Popper, trying to demarcate empirical science and nonscience, developed the falsifiability thesis as the criterion for demarcation, a criterion used for demarcating empirical science from metaphysics too. Popper, in opposition to Logical Positivists' meaningfulness criterion, claimed that metaphysics may be meaningful, while it is not a science. Calling a set of currently untestable ideas as metaphysical, he claimed that they may be testable in future, so that we may regard a set of metaphysical ideas as protoscience. He afterwards propounded “ metaphysical research programme” as historical development of a science out of a metaphysical idea. Applying the criterion of testability to demarcating science and metaphysics allows some currently metaphysical ideas to become “testable” and, therefore, “scientific”. Thus, Popper's conception of “metaphysics” is different from the original conception of the term. In spite of the importance of regarding metaphysical statements as meaningful by Popper, his particular conception of metaphysics leads to a confusion of metaphysics with protoscience, and gives rise to serious difficulties in philosophy, science, history of science, and philosophy of science.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Akrami, Musa. 1384/2005. Kant va Mā ba'd-a ttabī'a (Kant and Metaphysics). Tehran: Gām-e Now.
Aristotle. 2001. Metaphysics. Translated by Joe Sachs. Santa Fe, NM: Green Lion Press. 2nd edition.
Aristotle. 2007. Metaphysics. Translated by W. D. Ross. eBooks @ Adelaide. http://ebooks. adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/metaphysics/. Accessed 20 September 2007.
Ayer, Alfred Jules. 1936/1952. Language, Truth and Logic. New York: Dover Publications.
Feyerabend, Paul. 1975. Against Method. New York: Humanities Press.
Grier, Michelle. 2004. Kant's Critique of Metaphysics. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics/. Accessed 22 September 2007.
Hempel, Carl. 1950. Problems and Changes in the Empiricist Criterion of Meaning. Revue Internationale de Philosophie 41: 41–63.
Hickey, Thomas J. 1995/2005. History of Twentieth-Century Philosophy of Science. Book V: Karl Popper and Falsificationist Criticism. Page 5.http://www.philsci.com/book5-5.htm/. Accessed 20 September 2007.
Hume, David. 1748/2004. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Courier Dover Publications.
Ibn Sina. 1960. al-Isharat wa-'l-tanbihat (Remarks and Admonitions). Part three. Cairo: S. Dunya.
Kant, Immanuel. 1781/1997. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kant, Immanuel. 1783/1996. Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics. Translated by Paul Carus. Reprinted in Immanuel Kant's Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysic in Focus, ed. Beryl Logan. New York: Routledge.
Kipfer, Barbara Ann, ed. 2002–2006. Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English. Preview Edition. LLC Long Beach, CA: Copyright by Lexico Publishing Group. http://dictionary.reference.com/help/wmde.html/. Accessed 21 September 2007.
Kuhn, Thomas Samuel. 1970. Reflections on My Critics. In Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, eds. Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, 231–277. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Laudan, Larry. 1983. The Demise of the Demarcation Problem. In Physics, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis, eds. Robert S. Cohen and Larry Laudan, 111–128. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Masterman, Margaret. 1970. The Nature of a Paradigm. In Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, eds. Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, 59–90. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Merriam-Webster's Medical Desk Dictionary. 2002. Revised Edition. Merriam-Webster.http://dictionary.reference.com/help/mwmed.html/. Accessed 21 September 2007.
Owens, Joseph. 1951/1978. The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian “Metaphysics”. Toronto, ON: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Third Edition. Revised.
Popper, Karl Raimund. 1945/1966. The Open Society and Its Enemies. Fifth edition (revised). London: Routledge.
Popper, Karl Raimund. 1959/1980. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Tenth impression (revised). London: Unwin Hyman.
Popper, Karl Raimund. 1963/2002. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. London: Routledge.
Popper, Karl Raimund. 1982a. Open Universe: An Argument for Indeterminism (Vol. 2 of the Postscript to The Logic of Scientific Discovery). London: Hutchinson.
Popper, Karl Raimund. 1982b. Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics (Vol. 3 of the Postscript to The Logic of Scientific Discovery). London: Hutchinson.
Popper, Karl Raimund. 1983. Realism and the Aim of Science (Vol. 1 of the Postscript to The Logic of Scientific Discovery). London: Hutchinson.
The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. 2005. New York: Houghton Mifflin. http://dictionary.reference.com/help/ahcl.html/. Accessed 21 September 2007.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer Science + Business Media B.V.
About this paper
Cite this paper
Akrami, M. (2009). The Difficulties with Popper's Nontraditional Conception of Metaphysics. In: Parusniková, Z., Cohen, R.S. (eds) Rethinking Popper. Boston Studies in The Philosophy of Science, vol 272. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9338-8_30
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9338-8_30
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-9337-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-9338-8
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)