The stove-popper controversy: rationalism or irrationalism

Abstract

In this text, I will try to show some relevant aspects about the controversy Stove-Popper in wich the tension between Logia Positivism and Critic Rationalism is carried out. I start from Stove's position to attack Popper's anti-inductivism, and to achieve it, the author centers herself basically in two fundamental aspects: the first one shows the conception of Rationality as if it were possible to analyzed just from deductives points of view. The second one related to the affirmation about that science has only had progress from de pure Deductivism. The conception of Popper's rationality implies a strong Deductivism, and could not establish the affirmation of progress during the last centuries. In order to attack these aspects, the author tries to show that Popper's concept about rationality is richer and more complex than Stove's proposal, and on the other hand, shows that there is not a postulation of inferences of unobservable, from observable or from future facts starting from past facts.