The framework of the myth

Abstract

In The Logic of Scientific Discovery Karl Popper rejected psicologism, i. e., "the doctrine that statements can be justified not only by statements but also by perceptual experience". According to him, this doctrine founders on the problem of induction and of universals. "For we can utter no scientific statement that does not go far beyond what can be known with certainty 'on the basis of immediate experience'". It is argued in this paper that Popper's thesis presupposes the particular conception of sense experience according to which it is possible to perceive objects of the world without any application of concepts. This is an assumption of what Sellars called "the myth of the given", and it is further suggested that Popper shared this point of view with some logical empiricists in at least some of their works.