The Political Thought of Karl Popper

The Political Thought of Karl Popper

Author: Jeremy Shearmur

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-09-11

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 1134861664

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The Political Thought of Karl Popper offers a controversial treatment of Popper's ideas about politics, informed by Shearmur's personal knowledge of Popper together with research on unpublished material in the Popper archive at the Hoover Institute. While sympathetic to Popper's overall approach, Shearmur offers criticism of some of his ideas and suggests that political conclusions should be drawn from Popper's ideas which differ from Popper's own views. Shearmur introduces Popper's political ideas by way of a discussion of their development, which draws upon archive material. He then offers a critical survey of some of the themes from his Open Society and Poverty of Historicism, and discusses the political significance of some of his later philosophical ideas. Wider themes within Popper's philosophy are drawn on to offer striking critical re-interpretations of his ethical ideas and social theory. The book concludes with a discussion which suggests that Popper's views should have been closer to classical liberalism than they in fact were.


Conjectures and Refutations

Conjectures and Refutations

Author: Karl Raimund Popper

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 614

ISBN-13: 9780415285940

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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.


An Introduction to the Thought of Karl Popper

An Introduction to the Thought of Karl Popper

Author: Roberta Corvi

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-08-04

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 1134793707

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A comprehensive introduction to the philosophical and political thought of Karl Popper divided into three parts. The first part provides a biography, the second part examines his works and recurring themes and the last part looks at his critics.


Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902-1945

Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902-1945

Author: Malachi Haim Hacohen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2002-03-04

Total Pages: 628

ISBN-13: 9780521890557

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This 2001 biography reassesses philosopher Karl Popper's life and works within the context of interwar Vienna.


Karl Popper's Philosophy of Science

Karl Popper's Philosophy of Science

Author: Stefano Gattei

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2008-10-16

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 1134182953

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Rectifying misrepresentations of Popperian thought with a historical approach to Popper’s philosophy, Gattei reconstructs the logic of Popper’s development to show how one problem and its tentative solution led to a new problem.


Open Society and Its Enemies. Volume 2

Open Society and Its Enemies. Volume 2

Author: Karl Raimund Popper

Publisher:

Published: 1966

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 9780691071275

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Popper was born in 1902 to a Viennese family of Jewish origin. He taught in Austria until 1937, when he emigrated to New Zealand in anticipation of the Nazi annexation of Austria the following year, and he settled in England in 1949. Before the annexation, Popper had written mainly about the philosophy of science, but from 1938 until the end of the Second World War he focused his energies on political philosophy, seeking to diagnose the intellectual origins of German and Soviet totalitarianism. The Open Society and Its Enemies was the result. In the book, Popper condemned Plato, Marx, and Hegel as "holists" and "historicists"--a holist, according to Popper, believes that individuals are formed entirely by their social groups; historicists believe that social groups evolve according to internal principles that it is the intellectual's task to uncover. Popper, by contrast, held that social affairs are unpredictable, and argued vehemently against social engineering. He also sought to shift the focus of political philosophy away from questions about who ought to rule toward questions about how to minimize the damage done by the powerful. The book was an immediate sensation, and--though it has long been criticized for its portrayals of Plato, Marx, and Hegel--it has remained a landmark on the left and right alike for its defense of freedom and the spirit of critical inquiry.


After The Open Society

After The Open Society

Author: Karl Popper

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-05-01

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13: 1135627118

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In this long-awaited volume, Jeremy Shearmur and Piers Norris Turner bring to light Popper's most important unpublished and uncollected writings from the time of The Open Society until his death in 1994. After The Open Society: Selected Social and Political Writings reveals the development of Popper's political and philosophical thought during and after the Second World War, from his early socialism through to the radical humanitarianism of The Open Society. The papers in this collection, many of which are available here for the first time, demonstrate the clarity and pertinence of Popper's thinking on such topics as religion, history, Plato and Aristotle, while revealing a lifetime of unwavering political commitment. After The Open Society illuminates the thought of one of the twentieth century's greatest philosophers and is essential reading for anyone interested in the recent course of philosophy, politics, history and society.


The Cambridge Companion to Popper

The Cambridge Companion to Popper

Author: Jeremy Shearmur

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-06-27

Total Pages: 405

ISBN-13: 0521856450

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This is one of the most comprehensive collections of critical essays to be published on the philosophy of Karl Popper.


Karl Popper and Africa: Knowledge, Politics and Development

Karl Popper and Africa: Knowledge, Politics and Development

Author: Oseni Taiwo Afisi

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-09-13

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 3030742148

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This book provides a diverse contextualization of Popper’s critical rationalism concerning knowledge and his generalized attitude of criticism on appropriate social and political reforms in contemporary Africa. The book evaluates how best to address contemporary political problems, especially in politically very troubled parts of the world. To address these contemporary problems, especially as it relates to Africa, the authors found the political philosophy of Popper as suitable. The discussion of Popper’s political philosophy engages us directly with all the particularities of socio-economic and political problems within contemporary Africa. In other words, it presents the truth of the present socio-political reality in Africa where the question of what kinds of political ideas and concepts can be offered as appropriate to a political environment, which so greatly faces facets of developmental issues. Although the issues and events that informed the writings of Popper’s The Poverty of Historicism as well as The Open Society and Its Enemies, were among others, the rise of fascism and communism in Europe, the inventiveness of this work is how happily scholars in non-liberal societies, such as in Africa, can pick up Popper’s insights and usefully work with them to offer appropriate social reforms for their society. This volume is a critical juxtaposition of Popper’s ideas in a bid to make good sense of social and intellectual conditions in Africa, particularly as it relates to the scale and speed of social change that is needed in most African nations that are often ridden by corruption. The book is suitable for studies in political philosophy, economic and development studies, African Studies and Indigenous Knowledge systems.


Karl Popper, Science and Enlightenment

Karl Popper, Science and Enlightenment

Author: Nicholas Maxwell

Publisher: UCL Press

Published: 2017-09-26

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 178735041X

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Here is an idea that just might save the world. It is that science, properly understood, provides us with the methodological key to the salvation of humanity. A version of this idea can be found in the works of Karl Popper. Famously, Popper argued that science cannot verify theories but can only refute them, and this is how science makes progress. Scientists are forced to think up something better, and it is this, according to Popper, that drives science forward.But Nicholas Maxwell finds a flaw in this line of argument. Physicists only ever accept theories that are unified – theories that depict the same laws applying to the range of phenomena to which the theory applies – even though many other empirically more successful disunified theories are always available. This means that science makes a questionable assumption about the universe, namely that all disunified theories are false. Without some such presupposition as this, the whole empirical method of science breaks down.By proposing a new conception of scientific methodology, which can be applied to all worthwhile human endeavours with problematic aims, Maxwell argues for a revolution in academic inquiry to help humanity make progress towards a better, more civilized and enlightened world.