ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the basic tenets of Karl Popper’s own criterion of falsifiability and his arguments against psychoanalysis. It utilises “verifiability criterion” and “inductive criterion” interchangeably. The chapter discusses Adolf Grunbaum’s argument against Popper and aims to fill some of the gaps in Grunbaum’s defence of psychoanalysis against Popper. It also discusses only the general schema that would help in testing or finding independent evidence for a particular type of defence mechanism. Philosophers of science have been trying to set up a precisely defined criterion to distinguish a scientific system from a logical or mathematical system on the one hand and from a metaphysical system on the other hand. The empirical status of psychoanalysis, therefore, depends on whether or not the theory has a class of falsifiers. Metapsychology consists of the most abstract theoretical parts of psychoanalysis. Scientific theories are tested not by verification or confirmation by observation but deductively by deriving testable consequences from them.
