Conjectures and refutations : the growth of scientific knowledge / Karl Popper.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Popper, Karl R. (Karl Raimund), 1902-1994.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Series:

Routledge classics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Methodology.

Knowledge, Theory of.

Science--Methodology.

Science.

Prediction (Logic).

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

xvi, 582 pages ; 21 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2002.

Summary:

Conjectures and Refutations is one of Karl Popper's most wide-ranging and popular works, notable not only for its acute insight into the way scientific knowledge grows, but also for applying those insights to politics and to history.

Contents:

Introduction: On the Sources of Knowledge and of Ignorance 3

Conjectures

1 Science: Conjectures and Refutations 43

Appendix Some Problems in the Philosophy of Science 78

2 The Nature of Philosophical Problems and their Roots in Science 87

3 Three Views Concerning Human Knowledge 130

1 The Science of Galileo and Its Most Recent Betrayal 130

2 The Issue at Stake 134

3 The First View: Ultimate Explanation by Essences 139

4 The Second View: Theories as Instruments 144

5 Criticism of the Instrumentalist View 149

6 The Third View: Conjectures, Truth, and Reality 153

4 Towards a Rational Theory of Tradition 161

5 Back to the Presocratics 183

Appendix Historical Conjectures and Heraclitus on Change 206

6 A Note on Berkeley as Precursor of Mach and Einstein 224

7 Kant's Critique and Cosmology 237

1 Kant and the Enlightenment 238

2 Kant's Newtonian Cosmology 240

3 The Critique and the Cosmological Problem 241

4 Space and Time 242

5 Kant's Copernican Revolution 244

6 The Doctrine of Autonomy 246

8 On the Status of Science and of Metaphysics 249

1 Kant and the Logic of Experience 249

2 The Problem of the Irrefutability of Philosophical Theories 261

9 Why are the Calculi of Logic and Arithmetic Applicable to Reality? 272

10 Truth, Rationality, and the Growth of Scientific Knowledge 291

1 The Growth of Knowledge: Theories and Problems 291

2 The Theory of Objective Truth: Correspondence to the Facts 302

3 Truth and Content: Verisimilitude versus Probability 309

4 Background Knowledge and Scientific Growth 322

5 Three Requirements for the Growth of Knowledge 326

Appendix A Presumably False yet Formally Highly Probable Non-Empirical Statement 336

Refutations

11 The Demarcation Between Science and Metaphysics 341

3 Carnap's First Theory of Meaninglessness 349

4 Carnap and the Language of Science 356

5 Testability and Meaning 368

6 Probability and Induction 377

12 Language and the Body-Mind Problem 395

2 Four Major Functions of Language 397

3 A Group of Theses 398

4 The Machine Argument 399

5 The Causal Theory of Naming 401

6 Interaction 402

13 A Note on the Body-Mind Problem 403

14 Self-Reference and Meaning in Ordinary Language 409

15 What is Dialectic? 419

1 Dialectic Explained 419

2 Hegelian Dialectic 435

3 Dialectic After Hegel 445

16 Prediction and Prophecy in the Social Sciences 452

17 Public Opinion and Liberal Principles 467

1 The Myth of Public Opinion 467

2 The Dangers of Public Opinion 470

3 Liberal Principles: A Group of Theses 471

4 The Liberal Theory of Free Discussion 473

5 The Forms of Public Opinion 475

6 Some Practical Problems: Censorship and Monopolies of Publicity 475

7 A Short List of Political Illustrations 476

18 Utopia and Violence 477

19 The History of Our Time: An Optimist's View 489

20 Humanism and Reason 506

Addenda: Some Technical Notes 517

1 Empirical Content 517

2 Probability and the Severity of Tests 522

3 Verisimilitude 527

4 Numerical Examples 535

5 Artificial vs. Formalized Languages 537

6 A Historical Note on Verisimilitude (1964) 538

7 Some Further Hints on Verisimilitude (1968) 541

8 Further Remarks on the Presocratics, especially on Parmenides (1968) 545

9 The Presocratics: Unity or Novelty? (1968) 556

10 An Argument, due to Mark Twain, against Naive Empiricism (1989) 557.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN:

0415285933

9780415285933

0415285941

9780415285940

OCLC:

49593492

Online:

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