Chinese Journal of Sociology ›› 2009, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (4): 148-166.

• Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

On the Problems of Falsificationism Again: A Rejoinder to Yin and Pang’s Critique

  

  • Online:2009-07-20 Published:2009-07-20

Abstract:

In response to the critique of Yin Haijie and Pang Wen, this article re-accounts for the inapplicability of falsificationism in social sciences. Due to the Duhem-Quine thesis and the probability of the propositions in social sciences, we cannot falsify a theory/proposition by a single exception as Popper’s naive falsificationism puts. Meanwhile, the “complex” falsification proposed by Popper and Yin et al. is in essence based on induction, so it is not superior to or more parsimonious than confirmation, and thus, goes against Popper’s logical starting point for his propositions. Moreover, the value of statistical testing in social sciences does not need to be justified by falsification as falsifiability could hardly be manipulated in practice and it is already totally within the conception of “explanatory power”. Therefore, falsifiability is not a criterion of demarcation for scientific theories from unscientific ones; neither is falsificationism the logical foundation of social sciences. The article also extends the discussion to the relationships between falsification, scope conditions, and developing empirical research in social sciences.

Key words:

, falsifiability, falsification, falsificationism, scope condition