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.

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.

His memoir begins in 1944 when the Nazis occupied Germany. Soros realized that "Since we can't stand up to Hitler's fury, we must hide from it." He and his family hid, but since they had to be seen in order to take care of daily needs, they took on the aspects of Christians. This involved his forming close relationships with a series of forgers, and once he took care of his immediate family's documents, he took care of other relatives, and then friends, and clients. "If anyone asked for my help, one of my principles in life was never to say no - if only to avoid diminishing their faith in human beings." Amidst narrow escapes and harrowing close calls, Soros kept a sense of humor which frequently emerges on these pages. As a "Christian," Soros was able to obtain cigarettes when those were denied to Jews, and since he didn't smoke, he would leave them at a watchmaker's, so that people with stars could get some. He went to the watchmaker to get his watch fixed, and asked the price. "How can you ask such a thing? It's on the house," the watchmaker said, and then whispered to the woman working beside him, "This is the Christian gentleman who brings us the cigarettes, you know." Soros says, "At least the Jews got to see that there were still a few decent Christians." Much of the humor is tinged with humane sadness; according to one of his sons, Soros used to say, "It is amazing how well people can bear the suffering of others."

This wonderful memoir has been in print before. Soros, that practical idealist, as an Esperantist wrote the original in Esperanto in 1965, three years before his death. In libraries of Esperantists the book has been an outstanding volume from the literature the planned language has produced. It is here translated by Humphrey Tonkin, a linguist whose name is familiar to all American Esperantists. It includes brief, loving memoirs by his sons, one of whom, George, has become one of the world's richest and most influential people. If there is room on your shelves for history with hope, written by a thoroughly humane and lovable man, this book is perfect.

As the book begins, Soros goes into the details about how he founded and runs his fund. He started as a trader, then an analyst, then created a model portfolio that he managed as a sales tool for when he talked to his clients. He left his firm and started his hedge fund at age 43, with $12M in 1973. In 1981, retired from active management and hired other fund managers to run the Quantum fund.

When running the fund, he is a macro investor, since he claims he's better at picking the tide rather than surfing the smaller waves in the markets. He tends to form an opinion on the direction of a currency, stock market, or interest rates, then trades within the view he set.

Soros also describes his market philosophy, which he described previously in "Alchemy of Finance." His concept, dubbed reflexivity, claims that market's movements influences people's perceptions, but since people trade based on their biased perceptions, they in turn influence the market. The result is that perceptions and market movements co-evolve, and may drift away from the fundamentals and, in some cases, change the fundamentals. The result is familiar boom-bust patterns, such as trend-following behavior in markets followed by crashes. As a result, Soros follows trends, but remains alert for signs of reversals.

Soros is also a major philanthropist, and has created foundations to spread open societies into Eastern Europe. There is a significant portion of the book devoted to his political work, however I found that less interesting, not because his views aren't valid or well articulated, but because I bought the book primarily to learn about Soros' work in finance.

Overall, I found this a good read in finance. Although you won't come out with 10 sure-fire stock tips for your 401(k), this book is certainly a must for Soros fans, or any intrigued investor who would like to learn from one of today's most successful financiers.

While the book talks about stock choices, etc., I didn't think it made false promises. I came away thinking that this book was about learning and mental discipline. As a result of reading it, I am reading a few other books with exercises for the development of my intuitive ability.

A reader will make a mistake thinking this is about "esp" or fortunetelling. It is about utilizing what you know and developing access to all the information we absorb every day.

Thank you, thank you, Laura Day! PRACTICAL INTUITION is a life-changing book!

"George Soros on Globalization" is a short book (about 180 pages, with *lots* of blank space), which is both its chief virtue and a significant limitation. It's a fast read and gave me a good overview of the problems with our global financial and trade arrangements (what these markets can and cannot do, the role the US has played and should play in the allocation of private and public goods), and a basic understanding of some possible solutions. Brevity also translates to very little explanation, however (I still don't really know what the World Bank and the IMF do), and very little development of Soros' thoughts on possible solutions. For example, Soros suggests that strengthening the ILO (rather than weakening the WTO) is the way to address global labor issues, but it's hard to imagine this happening and before I would consider this a practical solution I'd want to know more about how this would work and whether it's really feasible.

The "centerpiece" of Soros' book is his proposal for a reformed method of providing foreign aid through Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). Unfortunately, if you don't know anything about currency reserves and how they affect the economies of developing countries (and I don't), a lot of this discussion will be over your head. I had to take on faith quite a few bald statements about how SDRs would work and how they will benefit developing nations. And I had some questions about the parts that were easier to follow. For example, Soros proposes an independent board of professionally qualified experts who will identify projects that are eligible for donor financing. He emphasizes the importance of this board being professional, expert and free of national ties -- but he makes no suggestion as to how this laudable but probably unrealistic goal is to be achieved.

Soros' concluding chapter is essentially a plea for the US to develop a broader understanding of its global interests -- that we are strongest and safest when we promote a more equitable distribution of public goods (such as health, education and the rule of law) and take a more multi-lateral leadership role in the reduction of poverty worldwide. I happen to agree with Soros here, but I doubt that this chapter will persuade anyone who is not already inclined to accept Soros' conclusions.

Despite the defects noted, I would recommend this book to anyone who is wondering what the fuss over globalization is all about. If you read nothing else, this will at least give you an overview of the issues. Soros' writing style tends to the oracular pronouncement (there are lots of one or two sentence paragraphs -- as if the book grew out of a series of bullet points that he couldn't be troubled to turn into real paragraphs), which can be annoying, but it does get you through the material quickly. Overall, a stimulating read.

The book is very much an opinion piece: its like an extended op ed, so don't expect a tutorial or clear explanation of how globalization has done or how it works. In his previous books he has more about his life, experience, and insights into the financial world, and these books are more interesting reads. In reality, this book more of a political treatise with a economic focus, which you may or may not agree with. But he sincerely puts forth a concrete proposal to use the WTO and IMF in an effective manner to create his vision of open societies, a laudable goal, which no doubt will be ignored. He is interested in debate, but its too bad he is not publically accessable, like all rich and famous (I tried and failed), since he needs to be informed of some scientific analogies similar to his concept of reflective processes and that might help him come up with a more realistic proposal (that might work). Moreover, he would understand why his seemly practical proposal is too idealistic, even for a hard-nosed capitalist with significant experience in international finance. Although he cites talking to numerous people on this proposal (a quite impressive list), apparently none of them understand enough science and history to help; this is not surprising since the mainstream (typically established, rich and/or famous) can never see or solve tomorrow's problems. Too bad: he is smart enough, logical enough, and interested in tackling problems that nobody else sees in the almost correct light (open societies) as he does.

This is an easy to read common sense book that absorbs and addresses some of the criticisms of the World Trade Organization, speaks to the weakness of the International Labor Organization, and proposes the equivalent of a global Marshall Plan, but as a multi-national initiative. It is essential reading at a time when too many politicians do not yet make the connection between terrorism and what George Soros has called "the other axis of evil: poverty, disease, & ignorance."

At a time when the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is treating anti-globalization activists as just one step under terrorists (in one recent case denying a Canadian activist entry to the U.S. to honor an invitation to speak at a U.S. university), George Soros' is easily the most responsible and the wealthiest voice cautioning all of us that the combined forces of globalization (which reduces citizen sovereignty) and consumerism (which reduces citizen prosperity) could be the death knell of capitalism.

I am reminded of how the U.S. Secret Service ran amok against so-called "hackers" (the best of them trained at MIT and now multi-millionaires) because it did not understand that hackers are like astronauts, pushing the edge of the envelope, and it did not understand that it was the U.S. communications and computing industry that was criminally negligent in offering the consumer and the government a national information infrastructure that was incredibly fragile and full of security holes. It was industry that failed to exercise due-diligence, and it was hackers that exposes these flaws well in advance of the Y2K panic. The anti-globalization activists, Lori Wallach among them (and she has clearly influenced Soros in this book) are the 21st Century hackers for world peace and prosperity.

Globalization and consumerism threaten billions of Arabs, Chinese, Indians, Muslims, and Russians around the world--and thus they threaten us as well. Although many brilliant minds foresaw these challenges in the 1970's, among them those speaking to the limits to growth, sustainable growth, and the need for new forms of world governance, it is only after 9-11 that the world appears ready to listen to George Soros and others who understand that we cannot continue to emphasize short term corporate profit over long term citizen survival.

His proposals for Special Drawing Rights are helpful, and merit adoption. It is with a little concern, however, that I see his concession to "elite" management of these remedial resources. I lean toward the view that the people are now both informed and connected, and that we must empower down to the neighborhood level if we are to restore civil society around the world (this includes no longer supporting repressive governments for the convenience of our corporations), so there is still a gap between Soros and the natural leaders down in the ranks with the people.

Thomas Jefferson said that "A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry." Justice Brandeis said that the greatest threat to a nation's liberty is "an inert citizenship." George Soros may be said to be the first and foremost educator and leader on the critical matter of whether of whether or not this Nation might yet surmount great challenges of its own making.

Indeed, it is almost embarassing to read Soros' predictions - that the dollar will depreciate dramatically in the 90s, that Japan will surpass the US as economic leader, that the US economy will succomb to fiscal and trade deficits. Soros' predictions are not just wrong, they are the complete opposite of what actually has occurred.

Soros argues that he cannot predict anything, he can only explain economic developments as they unfold. If his predictions are invalid, however, why are his explanations valid? His predictions and explanations are premised on the same set of erroneous beliefs.

Those seeking practical and accurate financial theory should not read this book. Those seeking chapters like The Quandary of the Social Sciences and Reagan's Imperial Circle are invited to tackle this self-aggrandizing book. Better choices: Intermarket Technical Analysis by Murphy or Macro Trading and Investment Strategies by Burstein.

The "reflexivity theory", already developed by George Soros in his earlier books (e.g. "The Alchemy of Finance") can be summed up in his own words: "We are part of the world we seek to understand, and our imperfect understanding plays an important role in shaping the events in which we participate." This entails recognition of the fundamental limitations of the social science and our own understanding of society. "It (reflexivity) creates a cleavage between the natural and social sciences and it undermines the postulate on which economic theory has been based: rational behavior in general and rational expectations in particular."

This is a powerful statement indeed. It immediately follows that the future of humankind is not only unknown, or too difficult to predict, but unknowable, because self-awareness and attempts at prediction influence events and change the course of history. This line of reasoning has more immediate application in the financial markets. The widely accepted "efficient market theory" postulates that market participants absorb all available information in an objective and efficient manner, and new information is random and unpredictable relative to previous expectations. If any statistically significant pattern appears in the market data, it should be exploited by many players and will soon disappear. This seems to be similar to the conclusions of the "reflexivity theory". At the first glance the "reflexivity" process can improve market "efficiency" in line with the arguments of the "market fundamentalists" arguments that market processes automatically self-correct any mispricing. Yet this is not what typically happens according to Soros (and his experience and investment track record suggests that his arguments should be taken very seriously). Instead of self-correcting towards the equilibrium, which characterizes many physical phenomena (such as, for example, most types of wave motion), markets form self-reinforcing tendency which moves further away from the equilibrium. This tendency, eventually turning out wrong ("fertile fallacy", and "radical fallibility" in Soros's terms) is supported by several positive-feedback mechanisms.

G. Soros believes that development of the "reflexivity" and "fallibility" concepts should have as profound effect on the thinking of society and historical process, as the Enlightenment and ideas born with French and American revolutions. "It is high time to subject reason, as construed by Enlightenment, to the same kind of critical examination that the Enlightenment inflicted on the dominant external authorities, both divine and temporal. We have now lived in the age of reason for the past two hundred years - long enough to discover that reason has its limitations. We are ready to enter the age Fallibility. The results may be equally exhilarating and, having learned from past experience, we may be able to avoid some of the excesses characteristic of the dawning of a new age."

The remainder of the book deals mainly with the application of these ideas to the current moment in history and the author's vision for the global financial and political structure. This is not an easy task, and the author soon begins to fail his own recipe and the paradigm underlying this vision. To his credit, he never fails to recognize his own fallibility. He speaks at length, and very frankly, about his own investment mistakes and failed predictions. This provides a refreshing contrast with many others who prefer to ignore their failures, or, when they are too evident, spend many pages trying to justify or attribute them to some extraneous factors.

He begins to miss his beat when speaking about the global financial and political architecture. After presenting sharp, well-argued criticism of the present state of the world, his recipes for improvement look disappointingly weak. Essentially it's all about "kinder, gentler" IMF, WB, NATO and other such institutions. His definition of the "Open Society"(that is, the one based on ideas similar to "reflexivity" and "fallibility") eventually looks like nothing more than touched-up version of any liberal democracy today. It is contrasted with "closed societies", based on authoritarian or nationalistic ideas. Well, throughout the human history the strongest military and economic powers always viewed themselves if not perfect, as the only models truly capable of improvement and progress. Every colonial conquest, no matter how destructive and brutal, was based on the ideological support of "bringing civilization to the barbarians" in one or another form. The "Open Society Alliance" proposed by Soros, doesn't look too different from yet another reincarnation of such ideological foundation.

In the model of financial bubbles, which the author described as an application of the "reflexivity theory", the unsustainable booms happen not because skeptical views during the bubble build-up are suppressed by some official censorship, but because even in the presence of critical dissent, the prevailing erroneous consensus become self-reinforcing and self-perpetuating. Similarly, the is no reason to believe that, just because of the democratic mechanisms and press freedom, the supposed "Open Society Alliance" will be free from the standard "arrogance of power". Such arrogance and delusion, which often leads to very costly political mistakes, wars or major crises, can happen not just because any other views are suppressed by censorship as in many authoritarian societies. Rather, because of artificial self-perpetuating consensus generated by and propagated through the media and political elite, while maintaining illusion of a genuine vigorous debate by endlessly pouring attention to peripheral issues.

The "fallibility" concept truly deserves serious intellectual attention. Too bad that most likely the "center" of the global system - the richest and most powerful nations - will invariable find it harder to apply these criteria to themselves, as opposed to the rest of the world.

The book starts out by presenting a 'Conceptual Framework' that serves to outline the basic principles, such as fallibility and reflexivity, upon which Mr. Soros analyses the present and builds a vision for the future. In many ways, this is the best written, most original and most coherent and convincing part of the book. This is achieved by a fair amount of repetition but also good logic and evidence of the author having thought about the ideas for a long time and researched them thoroughly. Mr. Soros is undoubtedly a very intelligent and well-read man.

The second part of the book deals with the present moment in history and can actually itself be divided into two parts. It begins by analyzing the global capitalist system, and then discusses the Asian crisis and the events that have taken place in Russia and eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The first two of these are very interesting and give good introduction to the global financial system. The section on Russia is not as engaging and I have a suspicion that Mr. Soros' personal feelings perhaps interfere a bit with his objective analysis.

Part two of the book concludes with the author's suggestions for a new global economic and political architecture. There certainly are nuggets of great wisdom and even brilliance here but the writing is hopelessly unconvincing compared to the first part of the book and at times quite frustrating. Mr. Soros draws up inadequate straw men representing his main opponents 'market fundamentalists' and 'geopolitical realists' and then in due course attempts to cut them down. Unlike the first half of the book, which is much more convincing and logically sound, one constantly wants to interrupt the author with lots of "Oh yeah, but what about X ...".

All in all, the book is interesting and definitely a worthwhile read although it is in need of better editing and some serious, critical proofreading. In fairness to Mr. Soros, one of the central themes of the book is fallibility and he does stress that he is not, nor can be, completely right. The book ends with the confession: "I have gone about as far as I can on my own. I have learned a lot from other people's criticism, and I can continue to do so after the book is published." A brave admission, among many in the book, and one should give Mr. Soros credit for putting forth his best and welcoming the reaction. Well George, in that spirit, I have a dog-eared, highlighted copy with comment-filled margins that you are welcome to have a look at. Looking forward to the next edition.

1) Learn why George Soros, one of the world's wealthiest men, a billionaire financial speculator, says that dogmatic belief in the so-called "free market" is every bit as dangerous as a comparably dogmatic belief in Marxism-Leninism (a topic Soros knows something about, given that he grew up under a Marxist-Leninist government in Eastern Europe).

2) Learn about the philosopher Karl Popper, a beacon of rationality in a tribalistic world. Soros is an intellectual follower of Popper, author of the renowned "The Open Society and Its Enemies," and Soros attempts to apply Popper's thinking to the current crisis of global capitalism. Whether he draws the correct conclusion in every case is less the point than the serious thinking involved. Popper is widely misunderstood to be an advocate of the free market. What he is actually in favor of is freedom of thought -- skepticism of any received dogma, including the dogma of the Free Market, to which many now say There Is No Alternative.

Rubbish, says Popper, and so says Soros. A legal, regulatory framework is required. Without the appropriate regulation, the result is the "gangster capitalism" of Russia, and of Enron. Along with Nobel Prize-winning economists Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz among others, Soros is absolutely right in his basic point, and is making a contribution to the construction of an appropriate institutional architecture for an increasingly global society.

Critical elements of George Soros' personality as the world's greatest trader:
1. Believe in your own fallibility. To put it in another words, be humble and always believe that you can be wrong and when that happens, don't hesitate to change your stance. You will be surprised how this man can change his mind with such ease, in all aspects of his life, just so long as there is a reason for it. It is his central philosophy in life to believe in his own fallibility, therefore, he is so self-critical.

2. The ability to compartmentalize. Which means this man has an extremely high EQ. As a trader, it is important not to let your personal affairs affect your trading performance, as mental concentration is of utmost importance. Soros has shown this trait throughout the book where he can immerse himself into his million dollar philantrophic activities just minutes after losing a couple of millions in a trade. Perhaps this man is so rational that he is devoid of emotions?

3. The ability to take risk. A life that is always on the edge and full of uncertainty is not something that everybody can live with, much less excel in it. But hey, this man survived the holocaust through his childhood living on the edge of life and death. What's so big deal about money? Personally, I feel without the experience of his childhood, he will not be what he is today.

4. Competitive intensity. As a trader, you make what you deserve, and when you are wrong, you pay for it. If you are not one who embrace free competition, you can't be a trader. And this man likes competition so much that he will hire expert tennis players to play with him. In terms of money managing, his desire to achieve maximum returns is a crucial factor. And mind you, it is not greed that we are talking about, it is the desire to compete and be challenged.

5. Intuition. Some say George Soros has strong survival instinct. One example is how his back aches serves as a warning about a position in a portfolio. Is it trading intuition at the highest level?

An extraordinary man indeed!