Bucket and headlight model

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The bucket and headlight model of knowledge , also the bucket and headlight theory of the mind, are two fundamentally different positions for understanding the acquisition of knowledge. Karl Popper made this distinction in order to work out the differences between the epistemology of critical rationalism and the traditional point of view.

Distinction

The bucket theory refers to the view that knowledge arises through passive perception of the human being and that his activity extends at most to the accumulation, systematic selection and sometimes synthesis of perceptual reports. This understanding can be found in particular in constructivist , but also in positivist and naturalistic models of knowledge. The spirit thus symbolically corresponds to a bucket that is filled with the water of knowledge.

The headlight theory, on the other hand, says that knowledge can only be gained through the active, creative participation of people. Knowledge therefore takes place when the person actively makes assumptions and illuminates individual aspects of it through perception, similar to a spotlight in the dark. This also applies to observational sentences, with which the headlight theory particularly opposes the idea of ​​pure perception. In contrast to the bucket theory, the headlight theory assumes that observation sentences can still be valid.

The distinction between the bucket model and the headlight model corresponds roughly to the differences between the traditional view that the goal of science is to justify and secure existing knowledge, and the critical view that it is the goal of science to generate new knowledge win and discover the truth.

Arguments

Popper saw the bucket theory refuted in particular through experiments with kittens and rats: a kitten that actively explores its surroundings develops normally; a passive kitten who is linked to the same perceptions but cannot move does not learn anything. Rats develop larger brains in a rich environment, with many different problems to solve, than in a barren laboratory cage.

swell

  1. ↑ R. Held, A. Hein: Movement-produced stimulation in the development of visually guided behavior. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology 56 : 5 (1963), pp. 872-876.
  2. ↑ PA Ferchmin et al .: Direct contact with enriched environment is required to alter cerebral weights in rats. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 88 (1975), pp. 360-367.

literature

  • Jörg Wurzer: Karl Popper's bucket and headlight model of knowledge (Bonn: 1994; PDF; 101 kB).
  • Karl Popper: Philosophy of science: a personal report. Chapters 1 and 4 of Conjectures and Refutations (mind you: the terms were used later, at least in German: "Kübel" does not appear here (2nd German edition 2009 d. Assumptions ), and "headlight theory" only once in the running text in front).
  • Karl Popper: The I. David Miller (Ed.): Karl Popper Reading Book
  • Karl Popper, John C. Eccles: The I and its brain .