Author Archives: Rafe

At the conclusion of comparing Popper and Hayek on some specific issues, a quick look at another topic that Boettke mentioned. This is the dangerous liaison between scientism and statism and it is probably worth mentioning Popper’s critique of the … Continue reading →

Peter Boettke, F. A. Hayek: Economics, Political Economy and Social Philosophy, Great Thinkers in Economics Series, Palgrave Macmillan, 323 pages. This is an ambitious book on the career of one of the very significant thinkers of our time. Friedrich A … Continue reading →

The purpose of this series of posts is to explain three areas where Popper and Hayek stood together. This is often overlooked among followers of Hayek who are not interested in Popper and also followers of Popper who are not … Continue reading →

Popper, Hayek and Oakeshott were all concerned with defective forms of rationality. Popper rejected comprehensive or unlimited rationality, Hayek criticised constructivist rationality and Oakeshott famously criticised Rationalism in politics. My conclusion is that all three had substantially the same views … Continue reading →

The synergy of Popper and the Austrian economists is apparently not an idea whose time has come just yet. This calls for a study of the reason why the synergy is apparent to some people like the late Gerard Radnitzky … Continue reading →

This originally appeared in the Australian monthly magazine Quadrant . It is reprinted in the revised paper edition of the collection Reason and Imagination. Karl Popper almost came to the University of Sydney in 1945. John Anderson invited him to join … Continue reading →

 Rafe Champion and  Brian Gladish, Independent Scholars The Austrian-born philosopher Karl Popper charted new direction in the philosophy of science in the 1930s with Logik der Forschung (The Logic of Scientific Discovery 1959). His ideas can be recruited to support the … Continue reading →

This is an essay drafted in response to a question in a Philosophy of  Science Course at the local university. The reading in the list is the  relevant section of Nelson Goodman’s book Fact, Fiction and Forecast in the 1950s.  … Continue reading →

By Leo Dunbar, Age Monthly Review, Melbourne 1985. The economic affairs of many countries and the dismal science itself are in a very sorry state. Shortsighted protectionist policies in Western countries aided by ideologically crazed dictators at home have destroyed the … Continue reading →