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KARL POPPER: Critical Appraisals PDF

248 Pages·2004·1.89 MB·English
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KARL POPPER One of the most original thinkers of the twentieth century, Karl Popper inspired his own and subsequent generations of philosophers, historians and politicians. The essays presented here, specially written for this volume, offer a fresh philo- sophical examination of key themes in Popper’s philosophy, including the philosophies of knowledge and science, and political philosophy. Drawing from some of Popper’s most important works, the contributors address Popper’s solu- tion to the problem of induction and his views on conventionalism and criticism in an open society, while exploring his unique position in twentieth-century philosophy. The contributors also examine the current relevance of Popper to understanding liberal democracy along with his critique of tribalism. Addition- ally, they offer new evaluations on Popper’s relationship with analytic philosophy in general, and with Wittgenstein in particular, and draw on the studies of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein to assess Popper’s conception of science. This volume offers new insights on key topics from some of Popper’s most important work and is essential reading for students of Popper and anyone inter- ested in political philosophy and the philosophy of science. Contributors: Alan Musgrave, Semiha Akıncı, Philip Catton, Wenceslao Gonzalez, Jeremy Sheamur, Peter Munz, Christian List, Philip Pettit, Graham Macdonald, Alan Ryan, Anthony O’Hear, Jeremy Waldron Philip Catton is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Graham Macdonald is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Canterbury. KARL POPPER Critical appraisals Edited by Philip Catton and Graham Macdonald First published 2004 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. Selection and editorial matter © 2004 Philip Catton and Graham Macdonald; individual chapters, respective contributors Alan Musgrave ‘How Popper (might have) solved the problem of induction’, reproduced with kind permission from Cambridge University Press. First published in Philosophy (date forthcoming), Cambridge University Press All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Karl Popper: critical appraisals / edited by Philip Catton and Graham Macdonald. – 1st ed. p. cm. 1. Popper, Karl Raimund, Sir, 1902–94 I.Catton, Philip, 1956– II.Macdonald, Graham. B 1 649.P64K34 2004 192–dc22 2004002913 ISBN 0-203-32688-1 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0–415–31970–6 (hbk) ISBN 0–415–31971–4 (pbk) CONTENTS List of contributors vii Preface xi Introduction 1 PHILIP CATTON AND GRAHAM MACDONALD 1 How Popper (might have) solved the problem of induction 16 ALAN MUSGRAVE 2 Popper’s conventionalism 28 SEMIHA AKINCI 3 Constructive criticism 50 PHILIP CATTON 4 The many faces of Popper’s methodological approach to prediction 78 WENCESLAO J. GONZALEZ 5 Popper versus analytical philosophy? 99 JEREMY SHEARMUR 6 My adventure with Popper and Wittgenstein 114 PETER MUNZ 7 An epistemic free-riding problem? 128 CHRISTIAN LIST AND PHILIP PETTIT 8 The role of experience in Popper’s philosophy of science and political philosophy 159 GRAHAM MACDONALD CONTENTS 9 Popper’s politics: science and democracy 174 ALAN RYAN 10 The open society revisited 189 ANTHONY O’HEAR 11 Tribalism and the myth of the framework: some Popperian thoughts on the politics of cultural recognition 203 JEREMY WALDRON Index 231 vi CONTRIBUTORS Semiha Akıncıis Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Communi- cation Sciences at Anadolu University, Turkey. She took her degrees from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, and these included a Master’s on Popper as well as a Ph.D. on the metaphysics of possible worlds. Her publica- tions are diverse, as she writes on philosophy of science, ontic commitment, possible worlds, human rights, the environment, theodicy and education. Philip Cattonis Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, where he heads up the programmes in history and philosophy of science and also mathematics and philosophy. His early degrees are from New Zealand, and his Ph.D. is from the University of Western Ontario. He has published on the philosophy of space and time, ecology, and problems with the deductivist image of scientific reasoning. Wenceslao J. Gonzalez is Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of La Coruña in Spain. He has been a visiting researcher at the Uni- versity of St Andrews, the University of Münster and the London School of Economics, as well as Visiting Fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh. He is the editor of Philosophy and Methodology of Economics (1998) and Lakatos’s Philosophy Today (2001). He has published numerous articles on scientific methodology, economics and individual ratio- nality. Christian Listis a Lecturer in Political Science in the Department of Govern- ment at the London School of Economics. He took his degrees from the University of Oxford, modulating from mathematics and philosophy into political science, and subsequently held several visiting and postdoctoral posi- tions at Oxford, ANU, MIT and Harvard. His publications range over topics in political philosophy, rational choice theory, philosophy of economics and philosophy of science. Graham Macdonaldis Professor of Philosophy at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. His research areas are philosophy of social science, philosophy of mind, and teleosemantics, on which he has published in journals such as vii CONTRIBUTORS Mind and Language, Philosophical Quarterly, Analysisand Proceedings of the Aris- totelian Society. He is co-author of What Philosophy Does and Semantics and Social Science, and editor or co-editor of numerous volumes, including Fact, Science, and Morality (with Crispin Wright) and Philosophy of Psychology(with Cynthia Macdonald). Peter Munzis Emeritus Professor of History at the Victoria University of Welling- ton, New Zealand. He is the only person to have been a student of both Popper and Wittgenstein. He is the author of several books on early medieval history as well as of several books on philosophy, including The Shapes of Time, Our Knowledge of the Growth of Knowledge: Popper or Wittgenstein?, Philosophical Darwinism: On the Origin of Knowledge by Means of Natural Selectionand Cri- tique of Impure Reason. His new book, Beyond Wittgenstein’s Poker: New Light on Popper and Wittgenstein, is in press. Alan Musgrave is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Otago, New Zealand. He took his degrees at the London School of Economics, where with Imre Lakatos he edited Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, an outstandingly influential collection of essays assessing the competing views about science of Popper and Thomas Kuhn. His chief interests are the theory of knowledge and the history and philosophy of science, in which areas he has published widely including his books Common Sense, Science, and Scepticism and Essays on Real- ism and Rationalism. Anthony O’Hear is the Weston Professor of Philosophy at the University of Buckingham, UK and is Editor of the journal Philosophy. Among his many interests in philosophy are philosophy of science; philosophy of religion, aes- thetics and culture; political philosophy; and ethics. His books include Karl Popper, Beyond Evolution: Human Nature and the Limits of Evolutionary Explana- tion, After Progress, and Philosophy in the New Century. Philip Pettitteaches political theory and philosophy at Princeton, where he is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics and at the University Center for Human Values. He works on the foundations of cognitive and social sci- ence, and moral and political theory. Among his recent books are: A Theory of Freedom: From the Psychology to the Politics of Agency and, with Geoffrey Bren- nan, The Economy of Esteem: An Essay on Civil and Political Life. Alan Ryan is Head of New College, University of Oxford, and Tutor there in political philosophy. His main interests are political philosophy, philosophy of the social sciences, and the history of ideas. He has written and edited several books on John Stuart Mill, theories of property and the philosophy of social sciences. His most recent books are John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism and Liberal Anxieties and Liberal Education. Jeremy Shearmuris Reader in Philosophy at the Australian National University. He obtained his degrees from the London School of Economics, where he viii CONTRIBUTORS worked for eight years as Popper’s assistant. His research areas include political philosophy, philosophy of science and social science, moral philosophy, and mid-twentieth-century social and political theory, in all of which he has pub- lished widely, including the recent books Hayek and After and The Political Thought of Karl Popper. Jeremy Waldronis the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law and Direc- tor of the Center for Law and Philosophy, Columbia University. He has written on a wide range of topics in social, legal and political philosophy. His books include The Right to Private Property, Nonsense Upon Stilts(ed.), Liberal Rights, The Dignity of Legislation, Law and Disagreement and God, Locke and Equality. He is also the author of numerous articles in law journals and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. ix

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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. published on the philosophy of space and time, ecology, and problems with the deductivist image of tion, After Progress, and Philosophy in the New Century. in Christchurch, New Zealand, 12–14 July 2002, celebrating the centenary.
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