Karl Popper & Thomas Kuhn - The Philosophy of Science

Question 1

What period were Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn influential in?

Answer 1

Mid 1900s. (Karl Popper published The Logic of Scientific Discovery in 1959, Thomas Kuhn published The Structure of Scientific Revolution in 1962).

Question 2

What did Karl Popper believe that a great part of philosophy could be reduced to?

Answer 2

Syntax (grammar).

Question 3

Name the hierarchy of three types of statements that logical positivists constructed (like Karl Popper).

Answer 3

1. Logical true statements.
2. Statements based on induction.
3. Statements based on metaphysics.

Question 4

What other school in Psychology supported logical positivism?

Answer 4

Behaviourism.

Question 5

What was Popper’s main question in Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959)?

Answer 5

Can you observe certain knowledge?

White swan example

Question 6

Briefly explain Popper’s method of deduction.

Answer 6

We formulate a general rule (hypothesis). We make some observations that might falsify the hypothesis and then revise the hypothesis on the basis of the observations.

Question 7

Briefly explain the method of induction.

Answer 7

We make some observations. We infer a general rule.

This is not as reliable (e.g. white swan example)!

Question 8

What did Popper classify as science and non-science?

Answer 8

If statements could be falsified then this was considered science, and vice versa.

Question 9

Who was Popper’s primary target?

Answer 9

Freud. Many of his theories were unfalsifiable (e.g. Oedipus Complex).

Question 10

What did Peter Wason suggest about how people formulate hypotheses?

Answer 10

People look for positive cases and this limits their search for disconfirming information.
This theory went against Popper’s model!

Question 11

Briefly explain Watson’s failure to eliminate hypotheses.

Answer 11

People do not spontaneously generate information to falsify hypotheses.

Question 12

What did Watson’s work lead to in the UK?

Answer 12

A large interest in reasoning in UK Cognitive Psychology.

Researchers like Philip Johnson-Laird pursued this.

Question 13

What did Thomas Kuhn argue against?

Answer 13

The development by accumulation.

Where historical time and value of science are directly proportional

Question 14

What were the three stages Kuhn believed science went through?

Answer 14

Pre-paradigmatic.
Paradigmatic.
Paradigm Shift (scientific revolutions).

Question 15

Explain the concept of pre-paradigmatic science (Kuhn).

Answer 15

Scientists don’t agree on anything. Share few assumptions.

Communicate in books rather than articles.

Question 16

Explain the concept of paradigmatic science (Kuhn).

Answer 16

This is where science is non-novel - no major novelties, conceptual or phenomenal.
Science is not testing established knowledge.
Science is not 100% formalised - it is learnt through scientific education and is based on familiarity rather than formal rules.

Question 17

Explain the concept of a scientific revolution (Kuhn).

Answer 17

Science doesn’t know what is true or false.
Science doesn’t know the best way to study it either.
Ontology + epistemology is unsure.

Question 18

Name an example of a scientific revolution.

Answer 18

Cognitive psychology over behaviourism.

Question 19

Name the 3 main psychologists’ influence on Kuhn.

Answer 19

Kuhn uses the rabbit-duck illusion to explain how a scientific revolution feels.
Paradigms described as conceptual schemas (Gestalt), they determine what scientists see and pay attention to.
Analogy between a paradigm shift and a child’s cognitive growth between Piaget’s stages of development.

Question 20

What does Kuhn believe happens to the old paradigm after the revolution?

Answer 20

Some people still cling onto it and are eventually read out of the profession.

Question 21

What’s the main reason we don’t see paradigm shifts when we look back?

Answer 21

Textbooks show history as a development by accumulation story. They make history look linear and cumulative.

Question 22

Name some ways in which Kuhn influenced the way the history of Psychology was written.

Answer 22

Wrote Structure.
Writing the history of Psychology became professional (1965). Example: APA.
Critical histories: studies of textbook myths, race and IQ debates, foremothers of Psychology.