Popper vs Kuhn

• Fallacy of induction


  Inductive reasoning and verificationism aren't the distinctive features of science
• Popper


  • Argues we should reject verificationism due to the fallacy of induction where verification ignores that new evidence can come in at any time and prove a theory wrong
• Falsification


  The opposite of verificationism where a scientific statement is capable of being proved wrong via evidence
• Popper's view of a good theory

  • Falsifiable in principle, but stands up to all attempts to disprove it
• All knowledge is temporary and refutable at any moment
• Popper's view on sociology

  Sociology isn't a science because its theories can't undergo falsification
• Marxism


  • Predicts there will be a WCR that leads to a classless society, but there also won't be because of false class consciousness - this prediction can't be falsified
• Some sociology can be falsified, which opens the debate back up as to whether it's a science
• Paradigm (Kuhn)


  The norms and values of a scientific group, such as physicists, that defines what the science is and provides a framework of assumptions, principles and methods that researchers use/work around
• Scientific revolutions


  1. Pre-science (discovery period with no central paradigm)

  2. Normal science (established paradigm supports theories)

  3. Revolutionary science (paradigm is challenged/replaced, normal science continues)
• Sociology is pre-paradigmatic, therefore pre-scientific
• Sociology has no shared paradigm/dominant perspective, and cannot be a science until there is one
• Postmodernists argue that a paradigm isn't desirable anyway because it's essentially a metanarrative that silences minority views
• Realists argue science studies both observable phenomena and underlying unobservable structures, which would technically make Marxism and interpretivism scientific