Falsifiability

:This page discusses how a theory or assertion is "falsifiable" ("disprovable" opp: "verifiable"), rather than the non-philosophical use of "falsification", meaning "counterfeiting." The idea comes from the work of the philosophers Sir Karl Popper and Ernest Gellner.

Related Topics:
Falsification - Karl Popper - Ernest Gellner

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Falsifiability is an important concept in the philosophy of science that amounts to the apparently paradoxical idea that a proposition or theory cannot be scientific if it does not admit the possibility of it being false.

Related Topics:
Philosophy of science - Proposition - Theory - Scientific

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Falsifiable does not mean false. For a proposition to be falsifiable, it must be at least in principle possible to make an observation that would show the proposition to be false, even if that observation has not been made. For example, the proposition "All crows are black" would be falsified by observing one white crow.

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Falsificationists claim that any theory that is not falsifiable is unscientific. Psychoanalytic theory, for example, is held up by the proponents of Karl Popper as an example of an ideology rather than a science. A patient regarded by his psychoanalyst as "in denial" about his sexual orientation may be viewed as confirming he is homosexual simply by denying that he is; and if he has sex with women, he may be accused of trying to buttress his denials. In other words, there is no way the patient could convincingly demonstrate his heterosexuality to the analyst. This is an example of what Popper called a "closed circle". The proposition that the patient is homosexual is not falsifiable.

Related Topics:
Psychoanalytic - Karl Popper - Ideology - Science - In denial - Sexual orientation - Closed circle

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