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"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
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Monthly Archives: October 2010
Popper on Schools and Universities
It has been said, only too truly, that Plato was the inventor of both our secondary schools and our universities. I do not know a better argument for the optimistic view of mankind than the fact that this devastating system of education has not utterly ruined them. Continue reading
Posted in epistemology, ethics, open society, quote
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Who Should Decide?
Popper points out that it is difficult to find a government on whose goodness and wisdom we can rely and so that we should set up our institutions to allow us to prevent bad government from doing too much damage. Many people seem unaware of this argument and its implications for political and moral philosophy. Continue reading
Posted in ethics, open society
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The Ultimate Foundations of Economic Science
This is the last book that Mises wrote. It has been released by the Mises Institute in a new edition and it comes with a very big pitch. There are two senses in which this book is indeed ultimate: it deals … Continue reading
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A Virtual Classical Liberal conference program
The theme of this conference is “Getting over the advantage line”. This is for people who can’t get to the live Mont Pelerin Society program. Most of the themes of the live program are duplicated, and there are some additional strands. The … Continue reading
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Mont Pelerin Society in Sydney
Next week the Mont Pelerin Society meets in Sydney (Australia). An all-star cast of speakers will address a range of topics under the general theme of The 21st Century Liberal Enlightenment. The speakers include some locals, among them Sinclair Davidson (academic … Continue reading
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The Myth of the Framework
The Myth of the Framework is an essay Popper wrote that was published in the book of the same title. The point of the essay is that relativists tend to set excessively high standards for making progress. I would add that this is not just a problem for relativists: it is is a very widespread and extremely damaging obstacle to intellectual and moral progress. Continue reading
Posted in epistemology, ethics
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New blog: The Austrian economists and literature
Heads up on a new blog created by Troy Camplin, a frequent contributor to the site of the Austrian economists, now Coordination Problem. This close to my interests as you saw from the post on the wider agenda of classical … Continue reading
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Summary of Kealey on the economic laws of scientific research
This is a 1400 word summary and go here for a more extended account of the main arguments and evidence. Summary of Terence Kealey, The Economic Laws of Scientific Research, Macmillan, 1996. pb, 380 pages. The take-home message from this book is that … Continue reading
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