Popper and His Popular Critics : Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend and Imre Lakatos / by Joseph Agassi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Agassi, Joseph, Author.

Series:

SpringerBriefs in Philosophy, 2211-4556

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Philosophy.

Science--Philosophy.

Science.

Philosophy of Science.

Local Subjects:

Philosophy.

Philosophy of Science.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (159 p.)

Edition:

1st ed. 2014.

Place of Publication:

Cham : Springer International Publishing : Imprint: Springer, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This volume examines Popper’s philosophy by analyzing the criticism of his most popular critics: Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend and Imre Lakatos. They all followed his rejection of the traditional view of science as inductive. Starting from the assumption that Hume’s criticism of induction is valid, the book explores the central criticism and objections that these three critics have raised. Their objections have met with great success, are significant and deserve paraphrase. One also may consider them reasonable protests against Popper’s high standards rather than fundamental criticisms of his philosophy. The book starts out with a preliminary discussion of some central background material and essentials of Popper’s philosophy. It ends with nutshell representations of the philosophies of Popper. Kuhn, Feyerabend and Lakatos. The middle section of the book presents the connection between these philosophers and explains what their central ideas consists of, what the critical arguments are, how they presented them, and how valid they are. In the process, the author claims that Popper's popular critics used against him arguments that he had invented (and answered) without saying so. They differ from him mainly in that they demanded of all criticism that it should be constructive: do not stop believing a refuted theory unless there is a better alternative to it. Popper hardly ever discussed belief, delegating its study to psychology proper; he usually discussed only objective knowledge, knowledge that is public and thus open to public scrutiny.

Contents:

Introduction

Preface

Acknowledgement

A. Prelims

A1. On Human Rules about God’s World A2. In search for Rules

A3. Rules against Mock-Criticism

A4. Rules against excessive defensiveness

A5. Against the Bouncers in the Gates of Science.- A5. Duhem, Quine and Kuhn

B. Popper and his Popular Critics.- B1. Karl Raimund Popper B2. Kuhn’s Way

B3. Feyerabend’s Proposal B4. Imre Lakatos

B5. A Touch of Malice

C. In a Nutshell

C1. The Essential Popper

C2. Kuhn on Pluralism and Incommensurability

C3. Paul Feyerabend and Rational Pluralism

C4. Lakatos on the Methodology of Scientific Research Programs

C5. Epilogue: Civilization and its Self-Defense

D. References

D1. Appendix 1: The Biological Base of Dogmatism.- D2. Appendix 2: Popper on Explanation

D3. Bibliography

D4. Index of names

D5. Index of Subjects. .

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN:

3-319-06587-4

OCLC:

880312384