证伪在社会科学中可能吗?

Is Falsification Possible in Social Science?

本文讨论在社会科学中影响广泛的波普尔“证伪主义”方法论,认为证伪主义除了受到自然科学哲学的批评外,更不适合于基于概率性因果关系的社会科学。本文讨论了在社会科学领域中使用证伪来判断社会理论的科学性的四个问题:(1)理论的辅助性假说使得证伪在逻辑上不可能;(2)社会科学命题复杂的因果机制对证伪形成挑战;(3)统计命题不能被单个反例证伪;(4)限界条件并不能挽救证伪主义。基于上述讨论本文认为,只有严格地发展理论,而不是寄希望于证伪的简便性,才能推动社会科学理论的进步。

This article discusses the methodology of Poper's methodological falsificationism which has been widely used in social science.It is argued that falsificationism is not only criticized in scientific philosophy,but also unsuitable for social science based on probabilistic casual relation.The author discusses four problems when using falsification to justify the scientificalness of social theories:1.we should distinguish necessary condition and sufficient condition;2.it's necessary to notice auxiliary hypothesis of theories;3.statistical theories can't be falsified by a single counterexample;4.the theory of scope limitation can't save falsificationism.Based on the discussions above,this article argues that only by developing theories strictly instead of using the falsification carelessly,can we make the social theory progress continuously.