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Karl Popper's Criteria for Better Explanations

In his book, Against The Philosophical Tide: Essays In Popperian Critical Rationalism Danny Frederick does an awesome job at summarizing Popper's ideas. In one section he lays out some criteria, or procedures that Popper had to help us in our aim for better and better explanations.  I found these to be tremendously helpful and I want to reproduce them here with some changes to the formatting for easier viewing. 

  1. we should study, and try to criticise, existing explanations, subjecting them to experimental tests if they are falsifiable or scientific, and we should attempt to propose explanations which offer better solutions to the problems for which the existing explanations provide solutions (1959, section 27, including footnote *1; 1982, section 27; 1976, pp. 40-43)
  2. we should try to identify new problems posed by our study and criticism of existing explanations and try to propose explanations which solve them (1958, pp. 184, 190);
  3. we should state our problems and proposed explanations as clearly and simply as we can (1983, p. 8);
  4. we should subject our proposed explanations to critical scrutiny and seek out and invite criticisms of them, including experimental tests in the cases of falsifiable and scientific explanations (1959, section 9)
  5. where a criticism is telling, we may defend a proposed explanation by modifying it or by combining it with additional hypotheses so that the criticism is rebutted, but only if these manoeuvres allow the explanation to solve additional problems (Popper 1959, sections 6, 19 and 20)
  6. in the case of a falsifiable or a scientific explanation, we may seek to overturn a falsification of it by modifying the explanation or by combining it with additional hypotheses so that the falsification is explained away, but only if these manoeuvres give us a revised explanation which generates novel falsifiable predictions that survive attempts to falsify them or which solves a problem that the explanation had previously not solved (1959, sections 6, 19 and 20)
  7. we should accept (at least until it is falsified, or until it is rebutted in accordance with (6) any observation statement describing a reproducible situation that is agreed by observers to describe an observed situation
  8. we should abandon a proposed explanation if the problems it is intended to solve are shown to be not genuine problems (1958, pp. 190-92, 199-200)
  9. we should never attempt to justify a proposed explanation but should rather be keen to improve it or to replace it with something better (Popper 1959, sections 1, 8, 11, 85; 1976, section xvi).

 

References Danny Frederick Uses:

 

Popper, Karl. 1945. The Open Society and its Enemies, volumes 1 and 2. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul (1966 fifth, revised edition). 

1949a. ‘Towards a Rational Theory of Tradition.’ In his 1963b, pp. 120-35. 

1949b. ‘The Bucket and the Searchlight.’ In his 1972b, pp. 341-61 (Appendix).

1957a. ‘Science: Conjectures and Refutations.’ 

1957b. ‘The Aim of Science.’ In his 1983, pp. 131-46

1958. ‘On the Status of Science and of Metaphysics.’ In his 1963b, pp. 184-200.

1959. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchinson. __. 

1961. ‘Addendum I: Facts, Standards and Truth.’ In his 1945, volume 2, pp. 369-396. 

1963a. ‘Truth, Rationality, and the Growth of Scientific Knowledge.’ In his 1963b, pp. 215-50

1963a. ‘Truth, Rationality, and the Growth of Scientific Knowledge.’ In his 1963b, pp. 215-50

1963b. Conjectures and Refutations. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul (fourth edition, 1972)

1968a. ‘Epistemology Without a Knowing Subject.’ In his 1972b, pp. 106-52.

1968b. ‘On the Theory of the Objective Mind.’ In his 1972b, pp. 153-90

1971. ‘Conjectural Knowledge.’ In his 1972b, pp. 1-31.

1972a. ‘Two Faces of Commonsense.’ In his 1972b, pp. 32-105.

1972b. Objective Knowledge. Oxford: Clarendon.

1974a. ‘Intellectual Autobiography.’ In Paul Arthur Schilpp (ed.), 1974, volume 1 (pp. 3-181)

1974b. ‘Replies to My Critics.’ In P. A. Schilpp, ed., The Philosophy of Karl Popper, volume 2 (pp. 961-1197). La Salle, IL: Open Court.

1975. ‘The Rationality of Scientific Revolutions.’ In his 1994 (1-32) __. 1976. ‘The Myth of the Framework.’ In his 1994, pp. 33-64.

1982. Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield.

1983. Realism and the Aim of Science. London: Routledge.

1994a. ‘Models, Instruments, and Truth.’ In his 1994b, pp. 154-84 (London: Routledge)

1994b. The Myth of the Framework, London: Routledge. 

1994c. Knowledge and the Body-Mind Problem. London: Routledge. 

Popper, Karl and Eccles, John. 1977. The Self and its Brain. London: Springer-Verlag (1983 edition).