We are considering various things. Under two threads: one this, on
'conceptual analysis' and why Popper hated it so much. Grice would NEVER get
bothered if a Popperian would go and (this is a Britishism, it means, go to)
utter that Grice is into a problem-solving approach for a logic-based
normative proposal (it would be different if a Wittgensteinian were to say
Grice is
a neo-Wittgensteinian), so I wonder whence all that hatred come from!
The other thread, under 'falsiy' and its usages. It relates to this. For
Popper's line of argument is simple:
i. Logical positivists had been talking of a verifiability criterion (of
meaning).
ii. He comes up with falsifiability as his demarcation-criterion (for
science).
Quite a change! I wonder how Popper's theory looks in W3, as he rather
pretentiously called it -- or rather platonically calls it. I suppose that
given Popper's theory, in W3, there are ways of VIEWING IT. In his recent
post, McEvoy made some points about how Popper's stuff is NOT definitional, and
why its antagonist, the logical positivists' view, is NOT definitional,
either. This reminds me of Waismann and his open texture. It may well be that
for Popper 'science' is an open-texture concept -- with conceptual
porosity, figuratively.
Or something like that.
So it may do to list the reasons why Popper's thing is NOT definitional,
and why his anti-definitional stance is not ad-hominem (he just had something
against the 'men' who were, in his time, self-identified as conceptual
analysts).
SCIENTIST: Welcome.
POPPER: Thank you.
SCIENTIST: We heard about you.
POPPER: Danke schoen.
SCIENTIST: You are trying to 'define' science as falsifiability.
POPPER: Something like that.
SCIENTIST: But we don't CARE to define what we do. Are YOU a scientist?
POPPER: Not _me_: one of my ancestors was. In fact, one of everyone's
ancestors was. The inventor of the wheel, I mean. I can prove you that what he
did can be accounted for in terms of logic-based normative proposal around
one simple single concept: falsifiability.
SCIENTIST: One problem with the invention of the wheel is that its
discovery was never reported in "Science" you know.
POPPER: We can always falsify that!
SCIENTIST: Sort of 'falsify and be calm'?
POPPER [using his favourite word]: Exactly.
:)
Cheers,
Speranza