Sayer argues that Popper defended a logicist philosophy of science. The problem with such logicism is that it creates what is termed here as a `truncated foundationalism', which restricts epistemic certainty to the logical form of scientific theories whilst having nothing to say about their substantive contents. Against this it is argued that critical realism, which Sayer advocates, produces a linguistic version of truncated foundationalism and that Popper's problem-solving philosophy, with its emphasis on developing knowledge through criticism, eschews all forms of foundationalism and is better able to account for the development of substantive knowledge claims.
See for example P. Catton and G. Macdonald, eds., Karl Popper: Critical Appraisals (London: Routledge, 2004); S. Fuller , Kuhn vs Popper (Duxford, UK: Icon, 2003); M.H. Hacohen, Karl Popper: The Formative Years 1902-1945. Politics and Philosophy in Interwar 263 Vienna (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); I. Jarvie and S. Pralong, eds., Popper's Open Society after 50 Years: The Continuing Relevance of Karl Popper ( London: Routledge, 1999); P. Munz, Beyond Wittgenstein's Poker: New Light on Popper and Wittgenstein (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2004); and P. Munz, `My Adventure with Popper and Wittgenstein ,' in Catton and Macdonald, Karl Popper.
2.
A. Sayer, Method in Social Science: A Realist Approach (London: Routledge, 1992).
3.
K. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge ( 1963; reprint, London: Routledge , 1976), 3-30.
4.
Ibid.
5.
A. Sayer, The Moral Significance of Class (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
6.
D. Armstrong , `The Rise of Surveillance Medicine,' Sociology of Health and Illness17, no. 3 (1995): 393-404.
7.
Ibid., 401.
8.
For some other statements of social constructionist positions, see D. Edwards, M. Ashmore, and J. Potter, `Death and Furniture: The Rhetoric, Politics and Theology of Bottom Line Arguments against Relativism,' History of the Human Sciences8, no. 2 ( 1995): 25-49; D. Edwards and J. Potter, Discursive Psychology (1992; reprint, London : Sage, 2000); J. Potter, Representing Reality: Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Construction (1996; reprint, London: Sage, 2003); and J. Shotter, Conversational Realities: Constructing Life through Language ( 1993; reprint, London: Sage, 2002). The article by Edwards, Ashmore, and Potter triggered a critical exchange in the journal History of the Human Sciences, and two key anti-constructionist contributions to that exchange were G. McLellan, `Thus: Reflections on Loughborough Relativism ,' History of the Human Sciences14, no. 3 (2001): 85-101; and I. Parker, `Against Relativism in Psychology, on Balance,' History of The Human Sciences12, no. 4 (1999): 61-78. See also D. J. Nightingale and J. Cromby, eds., Social Constructionist Psychology: A Critical Analysis of Theory and Practice (Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, 1999); and I. Parker , ed., Social Constructionism, Discourse and Realism (London: Sage, 1998), for a collection of papers on the issue of how social constructionist critique may—or may not—be useful in challenging the clinical practices of psychology. These two books address the issue of whether critique should be limited to denaturalising discourses or whether it should have a broader remit, namely, that of engaging with an extra-discursive reality. For realist attempts in the social sciences to analyse discourse as an ideational system that is inter-related to a non-discursive reality, see N. Fairclough, Discourse and Social Change (1992; reprint, Cambridge: Polity, 2003); and J. Joseph and J. M. Roberts, eds., Realism, Discourse and Deconstruction (London: Routledge, 2004). In stating this, it is recognised that the three positions outlined here—namely, foundationalism, social constructionism, and post-positivism—are not exhaustive. Nevertheless, these three positions do serve to orient much of the debate about knowledge and method in the sciences.
9.
R. Bhaskar, A Realist Theory of Science (1975; reprint, London: Verso, 1997), 16; and A. Collier, In Defence of Objectivity and Other Essays (London: Routledge, 2003).
10.
Bhaskar, A.Realist Theory of Science.
11.
K. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1935; reprint, London: Routledge, 2003), 4.
12.
Bhaskar, A Realist Theory of Science.
13.
Ibid.
14.
In making this critique, Sayer draws upon the work of R. Harré and E.H. Madden, Causal Powers (Oxford: Blackwell, 1975).
15.
Sayer, Method in Social Science, 167.
16.
Ibid, 168.
17.
See ibid.
18.
Ibid.
19.
Ibid, 169.
20.
See Hacohen, Karl Popper, 259.
21.
Sayer, Method in Social Science, 170-71.
22.
A. Chalmers , `Is Bhaskar's Realism Realistic?' Radical Philosophy49 (1988): 18-23; and R. Bhaskar, The Possibility of Naturalism: A Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human Sciences , 3rd ed. (1979; reprint, London: Routledge, 1998).
23.
Chalmers, `Is Bhaskar's Realism Realistic?'
24.
Bhaskar, The Possibility of Naturalism, 170.
25.
Bhaskar, A Realist Theory of Science, 36.
26.
See also J. Cruickshank, `A Tale of Two Ontologies: An Immanent Critical of Critical Realism,' Sociological Review52, no. 4 (2004): 567-85, for a similar argument made in relation to critical realism's attempt to develop an ontology for the social sciences.
27.
K. Popper, Realism and the Aim of Science (1983; reprint, London: Routledge, 1996), 82; emphasis in original.
28.
K. Popper, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 24; emphasis in original.
29.
Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, 129.
30.
B. Magee, Popper (Glasgow: Fontana, 1975), 67.
31.
Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, 352.
32.
Popper, Realism and the Aim of Science, 99; emphasis in original.
33.
Ibid.
34.
Popper, Realism and the Aim of Science, xxxv. Popper develops this argument in response to T.S. Kuhn, “Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?” in The Philosophy of Karl Popper, vol. 2, edited by P. A. Schlipp (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1974), who argues that although Popper is not a naïve falsificationist, he may be treated as one because Popper prioritises empirical reference to reality over the origins of a knowledge claim within a paradigm. Kuhn accepts that Popper rejects the notion of achieving a decisive refutation via observation. However, as far as Kuhn is concerned, we must treat Popper as a naïve falsificationist, because without a strong emphasis on intersubjective norms, one is left with a `subjectivist' (i.e., empiricist) approach to the issue of falsificationism. Whilst Kuhn is not a clear-cut relativist, this argument against Popper does have some affinities with the social constructionist position outlined above given its emphasis on the collectivist source of knowledge.
35.
Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 28.
36.
Popper calls this position `modified essentialism' to distinguish it from methodological essentialism. In his early work Popper dismissed methodological essentialism in favour of methodological nominalism; see K. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945; reprint, London: Routledge, 2002), 33-36; and K. Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (1957; reprint, London: Routledge, 2002), 23-30. The traditional rendering of this argument concerns the debate between realists and nominalists over the existence of universals. Popper sought to shift the problem from metaphysics to scientific methodology and, in so doing, he renamed the positions as methodological essentialism and methodological nominalism. Methodological essentialism was defined as a position that sought to base scientific explanation on answering `what' questions. That is, methodological essentialism sought to explain observed events as epiphenomena of an essential property, and so the most important task in science was to arrive at correct definitions of essential properties. In contrast, methodological nominalism asked `how' questions. The examples Popper gives are ` “how does this piece of matter behave?” and “how does it move in the presence of other bodies?”' (Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, 25). Unlike methodological essentialism, which uses words as ultimate definitions, methodological nominalism uses words as `useful instruments of description' (Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, 26). Scientific explanation for methodological nominalists, that is, turns not on treating words as definitions of some ultimate moving force, but as practical tools to explain empirical events. Popper took it as read that methodological essentialism (which he argued was derived from Aristotelian philosophy) had been replaced in the natural sciences with methodological nominalism. Hence he argues that `[p]hysics does not inquire, for instance, into the essence of atoms or of light, but it uses these terms with great freedom to explain and describe certain physical observations' (Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, 26). As regards the social sciences, Popper argued that methodological essentialism was tied to a `historicist' form of explanation which sought to explain social reality in terms of some ultimate moving force. Popper railed against this, taking it to be not only an unscientific remnant of ancient philosophy but also linked to a totalitarian approach to politics. Finally it needs to be noted that Popper's aversion to methodological essentialism stemmed from not just a wariness of metaphysics but also a rejection of the linguistic turn in philosophy. As far as Popper was concerned, the pursuit of precise definitions was a pseudo-problem. Hence he argued,
37.
Linguistic precision is a phantom, and problems connected with the meaning or definition of words are unimportant. . . . Words are significant only as instruments for the formulation of theories, and verbal problems should be avoided at all cost. (Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, 28)
38.
Popper, Realism and the Aim of Science, 137; emphasis in original.
39.
Ibid, 146.
40.
For collections of classic critiques of Popper, see T.W. Adorno, The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology (London: Heinemann, 1976); I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave, eds., Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); and P. A. Schilpp, ed., The Philosophy of Karl Popper, vols. 1 and 2 (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1974).
41.
I. Lakatos, `Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes ,' in Lakatos and Musgrave, Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge .
42.
Munz, Beyond Wittgenstein's Poker; and Munz, `My Adventure with Popper and Wittgenstein.'
43.
R. Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980).
