Steve writes [OPE-L: 4159] >I haven't kept up with the philosophy of science since Lakatos--though I >have read all the references you note below. I dispute that it is Popper's >litmus test which has been rejected. What has been rejected are his >concepts of how scientists do and should behave. I would find it strange >for any philospher of science to define as a science a set of propositions >which has been designed to be unfalsifiable--though of course adjusting >ancillary assumptions is a normal part of the development of a SRP. Pulling a book off my shelf.... it seems Popper thought that objectivity in the social sciences depends on the 'critical method' implied by falsification, since 'only in the rarest cases can the social scientist free himself from the value system of his own social class and so achieve even a limited degree of "value freedom" and "objectivity" (Logic of the Social Sciences, in Adorno 1976 edn. *The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology*). "Truth" wins out through a process of criticism?! Does anyone disagree with Popper? Like Andy, I'd like to see some justification for a claim that falsifiablity is the *only* criterion for judging a theory 'scientific'. Steve's present answer doesn't stand up to the Duhem-Quine thesis that any single hypothesis is immune to falsification because of its theoretical auxiliary hypotheses? Adjusting assumptions doesn't help you to solve the problem! Another basic question is the one of whether the objective tests you devise as your litmus test can be disentangled from the theoretical biases of the theory from which they are derived? As for the 'critical' element in the social sciences, I recall from undergrad Philosophy of Social Sciences that Habermas had something interesting to say about it. Something to do with how far people in their communications have the competence to raise questions. Might it not be, then, that positive methodologies imply a closure of debate (rather than an invitation to criticism). After all, restricting the definition of what counts as science effectively ensures that alternative voices struggle to be heard (don't we know it!). In one of his papers Mirowski made a similar point about the futility of applying a Lakatosian framework to an evaluation of the 'truths' expounded by different schools in economics. For the simple reason that there is a *lack* of agreement between these schools as to what counts as science and therefore no commonly held criterion of judgement, and no commonly held methodological magic wand for revealing what is to count as 'truth' in the first place. What you take as unproblematic, Steve, is very problematic indeed. Popper, of course, rejects the view that theories are fundamentally incomensurable, remarking caustically on the 'myth of the framework'. He supports his remark only by ignoring any debate about the nature of 'science' and the nature of 'truth' in his discussions of the nature of the 'critical stance' - either as critical rationalism or as a critical theory of society. He certainly ignores the political/ideological foundations of his own view. As Adorno points out - in the same book that contains Popper's 'Logic' - 'there is more than one ghost in the machine' (p.xv). So, does this mean I agree with Andy. Not necessarily since I don't think that Marxian theory should be put above empirical testing. To say that it should be is surely to put up another set of artificial boundaries about *what constitutes Marxism as science*. I prefer to think that the question is open to social (re)construction and debate. comradely Nicky
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