Some notes on the Aristotelian origin of the distinction between a falsificationist's and verificationist's view of science: together with corrections to my earlier account
Date
2012-10-31
Authors
Corkett, Christopher J.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
It has not always been realised that Karl Popper's analytic distinction between the logically stronger falsificationist's view of science and the logically weaker verificationist's and inductivist's view of science is a modification of Aristotle's distnction between the notions 'all' and 'some'. This document traces this distinction anew in a way that corrects my earlier (Corkett, 1997) account in which a semantic rather than a logical view was taken of this distinction. For example: when writing the 1997 paperI was not aware that the universal law "All swans are white' represented a universal categorical proposition 'All S is P' where 'S' represented the subject 'swan' and the 'P' represented the predicate 'white'. In this document I try to cover some of the main points of my 1997 paper in a way that clarifies their origin in the Law of Tripartite Entailment, a logical rule unknown to me fifteen years ago.
Description
Keywords
Aristotle, Law of Tripartite Entailment, Karl Popper's non-inductive theory of method, Falsificationist's view of science, Verificationist's view of science, Fisheries management