ABSTRACT
Science is for Popper a middle way between ignorance and knowledge, an alternative to both epistemological pessimism and optimism. The pessimist is impressed with human fallibility and ignorance, as Popper was. But if we thought that it was not just difficult but impossible to gain access to the truth, there would be no point in doing science. Against the doctrine of manifest truth, Popper contrasted the “doctrine of fallibility”—the presupposition, as he saw it, of science. However, recognizing our natural ignorance does not mean pessimistically accepting it as permanent—the position taken by the skeptic of science. According to Popper, science works by giving us a way to check-mate the optimist’s dogmatism by showing him the errors in his doctrine. Thus, in Popper’s view, the most suitable scientific method is one that exposes hypotheses to the detection of their flaws.
