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.

Whatever offensive set you use you will find inbound plays here to fit your scheme. Some plays work better than others but you can only find that out when you test them in game conditions. A must for your coaching library.

I liked this book alot. I reccommened it yo all my friends and family members.

This was the first book I bought to get ready for my trip to Nepal. I have not gone on that trip yet, but after reading this book I felt ready to tackle any travel encounters that may come my way. This book has extensive travel information to Nepal, dozens of phone numbers and up-to-date internet URL's related to Nepal and travel needs, as well as good information about hotels, restaurants, sights, you name it. This is a fantastic book to start out with if you are planning on visiting Nepal, and the price here is much less than what I paid for it at B&N. Happy traveling!

The evaluations of activities were accurate, and the helpful hints on planning really helped us optomize our trip. When you use this guide, you'll imagine that the author is really there with you.

I think George Karl wrote a very exelent book on the proper way to fight for a rebound. He taught me how to position, how to time, how to stand, and how to jump for a rebound. The drills taught to me in this book helped me do all these things and much much more. My speed and agility were increased from practicing the rebounding drills. Before reeding this book I was unable to get rebounds with any regularity or consistency. Now with techniques from George Karl's book "101 Basketball Rebounding Drills" I am a constant competitor for a rebound.

George Eliot, born Mary Ann Evens, author of arguably the greatest novel in the Victorian era, Middlemarch, was not just an author but an intellectual giant. She translated works of philosophy from the German and from Latin; knew and exchanged ideas with the brightest minds of the time; was fluent in 7 languages (French, Italian, German, Latin, Hebrew, Greek and Spanish), and was compelled by a natural curiosity to acquire knowledge all through her life.

Her life with a married man created a Victorian scandal, yet by the time of her death in 1880 she was England's most celebrated author visited even by Queen Victoria's daughters.

This biography is a thorough, accessible and engrossing book. Author Karl is a fan of Eliot's yet hides none of her blemishes. While he generally refuses to speculate on a lot of Victorian gossip regarding her life, he at times annoys the reader with some unwarranted attempts to psychoanalyze her (I do get tired of the injection of Freud into literature). The slowest parts of the book deal with her frequent trips to Europe. We learn what she did on Tuesday in Berlin, and then her activities in Hamburg on Wednesday. While I realize that the recording of such information is important in providing a fairly complete detail of her life, I tend to nod a bit at the lengthy reports of her travels.

Historically we are blessed with a huge number of extant correspondence of Eliot. The author makes good use of these letters, yet the book does not turn into an epistolary work i.e. a book of nothing but verbatim letters.

One of my purely personal problems with the book was that I have not read all of Eliot's novels. Mr. Karl, of necessity perhaps, relates much of the plots of her books, and thus creates a real spoiler for the novels that I haven't read. That's my problem, of course, and not the author's.

It would seem that people today are probably unaware of this important author who was known throughout England during her writing lifetime. Her novels and her life are an important part of the literary canon. I heartily recommend this well crafted book

This is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the theology of Karl Barth. George Hunsinger has provided the theological community with a new, refined vocabulary for analyzing Barth's (and others') theology. He expounds a number of characteristic thought patterns characteristic of Barth's theology (and which might give considerable trouble to the new reader) and makes them accessible. His study is very helpful in bringing out the coherence and import of Barth's work. Reading this book is a great aid in accessing Barth's theology (right up there with learning German!)

I got this book after I had been reading Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics for a year. Barth's writing is truly dense, and has led to many misunderstandings of him. This book has helped me to notice patterns that I had missed before. I read this book in parallel with Barth's treatment of divine election, and this book saved me from misinterpreting Barth as a universalist. In terms of practical use, I can't think of a better book.

Having taken a class from him, he is a truly brilliant teacher, and he has helped me to pay close attention to the text. One of the poverties in American theology is that the art of commentary has been lost. The medieval universities trained the Scholastic theologians by making them do close readings (lectio) of important texts (e.g. the Bible, Lombard's Sentences, etc.). Whether you agree with the Scholastics or not is one thing, but you cannot deny that the disciplined approach to theology led to some monumental achievements. Hunsinger's book is a tool to help you do that with Barth.

This book has two parts. The first part suggests six patterns that run throughout the Church Dogmatics (particularism, actualism, realism, personalism, rationalism and another one which I can't recall just now). The second part is a set of etudes on Barth's theology utilizing the 6 patterns. Hunsinger addresses the issue of double agency in Barth's soteriology, secular parables of the kingdom of God, his view of revelation, etc.

On a different subject, the other best secondary sources on Barth are Bruce McCormack's intellectual history of the pre-dogmatics Barth, John Webster's _Ethics of Reconciliation_ and Hans Urs Von Balthasar's classic study.

While at work in the college library, I passed by this book. I flipped through the pages, thinking I'd only take a brief look. I realized that I had seen these photographs before, and I became fascinated. I learned so much about the photographer through this book. It is a fine collection of Hine's work overall. It shows classic photos from everything he became involved in, such as child labor, women at work, and the working poor.

As you will be able to read in the new Foreword by Donald Broadbent of the University of Oxford, this book has had a major impact on psychology and helped achieve the switch to cognitive psychology. This book triggered much of the research that lead to Ulric Neisser's book "Cognitive Psychology". The five stars I gave are related to the importance of this book - when reading this book in 2001, without taking this background into account, I would still rate it 4 stars.

This book argues that our behavior is guided by our plans. People move from sub-goal to sub-goal until their purposes are achieved. A basic concept to explain that is the feedback loop which comes from engineering and is know as the TOTE model inside the NLP community. When NLPers try to model a person's strategy (e.g. for taking a decision), they are in fact looking for the basic building blocks of the TOTE. This books contains a chapter on "Plans for Speaking", showing the link between Miller and Chomsky, another father of modern cogintive science (and NLP).

Of course, if you just want to grasp the basic concept, there is no need to read this book given that many books that are linked to practical applications of cogitive science (such as NLP) will include the model. For instance, the first part of the third chapter of my book "7 Steps on Emotional Intelligence" is built around on the TOTE model.

I consider this book a "must" for any scolar of cognitive science in general and of NLP in particular that wants some background on their domain.

Patrick E.C. Merlevede, MSc -- co-author of "7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence"

I found that be reviewing this book, I realized once again that the basics are very important to teach. I want to thank Mr. Karl for keeping this so real.

This book is tremendous, it gives you insight on what makes Karls' teams go, and the tremendous attention to detail that he has and implements into his gameplan. I would recommend this book to coaches on any and all levels. There are so many excellent drills I find myself haggling over which ones I will use next season.