Definition
Critical rationalism is Karl Popper's answer to what he considered the most important problems of epistemology and philosophy of science: the problems of the growth of knowledge, notably by induction, and the demarcation of science. He adopted a fallibilist approach to these problems, especially that of induction, without falling into skepticism. His approach was to put in perspective the distinctive role of deductive logic in the development of knowledge, especially in science, in the context of a less rigorous methodology based on critical thinking. The central technical concept in the application of critical rationalism to science is falsifiability. Popper first mentioned the term "critical rationalism" in The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) and also later in Conjectures and Refutations (1963), Unended Quest (1976), and The Myth of the Framework (1994).
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