Editing Critical rationalism (section)

==Criticism, not support==
Critical rationalists hold that scientific [[Theory|theories]] and any other claims to [[knowledge]] can and should be rationally criticized, and (if they have [[Empirical evidence|empirical]] content) can and should be subjected to tests which may falsify them. Thus claims to knowledge may be contrastingly and normatively evaluated. They are either falsifiable and thus empirical (in a very broad sense), or not falsifiable and thus non-empirical. Those claims to knowledge that are potentially falsifiable can then be admitted to the body of empirical science, and then further differentiated according to whether they are retained or are later actually falsified. If retained, further differentiation may be made on the basis of how much subjection to criticism they have received, how severe such criticism has been, and how probable the theory is, with the ''least'' probable theory that still withstands attempts to falsify it being the one to be preferred.<ref name=lscd43>{{Cite book|last=Popper |first=Karl |author-link=Karl Popper |title=[[The Logic of Scientific Discovery]] |orig-year=1959 |edition=2nd English |year=2002 |publisher=Routledge Classics |location=New York, NY |isbn=0-415-27844-9 |oclc=59377149}}, section 43, especially footnote *1 and *2</ref> That it is the ''least'' probable theory that is to be preferred is one of the contrasting differences between critical rationalism and classical views on science, such as positivism, which holds that one should instead accept the ''most'' probable theory.<ref name=lscd43/> The least probable theory is preferred because it is the one with the highest information content and most open to future falsification.

Critical rationalism as a discourse positioned itself against what its proponents took to be epistemologically [[Relativism|relativist]] philosophies, particularly [[Postmodernism|post-modernist]] or [[Sociology|sociological]] approaches to knowledge. Critical rationalism holds that knowledge is objective (in the sense of being embodied in various substrates and in the sense of not being reducible to what humans individually "know"), and also that truth is objective (exists independently of social mediation or individual perception, but is "really real").

However, this contrastive, critical approach to objective knowledge is quite different from more traditional views that also hold knowledge to be objective. (These include the [[Rationalism|classical rationalism]] of the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]], the [[verificationism]] of the [[Logical positivism|logical positivists]], or approaches to science based on [[Inductive reasoning|induction]], a supposed form of logical inference which critical rationalists reject, in line with [[David Hume]].) For criticism is all that can be done when attempting to differentiate claims to knowledge, according to the critical rationalist. Reason is the [[wikt:organon|organon]] of criticism, not of support; of tentative refutation, not of proof.

Supposed positive evidence (such as the provision of "good reasons" for a claim, or its having been "corroborated" by making successful predictions) does nothing to bolster, support, or prove a claim, belief, or theory.

In this sense, critical rationalism turns the normal understanding of a traditional rationalist, and a realist, on its head. Especially the view that a theory is better if it is less likely to be true is in direct opposition to the traditional positivistic view, which holds that one should seek theories that have a high probability.<ref name=lscd43/> Popper notes that this "may illustrate Schopenhauer's remark that the solution of a problem often first looks like a paradox and later like a truism". Even a highly unlikely theory that conflicts with a current observation (and is thus false, like "all swans are white") must be considered to be better than one which fits observations perfectly, but is highly probable (like "all swans have a color"). This insight is the crucial difference between naive falsificationism and critical rationalism. The lower probability theory is favoured by critical rationalism because the greater the informative content of a theory the lower will be its probability, for the more information a statement contains, the greater will be the number of ways in which it may turn out to be false. The rationale behind this is simply to make it as easy as possible to find out whether the theory is false so that it can be replaced by one that is closer to the truth. It is not meant as a concession to justificatory epistemology, like assuming a theory to be "justifiable" by asserting that it is highly unlikely and yet fits observation.

Critical rationalism rejects the classical position that knowledge is [[Definitions of knowledge#Justified true belief|justified true belief]]; it instead holds the exact opposite: that, in general, knowledge is unjustified untrue unbelief.<ref>{{cite book |last=Miller |first=David |date=1994 |title=Critical Rationalism: A Restatement and Defence |location=Chicago |publisher=[[Open Court Publishing]] |page=54 |isbn=0812691970 |oclc=30353251}}</ref> It is unjustified because of the non-existence of good reasons. It is untrue, because it usually contains errors that sometimes remain unnoticed for hundreds of years. And it is not belief either, because scientific knowledge, or the knowledge needed to, for example, build an airplane, is contained in no single person's mind. It is only what is recorded in artifacts such as books.