-
-
"One of the main tasks for human reason is to make the universe we live in understandable to ourselves. This is the task of science. There are two different components of about equal importance in this enterprise. The first is poetic inventiveness ..."
– Karl Popper
books
(non-commercial links)
Author Archives: Matt
Popper Symposium featuring Notturno on Hayek
There will be a Popper Symposium in Pennsylvania, September 16-18, 2014. The twentieth anniversary of Karl Popper’s death (September 17, 1994) provides a fitting occasion to reflect on Popper’s contributions to many fields of inquiry … A session of the … Continue reading
Posted in epistemology
4 Comments
How to Win a Debate
I’ve been reading Teachers Without Goals: Students Without Purposes by Henry J. Perkinson. I cannot recommend this book enough. The book totally embraces Karl Popper’s ideas as far as learning, and moreover, also embraces the concept of evolutionary epistemology. I … Continue reading
Who practices critical rationalism?
The following is a comment made on the criticism page in early December. Via error, I only just posted it recently. I’m forwarding it here for comment. Frank Burton is the writer, he is the executive director for The Circle … Continue reading
Posted in criticism of critical rationalism
2 Comments
What does Popper’s falsifiability criterion achieve?
Michael Kennedy writes on the criticism page: Popper’s falsifibility criterion is only a necessary condition for scientific status. If by demarcation criterion we mean a frontier with scientific statements on one side of the line and non-science on the other … Continue reading
Posted in epistemology, science
27 Comments
Does criticism need to be valid?
From Josh: Critical Rationalism from how I understand it supposes that justificationsim is merely assumed and can’t justify itself–therefore is irrational. I agree with this presumption; justificationism lead me to a path of skepticism. Critical Rationalism assumes fallibilism or falsificationism … Continue reading
Posted in criticism of critical rationalism
5 Comments
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
3 Comments
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
Leave a comment
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
Leave a comment
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
Leave a comment