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Popper's Improbability Criterion for the Choice of Scientific Hypotheses1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

John C. Harsanyi
John C. Harsanyi
Affiliation:
The Australian National University Canberra
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Extract

The publication in English of Karl R. Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London, Hutchinson, 1959) twenty-five years after the appearance of the German original, is an important event. At the time when many philosophers questioned the cognitive value of scientific hypotheses (and even of the most down-to-earth empirical generalizations), Popper has shown how to reconcile the free use of bold explanatory hypotheses with an insistence on empirical testing. Many of Popper's views have now been accepted even by most of his earlier opponents, which is no small tribute to a philosopher who had challenged an important current of opinion. But, though the basic aspects of Popper's theory have attracted considerable attention in recent years, some of his finer points have received insufficient discussion. It is hoped that the publication of this important book in English translation will now help to remedy this situation.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 35 , Issue 135 , October 1960 , pp. 332 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy1960

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References

page 333 note 1 Recently John Kemeny has developed a more general theory on the criteria for judging the simplicity of a quantitative hypothesis (see his “The Use of Simplicity in Induction”, Philosophical Review, 57,1953, pp. 391–408).Google Scholar

page 336 note 1 This is so because the proof on pp. 380–1 of theorem (1) essentially depends on the assumption that any possible combination of n atomic facts is equally likely- which is true only under Wittgenstein's probability metric.

page 336 note 2 Jeffreys's proof is based on the fact that the set of all possible, essentially different, quantitative hypotheses is a denumerable set; therefore it can be arranged in a linear order; and we can assign the probabilities 1/2, 1/4,1/8, to the successive members of the set. Under this arrangement each hypothesis will have a non-zero a prior probability and the sum of all probabilities will be unity as required.

page 337 note 1 I am indebted for this example to Professor John Pass more.

page 338 note 1 Popper uses this principle only to discourage the introduction of unjustified auxiliary hypotheses (see p. 145). But it seems to me it has a much wider application and indeed is one of the most fundamental principles of scientific method.

page 340 note 1 But of course these hypotheses in turn will leave their own basic assumptions without explanation.