Rational reconstruction of Popperian critical rationalism

The axiological, ontological and epistemological commitments of his metaphysics

Abstract

This article constitutes the first of two works that proceed to the rational reconstruction of the Popperian conception of science, identifying it as one of the theories in the series that makes up the rationalist program of knowledge. As a late theory of this program, the quantity and scope of problems left as a legacy to it is considerable, which, however, are resolved within a somewhat elaborate conceptual matrix, in which commitments of various orders converge. In the present work, we highlight how theses of an axiological nature connect and inspire theses of an ontological order to build an epistemology without resorting to any form of scientific or philosophical dogmatism, which leads, apparently in a contradictory way, to a normative view on scientific praxis . To this end, a methodological tool – the methodology of the theory of science – proves to be of great value in defining and tracking the dynamics of these commitments. Subsidiarily, we will show how the Popperian proposal involves, on the one hand, a radicalization of modern trends, such as the ontologization of epistemology, without falling, on the other, into the emptying of truth as consistency.