Author Archives: Rafe

Bryan Magee on philosophical fads

In Bryan Magee’s book Confessions of a Philosopher there is a helpful account of the rise and fall of Logical Positivism, explaining how the positivists and after them the logical empiricists managed to think that Popper was playing their game … Continue reading

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Trashing Popper, Balashov and Rosenberg 2002

Philosophy of Science: Contemporary Readings eds Yuri Balachov and Alex Rosenberg Routledge 2002 This 520 page book has 29 chapters grouped under Part I, Science and Philosophy (2 chapters), Part II Explanation, Causation and Laws (6 chapters), Part III Scientific … Continue reading

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Interesting Discovery: re the trashing of Popper

A book by Paul  Moser Philosophy after Objectivity: Making Sense in Perspective London Uni Press, 1993. From the Preface Philosophers, among other theorists, have long sought objective knowledge: roughly, knowledge of things whose existence does not depend on one’s conceiving … Continue reading

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CR Resources, time to update

It is time to update the list of CR Resources. Let me know about any books, papers or items of interest that you think should be on the list. Don’t bother to tell me about the CR blog! Here is … Continue reading

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Gunter Wachterhauser on CR and the origin of life on earth

In this paper Gunther Wachterhauser tells a fascinating story of the evolution of ideas about the nature of living matter, and how living things evolved, with a highly speculative theory about the very beginning of life on earth. That is the background … Continue reading

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Yvor Winters on line

Yvor Winters (1900-1968) combined the careers of poet, critic, teacher and scholar but he was a marginal figure, sometimes lumped with the New Critics, sometimes dismissed as a simple-minded moralist.  Biographical notes here.  At the height of his powers he … Continue reading

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Philosophy of biology vs philosophy of physics

Bartley wrote another long paper (more than 10,000 words) to demonstrate how the dominant philosophy of physics is refuted by biology (and is defective as the philosophy of physics). The paper begins with an exchange between Popper and a leading physicist, … Continue reading

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Popper and Wittgenstein as schoolteachers

Some time ago in this essay on the three world theory and literary criticism I suggested that there was a degree of similarity in at least one of the problems confronted by Popper and Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein, like Popper and Piaget, … Continue reading

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de Jasay vs Popper on social engineering

Anthony de Jasay is one of my favorite commentators, he is a libertarian or very strong liberal and a regular columnist even in his old age.  A search reveals that he is Hungarian born and spent time in both Austria … Continue reading

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More CR resources on line

Roger James Return to Reason Summary of Bartley’s paper A Popperian Harvest   Simkin Book Part I  Simkin Book Part II 

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