Author Archives: Rafe

STANDARD CRITICISMS and ERRORS 1. The falsifiability criterion is about meaning. 2. “Falsification cannot be decisive”. 3. Failure to draw the distinction between falsifiability (a matter of logic and the form of     statements) and falsification (a practical matter). 4. “Scientists don’t practice falsification”. 5. “Falsificationism … Continue reading →

Work is proceeding to document some of the extent of defective Popper sholarship. The outline can be found on this page that I have set up to avoid putting up monster posts on this site. The idea is to produce … Continue reading →

Ian Jarvie studied anthropology at the London School of  Economics, drifted into Popper’s orbit and became a research assistant. He has done good work in partnership with Joe Agassi and he is one of the Popperian quiet achievers like Peter Munz, producing a steady … Continue reading →

Alert observers may have noticed occasional references to the Austrian tourist-turned-Brit Karl Popper in my scribbling over the years, starting around 1972 when the story broke about Popper’s encounter with Bazza Mackenzie. That story never made the mainstream media. Like … Continue reading →

Barry Gower on Scientific Method. The question that has to be asked about recent books on the philosophy of science is: Does this book explain the four “turns” that Karl Popper introduced? These are (1) the conjectural turn, to explain … Continue reading →

Two  reviewed on Amazon.  Sosa and  Okasha. And another, not listed on Amazon US David E. Cooper, World Philosophies: An Historical Introduction. Blackwell, Oxford, 1996.  530 pp This is a very ambitious book, large enough to provide potentially useful information … Continue reading →

Another very unsatisfactory introduction to the philosophy of science. So far Popper’s critique of inductive logic has not been effectively answered, although some people like to use the term to apply to (1) the process of forming a hypothesis or … Continue reading →

Popper refused to be drawn into the “logic” or methods of discovery, his focus was the logic of criticism and testing. The nearest that he came to advice on this topic was in the 1983 Preface to the first volume of … Continue reading →

Prompted by Ken’s post on CR and the Austrians, here is the abstract of a paper being prepared for publication or perhaps delivery at a conference in Texas  in November on the theme “Austrian Thought and its Legacy”. This paper … Continue reading →

This is a long paper that Gombrich contributed to the Schilpp volume for Popper.