Blackwell Reference Online

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L ogic, philosophy of science Popper 's term for the support obtained by a hypothesis or conjecture that survives serious testing and is not superseded by another hypothesis or conjecture. Popper preferred to call the testable degree of a hypothesis its degree of corroboration rather than its probability. Corroboration is introduced to distinguish Popperian testing from confirmation and to show that the probabilistic theory of induction is wrong. Corroboration is a measurement or report of the past performance of a theory and does not make a theory universal or more reliable. Hence, the degree of corroboration of theory has nothing to do with prediction or future decision making. For Popper, a theory can never be established beyond doubt. The aim of science is not to verify, but to falsify. “The term ‘confirmation’ has lately been so much used and misused that I have decided to surrender it to the verificationists and to use for my own purposes ‘corroboration’ only.” Popper, Conjectures and Refutations ... log in or subscribe to read full text