I'm not sure if this book is out of print -save for the hardcover - or just unavailable but it is well worth getting (even supposing you have to go elsewhere).

Why? First off, anyone who's read Karl Popper knows that he was a phenomenal writer who could pack much content into any one sentence. Mark Notturno is not only that good, dare I say it, he may be better at it than Popper?! Whereas Popper's terseness occasionally led him to vagueries, Notturno is always crisp.

Second, books on Popper tend to rehash his views (which the authors either understand or not - 50/50). Notturno extends Popper's thought. Never quite disagreeing with any of it, Notturno does find fault with a few of Poppers vagueries and corrects them. The essay herein - "induction and demarcation" is notable as it focuses on Poppers tendency to mislead on certain views he held. The distinction between falsification and falsifiability, the problem not being of induction altogether but the fact that bad inductive conclusions, unlike deduction, will not point to a false premise, and from it the fact that Popper did not quite believe all induction to be invalid.

Some other good essays to note (in addition to the ones listed two reviews below) are "education and the open society" which is a good essay on why current education methods might fail (his similarity to John Dewey in this, and other, regards always amazes me). Also 'inference and deference' is a great article exposing the failure of logic to justify, contra popular philosophic practice, deference to authority. Not barring it outright, Notturno highlights two errors of thought that lead us to defer abdicatingly to authority: defensive thinking and poitical thinking. If there was an essay focusing solely on these two concepts (this one only devotes a few paragraphs) then I would've had to give the book seven stars. Also worthy of mention is the afterword "what is to be done" about post-communism and how a proper trainsitiion to a truly open-society can take place. In short, very good book. If you are a Popper fan and are tired of reading secondary books that only rehash, never expand, this is the best book I can think of.

Wow! Easily one of the best reads I've had in years. Not only is it an insightful source of understanding for those interested in Karl Popper's philosophy, but Notturno, himself, emerges as a powerful player in the field of critical reasoning and the politics of knowledge. A devastatingly effective thinker and writer in his own right. It will change your view of the world and the role of reasoning and politics in the conduct of human affairs. Awesome!

Karl Popper had one of the broadest ranges of any 20th Century philosopher. He wrote in Epistemology, Philosophy and History of Science, Logic, and Democratic Theory. In each area he wrote trenchantly and with great excellence and imagination. He was the greatest of 20th century philosophers. Why I feel this way can begin to be understood by reading Mark A. Notturno's "Science and the Open Society." Notturno's work is the most valuable gateway to Popper's yet. It is one of those very few books that serve as the core of one's library, that one returns to again and again.

All of the Chapters in "Science and the Open Society" are striking and contain worthwhile insights. As a whole they allow one to think about the corpus of Popper's work and the major themes he developed over the course of 60 years. In fact, Popper himself wrote no single work that would allow us to do that. Notturno, in providing that perspective here, gives us a bird's eye view that we must work much harder to get from Popper's work. If you seek an understanding of Popper, start with Notturno and then read Popper for yourself, with the context you need to actively grasp what Popper presents.

All of the book is valuable, but there are a few Chapters that stand out from my own perspective as a Knowledge Management practitioner. These are Chapter 10 on the choice between Popper and Kuhn, Chapter 7 on the meaning of world 3, Chapter 5, a brilliant account of the breakdown of foundationalism and justificationism and of how Popper's critical rationalism escapes from the problems inherent in these views and provides a basis for solving the problems of induction and demarcation, and Chapter 3 on the significance of critical rationalism for education in open societies. Here is a more detailed review of Chapters 10 and 7.

Chapter 10, "The Choice Between Popper and Kuhn: Truth, Criticism, and the Legacy of Logical Positivism," takes up again the task of proper reconstruction of the nature of science following the breakdown of logical positivism. Notturno shows that Popper and Kuhn took two contrasting roads in journeying from this crossroads of 20th century philosophy. He traces how Kuhn and the many who followed him took the road to relativism, institutionalism, and "political" science, while denying the possibility of external rational critques of governing paradigms. Popper, on the other hand, took the road to thoroughgoing fallibilistic truth-seeking, a path which rejected foundationalism and justificationism, and offered a view of scientific objectivity attained through shared criticism of alternative knowledge claims conjectured as solutions to problems. As Notturno puts it (P. 230): "The issue at base is whether science should be an open or a closed society." Notturno shows that its is Kuhn's choice that leads to the closed society, and Popper's that supports the idea that (P. 248) ". . . our scientific institutions should exist for the sake of the individual - for the sake of our freedom of thought and our right to express it - and not the other way around."

Chapter 7 is a careful account of Popper's controversial notion that there are at least three "worlds" or realms of ontological significance: (1) the material world of tables, atoms, buildings, lamps, etc., (2) the mental world of thoughts, beliefs, emotions, etc. and (3) the "world" of words and language, art, mathematics, music, and other human, non-material, but sharable and autonomous creations. Popper criticized monism, the doctrine that only the physical world exists, and dualism, the idea that there is only mind, matter, and the interaction between them, in favor of a broader interactionism among three realms. This idea has been among the most difficult of notions for people to accept.

To many (including Feyerabend and Lakatos who ridiculed it), it smacks of Platonism, even though Popper clearly distinguished his own world 3 ideas from platonic forms. But Popper's world 3 notions are critical to his ideas about the pursuit of truth, criticism and trial and error as the method of science and problem-solving, the growth of knowledge, and evolutionary epistemology. Popper's world 3 is also critical to knowledge management, because without it we can't sensibly talk about managing the interaction between subjective mental knowledge (world 2) and objective linguistic knowledge (world 3), and, one can argue, it is managing this interaction to enhance the growth of relevant knowledge that is knowledge management's greatest challenge and major preoccupation.

Of all the commentary I have seen on world 3 Chapter 7 is the best at simply stating what Popper meant by it, why the notion is important to critical rationalism and the growth of knowledge, why people have denied its importance, why world 3 is consistent with a thoroughgoing fallibilism, why world 3 is a denial of empiricist epistemology, why the notion of world 3 is not invalidated by the greatly over-rated "Ockham's Razor," why world 3 doesn't violate the principle of causality, and finally why world 3 is important in spite of the view of the Wittgensteinians that solutions to philosophical problems which world 3 is an instance of, are meaningless because such problems are themselves meaningless. And in the process of doing this commentary, Notturno presents and analyzes for us a wonderful story of an encounter between Popper and Wittgenstein (mediated by Bertrand Russell) at Cambridge on October 26, 1946, which in microcosm, illustrates the conflict between reason and authority, and the open society and the closed society. It was an encounter in which the master of the cold stare, the mystique of genius, and the pithy aphorism, found himself so frustrated by the master of critque and dialogue that he left the field of open debate in anger and disgust.

This is one of my few cherished books - it gives an overview of the thinking of one of the great philosophers of modern times, Karl Popper. Miller's organization and introduction of the material contributes significantly.

I first became interested in Popper for his view on science. In a nutshell, that falsificationism is the best (only?) approach to practicing science. Popper's view taken literally might not make a full arsenal for a working scientist, but the spirit of his idea - that mistaken but provocative theory contributes importantly to the progress of science - is liberating, even exhilirating. Sounds a little strange? Well, try it and see for yourself. Popper is probably the only philosopher of science who has had an impact on how scientists actually think about their work. Others, who may try to strike a more balanced tone, end up writing mush.

From Miller's fine collection we learn that Popper has done much more, including making important contributions to social and political theory. This book will also introduce the reader to one of Popper's personal wellsprings, the pre-Socratic philosophers. In all, this book is an intellectual treasure.

This is one of my favorites in my bookcase. Popper has a gripping writing style and these essays provide short glimpses into his most important ideas. Probably not for the general reader, but for anyone having an intellectual interest in science and society, this book covers Popper's ideas on the faults of inductive reasoning, his definition of science vs. pseudoscience, his views on intolerant thinking and behavior, and even his idea of 'piecemeal social engineering,' an idea ahead of its time. Throughout this book, Popper emerges as a warm, brilliant thinker, one of the best of the 20th Century. The editors have done a wonderful job compiling these selections, and the book is of fine quality construction and will last for many years on the buyer's bookshelf.

Highly recommended. This short book summarizes all the most important insights of this very influential thinker.

Bryan Magee summarizes in this small book superbly the work of Karl Popper: the elimination of the induction problem, the falsification criterion as a demarcation between science and non-science, the characterization of marxism as well as the Enlightment (the perfectibility of man) as historicisms, the responsibility of the individual.
The best possible introduction to the work of one of the most important philosophers of all times.

Karl Popper was the celebrated author of a good number of philosophy of science books. Reading this book by B Magee on Pooper one can follow very complex and far reching concepts of the man with ease. The clearity in which Mr Magee explores the key ideas on history, science and methapisics of him decerves praise. The books could have been a tiresome account of Popper theories and abstract conceps but insted is an engaging narrative of ideas and their crucial inportance in the history of scientific discovery and the relation to history it self. Karl Pooper decerves to be read more and Brian Magee has given us to oportunity to know why. Magee knew Popper well (Confessions of a philosopher), and not only he loved him, but respect him most for his thoughts and inteligence. After reading this introduction of Popper ideas one can not help doing the same for both of them.

This excellent book has been retitled twice. The titles in chronological order are :

1. Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists

2. Anything Goes: Origins of the Cult of Scientific Irrationalism

3. Scientific Irrationalism: Origins of a Postmodern Cult

Author is David C. Stove. See the third title for my review.

This wonderful book is available under a new title (changed to help it sell better). The new title is "Anything Goes."

The Pre-Socratic philosophers have made a comeback of sorts in the philosophy of quantum gravity. This book tells why they are important, still -- such as how they would view three dimensional space and relativity. Boltzmann's defense of atomism is in a chapter, anti-Parmenidean philosophy on modern physics is also present, and it's not all physics, the mind-body problem is also explored. Popper has some counter comments to the Kirk, Raven and Schofield book, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers (which I also highly recommend). All in all the book is easy to read because it is set in very small chapters, each complete unto themselves -- some chapters have 80 notations and 50 references.

Still, the best part is how this era of thought fits into modern science.

Popper's philosophical view is captured in his summary of Aristotle. Popper credits Aristotle with the invention of logic, and for being a great biologist and scholar. But, "Aristotle was the first dogmatist..." "...[W]ith Aristotle's theory, that science is...certain knowledge, it may be said that the great enterprise of Greek critical rationalism came to an end." (5) And so Popper lovingly examines the great Pre-Socratic philosophers, Xenophanes, Heraclitus and Parmenides, as exemplars of critical rationalism, and makes them relevant to the 21st century.

"Beyond the Search for Invariants" is the centerpiece of this book, an absolutely brilliant 65-page essay tracing the influence of Parmenides on modern science. You may have heard the quote from Alfred North Whitehead -- "The medieval world was an age of faith based on reason, while the modern world is an age of reason based on faith." (Science and the Modern World, 1925) Popper makes a convincing case that the metaphysical assumption underpinning modern science is much older than Christianity. Heraclitus said "you can never step in the same river twice." His was a metaphysics of constant flux. Parmenides, on the other hand, logically deduced that the world is a motionless block! A motionless block universe. It sounds absurd, but what Popper shows is that this metaphysical assumption has influenced great minds ever since, giving rise to the view that the universe is closed, and entirely deterministic. Only recently, with Darwin and Einstein, has Laplacean determinism given way to an open, indeterministic universe. Popper summarizes the essay like this in his 1993 preface -- "It tries to show that Heraclitus (everything changes) and Parmenides (nothing changes) have been reconciled and combined in modern science, which looks for Parmenidean invariance within Heraclitean flux." (viii)

You might conclude that Popper is harshly judging Parmenides. On the contrary, he praises him as a great rationalist -- he simply disagrees with a powerful idea of Parmenides. There are 9 other essays here, and they are not all equally compelling, but the best are among the best of anything I've read in the philosophy of science!

I felt that the book explains the key issues well in a clear, well presented format. It is true that the book is not designed for the beginner but with a little knowledge it comes across beautifully.

Calvin Hayes has provided an exciting insight into what he calls Popper's Copernican revolution in thought, as it applies to the philosophy of science and to moral and political philosophy.

He has identified the flaw in the structure of traditional approaches, that is, the idea that there has to be some bedrock foundation for knowledge and for ethical/moral principles. Hume identified the problem in both domains: there is no logical way to derive either general scientific principles or moral proposals from facts. The first is the problem of induction, the second is the is/ought problem.

Both of these problems are overcome by grasping Popper's "Copernican" insight, to accept the conjectural status of scientific knowlege and moral principles. Each can be improved by critical (rational) appraisal but neither can achieve the status of "justified true beliefs".

Calvin Hayes has picked his way through many of the problems that are created by the traditional structure. This is a challenging book which deserves to be widely read and discussed.

I started this book expecting to disagree with it. Although I am not a full-fledged determinist, if I was forced to choose between determinism and indeterminism or "free will," I would choose determinism, because the other side of the question is so often used to defend utopian social ideals. If human beings have free will, then (so it is argued), just about any social system, whether laissez-faire or communism, syndicalism or anarcho-capitalism, becomes possible. I regard this way of rationalizing political and social ideology as palpably dishonest. Whether human beings are "determined" or not, they do in fact exhibit certain very definite tendencies of behavior and reaction which make them, within certain parameters, predictable, so that, if you study human nature and society long enough, you will easily understand why all these systems will never happen, and that only hybrid systems are at all possible. The other problem I have with indeterminism is that it goes against the grain of scientific methodology. Scientific knowledge is based on the premise of determinism. In short, science practices a form of methodological determinism.

Popper addressed both my concerns, fully admitting their legitimacy but arguing that they don't necessarily contracdict his indeterminist thesis. The criticism of free will by Hobbes, Spinoza, and Hume, Popper admits, is "sound." But, he insists, that,in and of itself,doesn't establish scientific determinism, and it is scientific determinism that he alone is combatting. As for methodological determinism, Popper again admits its validity, but denies the "metaphysical" conclusions that are so frequently derived from it. Since science is always "incomplete," there is no validity in arguing from a useful method to a dogmatic theory about the universe.

Popper's arguments for indeterminism are very brilliant and convincing--certainly a lot better than that wretched argument cooked up Murray Rothbard and propagated by Ayn Rand's followers. Popper stresses the inability to grasp, in a deterministic sense, human creativity, and then goes on to argue that the problem of self-prediction leads determinism to absurdity.

It is always refreshing to come across a book that is actually rational enough to change one's mind. Most philosophy books generally are of the preaching-to-the-choir variety: if you agree with their conclusions, you will think them brilliant; if you don't, you will regard them as silly and inept. Popper is a cut above these mere rationalizing philosophers. His books are addressed to those who are sincerely interested in learning the truth about the universe. As for those who desire merely to have their own pet ideas reinforced, they should look elsewhere.

Peter Munz had the unusual distinction of being taught by Wittgenstein (in Cambridge) and Popper (in Christchurch, New Zealand). He has also earned the distinction of being a truly quiet achiever in developing his ideas on several fronts, including the implications and applications of Popper's thought.

This book takes the debate over Popper's ideas past the point where it bogged down on falsification and the problem of induction. For some years after The Logic of Scientific Discovery appeared in 1959 critics offered two main lines of argument. First, they pointed out that no falsification by empirical evidence could be decisive (for example, due to the fallibility of observational techniques), therefore the falsification criterion of science was useless. Second, they claimed that scientific rationality depends on justification of theories and so Popper's theory of conjectural knowledge and his critique of inductive proof are twin daggers pointed at the heart of scientific rationality and a denial of the notion of scientific progress.

Popper and others replied that he had drawn attention to the limitations of falsification and his methodological strictures should be regarded as guidelines or conventions to maximise the exposure of theories to empirical tests. As to inductive proof, Popper argued that this was defective on purely logical grounds and so the rationality of science had better depend on something else which he attempted to provide with a theory of conjectural knowledge which shows how knowledge can grow without ever being proved certain or even probable.

Munz explains how Popper's writing since the early 1960s has increasingly treated matters of biology and evolution. This move supports the idea that rationality does not consist in the avoidance of errors but in the elimination of error and the correction of mistakes. In nature this occurs through the elimination of organisms and species by natural selection; in human affairs the primary method of error elimination can be the process of critical discussion. Munz points out that "mistakes" of a certain kind are necessary for biological evolution. These are the mutations that provide variations (new cards) beyond the range provided by the recombination of genes (shuffling the deck). Most of these "mistakes" are not helpful for the organism but some are advantageous. Desirable "mistakes" are thus analogous to the successful products of inventors, scientists and artists. We need these mistakes because if all sociocultural objects, ideas, rituals, procedures and traditions were reproduced faultlessly, the system would be closed, with no variation, no novelty and no possibility for change and progress.

Munz contends that a healthy culture will encourage experimentation and exploration at the risk of many false starts and dead ends. At the same time high standards of criticism will be maintained, though as Bartley has pointed out, criticism needs to be optimal, not too strict or hasty. To maintain this precarious balance a theory of criticism is required that focuses on objects or ideas and not on the personality or motives of the artist. In addition, an advance in cultural evolution is also needed permitting people to communicate with one another despite major and perhaps even fundamental differences in their respective belief systems. For most of recorded history, Munz suggests the basis of social and cultural bonding has been shared belief systems that are exempt from criticism. "Where knowledge is used a social bond, people cannot afford the luxury of exposing it to criticism, lest their co-operation be endangered or cease".

But now, in certain places, a threshold has been crossed: some people; "...have managed to establish societies which are not dependent on the purity of any given cultural strain and which are bonded by criteria other than the adherence to any particular belief system and its rituals."

The essential feature of such a society is that some aspects of its evolution can be regulated by critical discussion in a way that was previously not possible. However if this does not happen there may instead be further fragmentation, with the proliferation of self-contained and exclusive sub-cultures. To a very large extent this has happened in academic life and even within disciplines such as philosophy which have fragmented into communities which ignore each other's work.

Munz sees the tendency towards closed systems as a counterpart to sociological theories of knowledge whose defence of relativism expresses frustration with the failure of positivism and "mirror" theories of knowledge (as Munz calls them.) Mirror theories portray the mind as an inert vessel, or perhaps an induction machine, which accumulates knowledge as a result of passive exposure to the outside world. The extreme form of the mirror theory occurs in Wittgenstein's Tractatus with its "picture" theory of language in which all valid, meaningful and justified sentences mirror some extra-linguistic fact.

The classical alternative to the mirror theory of knowledge is the "lamp" theory, that the outside world is endowed with qualities projected upon it by the linguistic framework of the observer. This is essentially the view of Kuhn and Rorty, but Munz argues that both the mirror and lamp theories of knowledge contain the same structural error, namely the assumption that some authority is required to provide a grounding for indubitably justified beliefs. Munz wrote "After establishing that knowledge cannot be a relationship because it is not like 'mirroring', Rorty argues that it must be justified by something else. For Rorty, knowledge is not knowledge unless it is justified... In Rorty's view, the great divide in philosophy is between the upholders of mirror philosophy and the believers in the authority of speech communities. As against this, I would argue that the great divide is between justificationists of all persuasions and Popperians, who believe that we can have knowledge but that no knowledge can ever be justified."

Evolutionary epistemology, Munz contends, provides a way out of the impasse created by true belief theories of knowledge, whether of the mirror or lamp variety. Instead of falling back on justification, he advocates the employment of criticism leading to selection and tentative critical preference. But any shift from traditional theories of knowledge to an evolutionary epistemology requires theories of criticism to replace theories of justification. This Popper's decisive break with the philosophical mainstream.

Sir Popper is considered one of the most important thinkers in the area of philosophy of science. "The Poverty of Historicism" despite its complexity, carries a fundamental simple message: prediction over the course of history (its social and economic implications) is nothing more than a fantasy, an illusion. And this assertion is based on the principle that the events/persons responsible for changes are themselves affected by these same changes. It is Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty applied to social sciences!
Historicism is the theory that history develops itself according to pre-determined, inexorable laws with a fixed objective or end. Fascism and communism were laid upon these presuppositions, and the course fo history has proven the fallacy (therefore poverty) of such assumptions. The attempt to have a holistic approach by eliminating individual differences through "brain washing" is incompatible with critical thought, and although it will bring about a concentration of power it will also cause an erosion of knowledge. The Poverty of Historicism becomes a poverty of imagination, of the ability of critical judgement and analysis. Historicism, according to Karl Popper preposterously assumes the postion of having discovered the problem of "change," but revolutions are not unique to our modern era and the metaphysical speculation of what constitutes "change" has been addressed since the time of Heraclitus.
The goal of applying scientific methods with the same accuracy and predictability as those in theoretical physics is bound to end in failure when it concerns the course of history. The influence of the prediction upon the predicted events is here being termed as the "Oedipus effect." Physics can arrive at universally valid uniformities, whereas sociology must be contented with the intuitive understanding of unique events, and of the role they play in particular situations, occuring within particular struggles of interests, tendencies and destinies. If sociological laws determine the degree of anything, they will do so only in very vague terms, and will permit, at the best, a very rough scaling.
Karl Popper who was a fierce advocate of democrary and social critiscim, dedicated this book to all of those who have been victims to the fascist and communist belief in the inexorable laws of historical destiny.

This classic little work is a must read for any theorist of history and evolution, which is not to say that one agrees altogether with Popper's formulation. Reflecting Popper's experience both with issues of scientific methodology and the ideologies of scientism, the work ends in a paradoxical mode with respect to the idea of a science of history and/or evolution. The invisible influence of the antinomies of Kantian critical thought buttress the basic argument, as it transforms the term 'historicism' itself from its nineteenth century usage into something different, in a confusion of terminology that does not invalidate the basic thrust. Popper's insight remains fundamental even if the implied usage directed at more rigid forms of Marxism narrows its scope. We live in an age that has reinvented the fallacy of (Popperian)historicism in the search for causal social theories of all types, and the results are always in the same difficulty that Popper points to. If a deterministic theory bent on predicting the future fails for the reasons Popper gives,the implication that there can be no genuine 'universal history' fails as a necessary consequence. For such a history might embrace rather than be contradicted by Popper's argument, leaving us to wonder if there is not also a certain poverty to 'anti-historicism' in the sense of throwing out the baby with the bath, i.e. finding history to be without meaning! In any case, a classic little work. The section on the "Oedipus Effect" invokes the tragic theme, with Popper as a sort of theoretical Tiresias, grizzled and omimous. Read.

I read this book, and several of Karl Popper's other books then available in English, while still a graduate student in anthropology at an American university. While neither my dissertation committee members nor even my fellow graduate students were much interested in my attempts to bring Popper's arguments to their attention, I found his work to be exhilarating for its clarity, courage, and fairmindedness. Thirty-plus years later, I still do.