Monthly Archives: July 2010

Things you wanted to know but were afraid to ask

About the different historical calenders. This calendar handles the change from Julian to Gregorian calendars in different countries. How a flintlock pistol works. With slow motion animation. The inventory of English royal ordinance in 1637. The formula to explain underwater … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

On Obviousness

One criticism that I often read of Popper is that some ideas are just obvious, and so there is no need to take all this fallibilist stuff too seriously. As an example, people often say 1+1 = 2 is obvious … Continue reading

Posted in epistemology | 4 Comments

The David Stove Prize – call for nominations

The work of David Stove was recently raised on an email list as a corrective to Popper’s philosophy of science. This has prompted me to revive a dormant idea, along the lines of the Bent Spoon Award handed out each year by … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

CR Scholars 1. Struan Jacobs

A  new feature on the site! A roundup of CR scholars around the universe, starting with my Melbourne friend Struan Jacobs. He has wide ranging research interests from Michael Polanyi to policy issues in education and medicine. I won’t say … Continue reading

Posted in CR scholars | 1 Comment

Austrians in crisis

Pete Boettke meditating  on the Austrian response to the New Deal and the same thing all over again. Re-reading these arguments one cannot help but think of the immediate application to the world today, and how the policies pursued so … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Why the Austrians need a better understanding of Popper

Popper has a low profile among the Austrians, although Pete Boettke often uses the slogan “think like a Misean, write like a Popperian”.  The two Popperians with the best grip on economics are Larry Boland and Jack Birner but they … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Perils of Paradigm Mentalities: Revisiting Kuhn, Lakatos, and Popper

Looks good. The abstract of this paper.  I show how paradigm mentalities help justify rigid opposition to theoretical alternatives and limit critical insight. While paradigm mentalities may be fitting for disciplines that demonstrate Kuhn’s concrete scientific achievements, they constrain the … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Bill Bartley on the structure of Popper’s epistemology

The value of Bartley’s take on Popper was exemplified by my experience in a series of lectures to a group of people in Sydney who convened to discuss the Philosophy of Humanism. They met for an afternoon every two weeks over a period … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Colin Simkin’s great introduction to Popper

Colin Simkin became a close and lifelong friend of Karl Popper when they met in Christchurch (NZ) in 1937. Colin was a young economist, only in his 20s at the time and we met many year later,  in Sydney in the 1980s.  We … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Bill Bartley on line

Bill Bartley died in 1990 and so he did not have the opportunity to use email or put his work on line. He has an entry on Wiki but very little of his large output is on line. A website … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment