The word "falsification" comes from the Latin words "facio", which means "doing" and "falsus" - "false". The concept is applied in various branches of human life. So, for example, there is the term "falsification of goods." This action is aimed at deceiving consumers and is a fake product for personal gain.
The principle of falsification is a test of the falsity of a theory using theoretical analysis or experiment. This term was introduced into scientific circulation by Popper.
The principle of falsification assumes that only theories that can be refuted in principle can be considered scientific. In other words, scientific speculation is able to prove its falsity. Verification and falsification are formally symmetric procedures. The latter is associated with a rupture of deduction and induction.
The principle of falsification applies only to isolated empirical assumptions. They can be rejected in the presence of specific experimental results or due to incompatibility with fundamental theories. However, when combining many hypotheses into one theory, it is quite difficult to find a refutation, since some correction of some fragments in the tested theory is allowed, based on the results of the experiment. Along with this, there is a need to preserve rejected ideas until the formation of more effective assumptions - more alternative ones that can provide real progress in the knowledge of the world.
The principle of falsification has its drawbacks. One of the most important is the provision that relates to the ratio of relative and absolute truth. At the same time, the truth of knowledge is relative, at the same time that falsity can acquire an absolute character.
Just as the verification principle is not verifiable , falsification is not amenable to falsification. In other words, these systems cannot be proved or disproved using our own evidence base.
The falsification principle is the logical conclusion of the neo-positivist attitude to carry out a critical analysis of everything, including philosophical knowledge.
The main ideas, which were the reduction of philosophy to the principle of verification, the reduction of philosophical knowledge to the logical analysis of a scientific language, the interpretation of mathematics and logic as formal scientific transformations, were formulated by participants in the Vienna Circle of Mathematicians and Logicians. These ideas became very popular in the thirties and forties.
The verification principle, in particular, was justified by Schlick (the leader of the circle) and required any scientific statement that is meaningful to be reduced to a set of protocol proposals that should be verified empirically. The same proposals that are not amenable to this procedure, that is, are not subject to reduction to empirical facts, are considered theories devoid of any meaning.
The positivistic logic methodology has been replaced by postpositivism. This complex of methodological concepts is not a special philosophical trend, school or trend. Postpositivism is a stage of scientific philosophy. His offensive is associated with the publication of Popper’s methodological work and Kuhn’s book.
A distinctive feature of this stage is a significant variety of methodological concepts, as well as their mutual criticism. Postpositivism recognized that in scientific history, revolutionary and significant transformations are inevitable. They lead to a revision of knowledge previously justified and recognized. Popper concluded that there was no inductive logic. In this regard, an attempt to translate truth from an empirical to a theoretical level is hopeless. Thus, Popper points to the presence of destructive deduction within the framework of deductive logic, which is the principle of falsification.