The Bilogical Paradigm’s Influence on the 20th Century Philosophy: The Darwinist Epistemology of Karl Popper

Abstract

Karl Raimund Popper is an epistemologist that makes connections between scientific production and Darwin´s evolutionism. His researches are developed from questions about scientific methods, political philosophy and social sciences, presenting the Three Worlds Theory. The philosopher in question studies many theories and hypotheses and conceptualize them as theory or a metaphysical program according to the characteristics they present. This paper had the goal of evidencing the relationship between Popper´s theories and the Darwinist one. To Popper, Darwinism is set on World 3 and is a metaphysical research program, for not being credible or counterfeitable. Darwinism and Popper´s thinking, as himself admits, are researches that will provide bases for other researchers to answer questions aroused by those. However, one may see there are flaws on the philosopher´s reflection on some terms of evolutionist theory, such as natural selection and speciation.