التمييز بين العلم واللاعلم في فلسفة بوبر

Abstract

This study aimed at illustrating the demarcation problem between science and pseudo-science as presented by Karl Popper. The researcher highlighted the importance of the problem within the framework of the philosophy of science in general and the philosophy of Karl Popper in particular. The study poses the basic issue that a science whose results are ascertained, and whose method is induction and is characterized by determinism established by Newtonian physics, has lost much of its initial appeal. This is mainly due to quantum theory which gives great importance to probability after it had insured that uncertainty and its synonyms such as un specificity are the determining and governing factors for theories in the scientific domain. It has become clear that Popper’s thesis which distinguish between science and pseudo-science based on falsifiability agrees with this new conception of science. The methodology followed in this study was the critical method as well as the comparative method. The study arrived at two important results : Firstly, science is distinguished from pseudo-science, not by its method or results but by the falsifiability of its theories. A rich method is thus arrived at here. Secondly, Karl Popper’s thesis has constituted a turning point in the course of the philosophy of science. Consequently the study recommends the adoption of critical rationalism as an assumed result of the application of Popper’s methodology.