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Article ID: CBB854564067

The Problem of the Empirical Basis in the Popperian Tradition: Popper, Bartley, and Feyerabend (2020)

Shaw, Jamie (Author)

HOPOS
Volume: 10
Issue: 2
Pages: 524-561

DOI: 10.1086/710183

URI: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/710183

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Epistemology Controversies and disputes Methodology of science; scientific method Empiricism 20th century Feyerabend, Paul K. Bartley, William W. Popper, Karl Raimund

The problem of the empirical basis is one of the most prominent difficulties within the Popperian tradition. Some claim that Popper’s anti-inductivism and antipsychologism lead to the concession that science has no empirical basis. Recent commentators have focused on this problem in Popper’s methodology. However, the problem also arises in a peculiar way in the thought of two underdiscussed members of the Popperian tradition: William Bartley and Paul Feyerabend. In this article, I aim to accomplish three primary goals. First, I argue that defenses of Popper’s solution to the problem of the empirical basis fail to address the deeper issues that have been pointed out by Popper’s critics. Second, I show how, despite Bartley’s efforts, he also succumbs to a modified version of the problem of the empirical basis. However, Bartley’s later work in evolutionary epistemology provides a more sensible response to the problem. Finally, I show how the problem arises in two distinct senses within Feyerabend’s methodology. I show how Feyerabend accidentally dissolves one sense of the problem and then provide a proposal for remedying the second version of the problem.

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