understand both.

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

To "clarify" Popper and Kuhn in simplistic words may be complicated...why do no longer you in basic terms google/wiki them for some history components....after which you does no longer could ask everybody to jot down your paper for you or did I misunderstand what you extremely have been asking??

Answer 3

ooops, I don't know.