School of thought

Critical Rationalism

Movement

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Classification

Period
c. 1934 CE onward
Regions
europe
Domains
Epistemology , Philosophy of Science

Overview

Critical Rationalism, founded by Karl Popper, holds that scientific knowledge advances not by accumulating confirmations but through bold conjectures exposed to rigorous attempts at refutation. Every theory remains open to revision; certainty is neither available nor required for rational inquiry. Lakatos extended the approach to whole research programmes, and Bartley pushed Popper's fallibilism toward a comprehensive critical philosophy. The school did not end with Popper's death: later philosophers continue to criticize and develop its account of science, knowledge, and inquiry, sometimes retaining central Popperian insights while rejecting others.

Key ideas

  • Falsifiability: A theory earns scientific status by forbidding certain observations — if those observations occur, the theory is refuted. Theories immune to refutation are not thereby confirmed; they are unscientific.
  • Conjectures and Refutations: Science proceeds by proposing bold conjectures and subjecting them to the most severe tests available, retaining only what survives — not by inductively generalizing from confirming instances.
  • Fallibilism: No theory, however well corroborated, is ever proven true. All knowledge remains provisional and open to future refutation.

Key figures

Karl Popper · Imre Lakatos · W. W. Bartley

Methods used

Positions held

Reacts to

  • Logical Positivism

    Where the positivists demarcated science by verifiability, Popper argued verification is impossible and that falsifiability is the mark of science, rejecting inductivism as a myth of method.

References