The Methodology of the Humanities and Karl R. Popper’s Philosophy of Science and Art

Abstrakt

The aim of this paper is to test the possibility of adopting Karl R. Popper’s model of science in the humanities - its raison d’etre is the current situation of the humanities. Difficult on account of their complex and elusive subject, this situation has recently become aggravated as a result of the poststructuralist rejection of the classical concept of scholarship in favour of either cognitive relativism or approaches openly admitting to an ideological bias. Popper’s model of science might help protect the standards of research in the humanities, as it entails inter alia falsifiability as the criterion of demarcation for science, the correspondence theory of truth and, above all, the method of critical rationalism. An attempt to apply Popper’s ideas to the humanities is further legitimized by his recognition that, although the object of their investigation is world 3, their method is the same as that of the natural sciences: identification of problems, tentative solutions and their critical examination. The most problematic issues in the project concern falsification, formulation of universal laws and predictions. Some of the difficulties esp. with reference to falsification might be overcome with the help of Popper’s cognitive theory of art. Popper argued, namely, that art’s primary function is cognitive descriptive and problem-solving, that its nature is semiotic, that its origin is mythic and that the process of its creation involves an interaction between the mind of the artist and the object of world 3 the mind is engaged in creating.