Karl Popper's scientific method - that of conjecture and refutation - is applied to scientific inquiry. I have not read much of Popper, but I am very interested in whether he thinks his method could/should be applied to inquiry in the humanities. I will give an example:
I am writing a paper intending to refute Sterling McMurrin's statement in Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion that "Mormon theology is a modern Pelagianism"; he, of course, gives his reasons. My thesis is that Mormon theology is not a modern Pelagianism, and I give my reasons. This, I think, is a useful and productive interaction because the theses are given straightforwardly and unambiguously so as to expose them most easily to refutation.
Now let me give an example of an not-so-useful response to my argument: Mormon theology is like a modern Pelagianism. This is not useful precisely because Mormon theology is like a lot of things and there are so many ways that it is like other things that the questions about the real issue (whether Mormon theology is a modern Pelagianism or not) are lost in an attempt to argue for the sake of argument - in the words of Popper, these kinds of useless statements (at least insofar as they are intended to be responses to the first questions) say very little because they are not "bold" nor "falsifiable." I think that arguing for the sake of arguing impedes progress and wastes time. This kind of effort in science, Popper argues, leads to stagnation. I think that enaging in this kind of "ad hoc rescue" in the humanities has the same kind of stand still (at least insofar as real progress is concerned in light of the original problem.)
I understand that in the humanities we have slightly different objectives than the sciences, but even so, I am wondering more and more whether Popper's method should be applied more often; I think it would help us to say more in our sayings.
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A thoughtful post. May I suggest that Popper's paradigm cannot be the sole paradigm for humanities, however? And that the argument by simile 'like a modern Pelagianism' is not useless?
Where I think a Popper-ian humanities fails is that, if one applied his criteria to both your thesis and McMurrin's thesis, both fail a falsifiability test. I cannot prove that Mormonism is a modern Pelagianism because I cannot transfer Pelagianism--its followers, cultural context, and ideology--into a modern world without adaptation. Pelagianism--if an ideology can be said to have an ontological existence--is not a twenty-first century phenomenon. In essence, both you an McMurrin are using analogical arguments. You're not positing that Mormonim is Pelagianism in the sense of uniformity to Pelagian teachings (there are obviously similarities and differences), but arguing that the comparison implied in 'modern Pelagianism' is useful/not useful in understanding Mormonism. You can't emprically verify that argument or test the hypothesis, you can only make a comparative study that helps illuminate Mormonism. This comparative work is the essence of humanities. And you, my friend, are very good at it.
Just a thought, though.
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