Ned Lebow : KCL – Lecture 11: Positivist Knowledge Claims

Many positivists embrace Karl Popper’s concept of falsification. Popper argued that theories and propositions must be formulated in a way to allow their testing and that the best test is efforts to disprove them. Repeated, unsuccessful attempts to falsify a proposition or theory “corroborate it,” that is give it the status of a provisional truth. Falsification was part and parcel of the project, initiated by the so-called Vienna Circle, to provide a rational basis for truth claims in the sciences. Scientists have never responded favorably to such efforts and remain more impressed by seeming proofs than they are by apparent falsifications. Most regard science as a practice, regulated by agreed-upon protocols of what constitutes good science. These protocols arise from practice and reflection about practice and evolve over time, sometimes dramatically so. I explore some of the implications of this model of science for IR theory.