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- Jeffrey C Alexander and the logic of sociological research
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- Peter Boettke on 1985 as a defining year for Austrian economics
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- Alex Naraniecki on articles of interest
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Author Archives: Matt
Why is the study of deduction important to critical rationalism?
This is a response to a post that was made last May in this blog by Elliot and can be found here. I’m making this a post as opposed to a comment in an attempt to renew interest in this … Continue reading
Posted in logic
28 Comments
E. H. Gombrich on perception
Even our natural view of the world is theoretical … From Art and Illusion by E. H. Gombrich: Just as a tune remains the same whatever the key it is played in, so we respond to light intervals, to what … Continue reading
Posted in biology, quote
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Sir Peter Medawar on scientific method
Deductivism in mathematical literature and inductivism in scientific papers are simply the postures we choose to be seen in when the curtain goes up and the public sees us. The theatrical illusion is shattered if we ask what goes on … Continue reading
Posted in science
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Sir John Eccles on falsification
Until 1944 I had succeeded moderately well in the conventional scientific manner with beliefs that may be categorized as follows: that hypotheses grow out of the careful and methodical collection of experimental data; that the excellence of a scientist is … Continue reading
Posted in science
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Peter Munz on knowledge as representation
Since knowledge is always knowledge of regularities and has therefore to be couched in terms of universal laws, it follows that knowledge cannot be representational. Knowledge is neither a map nor a mirror nor a portrait. Once this is admitted, … Continue reading
Posted in epistemology
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Peter Munz on Wittgenstein’s meaning as use
The philosophy of late Wittgenstein consisted largely in the contention that the meaning of a sentence consists in its ‘use’. If ‘use’ equals ‘meaning’ then ‘meaning’ equals ‘use’. [footnote omitted] Since all knowledge is a linguistic phenomenon or something expressed … Continue reading
Posted in epistemology
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Isaiah Berlin on monism
"The enemy of pluralism is monism — the ancient belief that there is a single harmony of truths into which everything, if it is genuine, in the end must fit. The consequence of this belief (which is something different from, … Continue reading
Posted in epistemology
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Karl Popper on the scientific status of Darwin’s theory of evolution
When speaking here of Darwinism, I shall speak always of today’s theory–that is Darwin’s own theory of natural selection supported by the Mendelian theory of heredity, by the theory of the mutation and recombination of genes in a gene pool, … Continue reading
Posted in evolution, science
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Karl Popper on the importance of grasping the problem situation
My second thesis is that what appears to be the prima facie method of teach- ing philosophy is liable to produce a philosophy which answers Wittgenstein’s description. What I mean by ‘prima facie method of teaching philosophy’, and what would … Continue reading
Posted in epistemology
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Karl Popper on logic of falsification
The falsifying mode of inference here referred to — the way in which the falsification of a conclusion entails the falsification of the system from which it is derived — is the modus tollens of classical logic. It may be … Continue reading