On Popper's Philosophy Of Social Science

Philosophy of social science is an active domain in thecontemporary western philosophy. As an important landmark in westernphilosophy of social science development, Popper's philosophy ofsocial science is given worth taking effort to research. This articlemainly discusses his theory in three aspects.First, the nature of social science. This chapter focuses on thetheory foundation, of Popper's philosophy of social science and theconcept of social science. From the view of falsifiability and the trialand error methodology, he holds that the social science is Science aftercomparing the nature of the natural science with that of the socialscience. At the same time, he resorts to the commonality and thesociality of scientific method, and then considers that social science isobjective. The duty of social science is exploring the unexpectedlysocial response caused by the purposeful activities of human.Second, social science methodology. This chapter emphasizesPopper's social science method-situational logic method. He traces theorigin of essentialism, criticizes the historicism methodology andproposes the situational logic analysis method, emphasizes the meaningof rationality principle and the utilization.Third, the influences of Popper's philosophy of social science.This chapter mainly elaborates the influence of his theory on thephilosophy of social science, the economics and on other domains.