Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge

by Karl Popper

Overview

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. It provides one of the clearest and most accessible statements of the fundamental idea that guided his work: not only our knowledge, but our aims and our standards, grow through an unending process of trial and error. Popper brilliantly demonstrates how knowledge grows by guesses or conjectures and tentative solutions, which must then be subjected to critical tests. Although they may survive any number of tests, our conjectures remain conjectures, they can never be established as true. What makes Conjectures and Refutations such an enduring book is that Popper goes on to apply this bold theory of the growth of knowledge to a fascinating range of important problems, including the role of tradition, the origin of the scientific method, the demarcation between science and metaphysics, the body-mind problem, the way we use language, how we understand history, and the dangers of public opinion. Throughout the book, Popper stresses the importance of our ability to learn from our mistakes. Conjectures and Refutations is essential reading, and a book to be returned to again and again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415285933
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/02/2002
Series:	Routledge Classics
Edition description:	REV
Pages:	608
Product dimensions:	5.06(w) x 7.81(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Karl Popper (1902-1994). Philosopher, born in Vienna. One of the most influential and controversial thinkers of the twentieth century.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION On the Sources of Knowledge and of Ignorance CONJECTURES 1 Science: Conjectures and Refutations Appendix: Some Problems in the Philosophy of Science 2 The Nature of Philosophical Problems and their Roots in Science 3 Three Views Concerning Human Knowledge 4 Towards a Rational Theory of Tradition 5 Back to the Presocratics 6 A Note on Berkeley as Precursor of Mach and Einstein 7 Kant’s Critique and Cosmology 8 On the Status of Science and of Metaphysics 9 Why are the Calculi of Logic and Arithmetic Applicable to Reality? 10 Truth, Rationality, and the Growth of Scientific Knowledge REFUTATIONS 11 The Demarcation Between Science and Metaphysics 12 Language and the Body-Mind Problem 13A Note on the Body-Mind Problem 14 Self-Reference and Meaning in Ordinary Language 15 What is Dialectic? 16 Prediction and Prophecy in the Social Sciences 17 Public Opinion and Liberal Principles 18 Utopia and Violence 19 The History of Our Time: An Optimist’s View 20 Humanism and Reason

Editorial Reviews

'The central thesis of the essays and lectures gathered together in this stimulating volume is that our knowledge, and especially our scientific knowledge, progresses by unjustified (and unjustifiable) anticipations, by guesses, by tentative solutions to our problems, in a word by conjectures. Professor Popper puts forward his views with a refreshing self-confidence.' - The Times Literary Supplement

'Professor Popper holds that truth is not manifest, but extremely elusive, he believes that men need above all things, open-mindedness, imagination, and a constant willingness to be corrected. In summarizing his views in this way, I have done scant justice to the subtlety and importance of his argument. His own presentation of his case is luminously clear.' - Maurice Cranston, Listener

From the Publisher