Monthly Archives: July 2010

Popperian “turns” – conjectural, objective, social etc

I have deleted the old post on Popper as a fallible apriorist because it was a draft of this paper which is very close to final. One of the things which came up in the paper is the need to … Continue reading

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Hoppe on praxeology, and forgetting Popper

Hans-Hermann Hoppe has a video on praxeology. If you are familiar with the line of argument there is no need to sit through it again as he goes through the routine at a nice slow pace. If you are not familiar with the … Continue reading

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Against Popper: Mises and Blackburn use the argument from technology.

One of the often-repeated arguments against the theory of conjectural knowledge can be called the argument from technology. Mises: “The popular prestige that the natural sciences enjoy in our civilization is, of course, not founded upon the merely negative condition … Continue reading

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More almost Popper-free introductions to philosophy

Interesting exchange on a blog the other day. An economist took exception to a disparaging comment that I passed on the positivists and logical empiricists and he implied that Popper was himself a positivist. He defended Kuhn against my put down, … Continue reading

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The Tanner Lectures on Human Values

A wonderful series of lectures endowed by a remarkable inventor, entrepreneur (and philosopher). In 1927 in his mother’s basement, Obert Tanner began an industrial enterprise that has become the largest firm of its kind in the United States. The O.C. … Continue reading

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Unpacking Popper’s critique of the authoritarian structure

That is the authoritarian structure of western thought. With compliments to David Miller and the late Bill Bartley who have been the most active exponents of non-justificationism. The immediate purpose of this post is to think aloud about re-writing a … Continue reading

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Essentialism

Anti-essentialism is a Popperian idea that many people are either unaware of or do not understand.  Many people are essentialists, particularly people who think they understand philosophy, but essentialism is a bad mistake. There are two separate ideas that Popper … Continue reading

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Teichman and Evans on Popper

Jenny Teichman and Katherine Evans, Philosophy: A Beginner’s Guide, (second edition), Blackwell, Oxford, 1995. First edition 1991. The book was written for a general readership and university freshers, aiming to present the major topics in self-contained chapters without using technical jargon. The … Continue reading

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Israel trip

This is the full list of reports on a recent trip to Israel with a group of people from the Australian Council of Christians and Jews. I happen to have a friend on the Council and he showed me the … Continue reading

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Simon Blackburn on Popper. From the sidelines:)

Simon Blackburn, The Big Questions: Philosophy, Quercus, London,2009. In the chapter What Do We Know? Virtual realities and reliable authorities. One of the most influential views of our situation as theorists is that of Karl Popper, famous for his deliniation of … Continue reading

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