popper-logic-scientific-discovery

5
THE PROBLEM OF THE
EMPIRICAL BASIS
We have now reduced the question of the falsifiability of theories to
that of the falsifiability of those singular statements which I have called
basic statements. But what kind of singular statements are these basic
statements? How can they be falsified? To the practical research worker,
these questions may be of little concern. But the obscurities and
misunderstandings which surround the problem make it advisable to
discuss it here in some detail.
25 PERCEPTUAL EXPERIENCES AS EMPIRICAL
BASIS: PSYCHOLOGISM
The doctrine that the empirical sciences are reducible to senseperceptions,
and thus to our experiences, is one which many accept as
obvious beyond all question. However, this doctrine stands or falls with
inductive logic, and is here rejected along with it. I do not wish to deny
that there is a grain of truth in the view that mathematics and logic are
based on thinking, and the factual sciences on sense-perceptions. But
what is true in this view has little bearing on the epistemological
problem. And indeed, there is hardly a problem in epistemology which