Monthly Archives: May 2010

Some interesting discussion about anti-discrimination laws here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1375774 (The posts by xenophanes are me.) Excerpt: Fundamentally, it’s irrational to force people who disagree with you to do things your way if they don’t see why it’s best — to make … Continue reading →

Deduction is a bad idea which Popper accepted. The idea is that certain arguments are “deductively valid”. A valid argument is one such that if the premises are true then the conclusion MUST be true. Deduction thus has an anti-fallibilist … Continue reading →

Rafe discussed “Popper’s legacy in economics and the social sciences”. The most important principle of this sort is that disagreements should be resolved rationally. That means we do not assume which idea is right, especially not based on attributes of … Continue reading →

Natsuka Tokumaru is a doctoral student at Kyoto University in Japan. At the 2007 Rethinking Popper conference in Prague she delivered a paper titled “Popper’s analysis of the probems of induction and demarcation and Mises’ justification of the theoretical social … Continue reading →

I will argue that the expansive claims that are made regarding the content of the essence of action, sometimes called the Action Axiom is not plausible. It is possible to dispute the claim on more or less commonsense grounds, and the same case … Continue reading →

“The more fruitful debates on methods are always inspired by certain practical problems which confront the research worker; and nearly all debates on methods which are not so inspired are characterized by that atmosphere of futile subtlety which has brought … Continue reading →

In 1972 Jeremy Shearmur reminded me to be alert to the difference between falsifiability and falsification. He was Popper’s research assistant at the time so he was well placed to offer this kind of advice. Unfortunately I did not take it … Continue reading →

A few years ago I joined a group of economists on a blog  called Oysterium. We never met, it was all done in cyberspace and then after a year or two the other contributors faded away (nobody ever said why) and … Continue reading →

The most immediate task, quickly becoming urgent, is to finish a paper for a Rothbard edition of an Italian journal. The papers will address the theme of Rothbard’s development of Austrian economics. Papers need to be submitted in June and … Continue reading →

This is the text of a long paper that Ian Jarvie drafted for a memorial volume of papers for Bill Bartley who died in 1990, aged only 55. The plan did not proceed. Too many people like myself put together … Continue reading →