Popper

I am planning a history of the notion of philosophical nonsense and naturally difficult historical and exegetical questions have come up.  Charles Pigden has argued that the notion goes back at least as far as Hobbes and that Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant (on some interpretations) and pragmatists such as William James, as well as numerous Twentieth-Century philosophers make use of it.  In this ‘paper’ I put forward for general discussion such questions as whether Hobbes was the first 'nonsensicalist', whether Kant was a 'nonsensicalist' at all, which philosophers if any have considered contradictions to be meaningless and whether Wittgenstein thought that his concept of criterion could legitimately be used verificationistically.  I shall continue to add further questions as they occur to me.

The experiences of the autoconscious mind are related to neural activity in the association areas of the brain, with a relative grade of correspondence but not identity. The unity of the conscious experience is based upon the autoconscious mind but not from the complexity of the neuronal wiring/ conexions in the association areas in the cortex. The hypothesis of Karl Popper of the Three Worlds permits to comprehend the reality and the autoconscious mind, trying to solve the perennial quest between body and mind.
The concept of cortical modules (paramount for the interactionism or interactionistic dualism) allows the interaction between the autoconscious mind and the brain cortex at the level of cortical modules, which permits to the autoconscious mind to scrutiny continuosly the conformation of the cortical modules, thus allowing a reciprocity between the modules and the autoconscious mind. The autoconscious mind implies the presence of attention as an integrating agent in the raising of conscious experience.

Key words: autoconscious mind - Three worlds - cortical module - qualia - perennial question

Partiendo desde la abstracción necesaria para la generación del conocimiento y su desarrollo a partir de las posiciones planteadas por Popper y Lakatos, se presenta la utilidad que tienen estas dos posturas en el desarrollo de una investigación doctoral.

This book sketches the history of higher education, in parallel with the development of science. Its goal is to draw attention to the historical tensions between the aims of higher education and those of science, in the hope of contributing to improving the contemporary university. A helpful tool in analyzing these intellectual and social tensions is Karl Popper’s philosophy of science demarcating science and its social context. Popper defines a society that encourages criticism as open, and argues convincingly that an open society is the most appropriate one for the growth of science. A closed society, on the other hand, is a tribal and dogmatic society. Despite being the universal home of science today, the university, as an institution that is thousands of years old, carries traces of different past cultural, social, and educational traditions. The book argues that, by and large, the university was, and still is, a closed society and does not serve the best interests of the development of science and of students' education.

This is the second of a series of three lectures given at Peking University.

Haack explores correspondence theories, the semantic theory, and the Laconicist theory (also known as the "redundancy" theory).

After showing the [problems with the first two kinds of theory, Haack argues for the virtue of the last, but also looks at the several issues still in need of resolution.

Michael Segre analizza la storia della formazione superiore a partire dall'era classica rilevando quanto l'università, ormai quasi millenaria, sia cresciuta attraverso molteplici tradizioni sociali, culturali e formative, delle quali porta le tracce. Nonostante monopolizzi oggi la scienza, l'università è ancora, per certi aspetti, rimasta un'istituzione che Karl Popper definirebbe "chiusa", ossia tribale, dogmatica e inadatta alle sfide del terzo millennio. Se si è consci di ciò, si potrebbe meglio riformarla.

Karl Popper lamented the prevalence of dogmatic argument in philosophy and commended the kind of critical argument that is found in the sciences. David Miller criticises the uncritical nature of so-called critical thinking because of its attachment to dogmatic arguments. I expound and clarify Popper’s distinction between critical and dogmatic arguments and the background to it. I criticise some errors in Miller’s discussion. I reaffirm the need for philosophers to eschew dogmatic arguments in favour of critical ones.

El falsacionismo de Popper es absolutamente central en las consideraciones sobre el método científico contemporáneo, por su coherencia lógica, su potencia crítica y su honesta claridad. En ese ensayo, transcrito de una exposición en la Facultad de Filosofía de la UCM, se desarrolla la lógica interna del método epistemológico popperiano, tal y como quedó expuesto en su "Lógica de la investigación científica" (1934), con el intento de aclarar por qué este texto marcó un antes y un después en el ámbito de la epistemología, en la gnoseología y, más en general, en la ciencia y la filosofía.

Dans cet article, l’auteur propose une relecture, a` destination du champ clinique, des « controverses
poppe´ riennes » concernant les crite` res de la scientificite´ . Y est ressaisi ce qui conduit Popper a` re´ duire les
sciences a` leur branche expe´rimentale. Sont ensuite retrace´ s les de´ bats scientifiques qui, depuis 50 ans,
ont largement affaibli puis invalide´ la position poppe´ rienne, bien qu’elle continue de valoir pour
l’opinion commune. La pluralite´ des re´gimes de scientificite´ – relatifs aux objets expe´rimentaux, vivants,
sociaux – e´ tant aujourd’hui admise, rien ne s’oppose donc, sauf re´ sistances lie´es a` une imaginarisation de
« La » science, a` ce que les psychanalystes renouent avec leur tradition scientifique propre, au nom du re´ el
dont ils sont the´oriquement – non moins que the´ rapeutiquement – responsables.

//

In this article, the author proposes a re-interpretation of Popperian controversies regarding criteria of
scientificity, re-examining what drove Popper to reduce the sciences to their experimental branch. The
article retraces 50 years of debates, which have weakened the Popperian position, despite the continued
reference made to it in popular opinion. Given the wide acceptance of the idea that a plurality of scientific
regimes exists, nothing – except resistance grounded in an imaginary ideal of a unitary ‘‘Science’’ –
should stop psychoanalysts from reinvigorating their scientific tradition in the name of the clinical
reality for which they are responsible.

Susan Haack, “Six Signs of Scientism.”

Abstract: As the English word “scientism” is currently used, it is a trivial verbal truth that scientism—an inappropriately deferential attitude to science—should be avoided. But it is a substantial question when, and why, deference to the sciences is inappropriate or exaggerated. This paper tries to answer that question by articulating “six signs of scientism”: the honorific use of “science,” etc.; using scientific trappings purely decoratively; preoccupation with demarcation; preoccupation with “scientific method”; looking to the sciences for answers beyond their scope; denying the legitimacy or worth of non-scientific (e.g., legal or literary) inquiry, or of writing poetry or making art.

Translated by Eli Vieira Araujo Junr.

Key words: scientism; honorific use of “science”; demarcation of science; scientific method; science and values

En este libro se analiza el giro de la filosofía de K. Popper a partir de la década del 60 del siglo pasado y que, más que romper con sus escritos anteriores, redefine la idea inicial de una epistemología sin sujeto, aunque ahora en clave de una epistemología evolucionista, es decir tomando como modelo explicativo a la teoría darwiniana de la evolución. Las epistemologías evolucionistas –la de Popper es solo una de ellas- representan uno de los resultados de los intensos debates de la filosofía de la ciencia de la segunda mitad del siglo XX.

Table of contents: 1) The epistemological proem of Alcmaeon's book: a new reading of fr. B 1 DK. 2) A new fragment of Alcmaeon from the Turba philosophorum: Locustor/Locuton in Sermo 7 is Alcmaeon (cf. "Lecineo" = Alkmaun in De plantis). 3) Alcmaeon and the origin of the akropolis/kephale analogy in Greek philosophy and medicine. Plato in "Timaeus" remakes Alcmaeon's original biological analogy (relation of brain and senses) and adapts it to his moral psycholohy (relation of reason and
emotions). 4) The "seasons of life"  analogy: an additional fragment of Alcmaeon from Aristotle's GA and HA. 5) The date of Alcmaeon and his relation to the Pythagoreans. A defence of the longer version of Aristotle's evidence on Alcmaeon  (Metaph. 986a29-31) which supports the ealier date (c.500 B.C.) against Mansfeld's attempt to redate Alcmaeon to the second half of the 5th century B.C. Alcmaeon' theory of opposites is directly linked to his theory of sensation and was conceived as empirical alternative to the Pythagorean Table of opposites which is based on rationalist epistemology and consists of mathematical and ethical concepts. Aristotle's "wondering" about who borrowed his theory of opposites from whom (rationalists from empiricists or vice versa) may by polemical in purpose and directed against contemporary Pythagorizing Platonists: the leitmotif of Metaphysics Alpha is that most philosophers in their theories of the first principles did not propose something different from  one or few of the 4 principles established by Aristotle in his Physics. The theoretical conflict of Alcmaeon's empiricism with the aprioristic mathematical essentialism of the Pythagoreans is viewed by Aristotle as  a historical antecedent to his own debate with the Old Academy.  The mention of the diaphonia of Pythagoras and Alcmaeon (aprioristic ten abstract pairs of opposites versus indefinite number of opposites perceived by the senses) thus is not accidental: it is intrinsically connected with the programmatic empiricist epistemology from which the book Alpha starts.  6) Alcmaeon B 4, Herodotus, Heraclitus and the early history of isonomia. Refutation of J.Mansfeld's attempt to doubt the authenticity of isonomia: this is an early Ionian term for moderate democracy replaced only in the second half of the 5th century by the Attic δημοκρατία, it constitues a verbatim quotation from Alcmaeon, and not a "Herodotism" in Placita, contra Mansfeld. Acmaeon, Herodotus, Heraclitus and the authors of the Attic scolium to Harmodius and Aristogeiton use it independently of each other. Heraclitus may have mentioned ἰσονομία in his cosmological historiosophy: the change of political regimes is detrermined by the rotation of power of the 4 cosmic masses  (Fire, Prester = Winter Stormwind, Sea and Earth corresponding to the Hot, the Cold, The Wet and the Dry, four cosmic forces which dominate in turn both at the tropai of the astronomical year  and the tropai of Megas Eniautos) that causes cyclical alternation of the period of Want characterized by  the "wetness"  of souls and democratic "madness of cowds" and the period of Abundance of fire when  the souls become dry and the "insane" rule of hoi polloi is replaced by the rule of "one the best".

Abstract: The author seeks to show at least two theses. (1) That the statement of the title is compatible with the development of a theoretic and critical reason, centered on various discussions of problems. (2) That the same statement has a double sense: or it’s trivial (as Locke applied this term), or it can be understood like a transcendental proposition, since it establishes a synthetic condition for all possible philosophical activity, although it’s an insufficient condition.

This article builds on C. S. Peirce’s suggestive blueprint for an inclusive outlook that grants reality to his three categories. Moving away from the usual focus on (contentious) cosmological forces, I use a modal principle to partition various ontological layers: regular sign-action (like coded language) subsumes actual sign-action (like here-and-now events) which in turn subsumes possible sign-action (like qualities related to whatever would be similar to them). Once we realize that the triadic sign’s components are each answerable to this asymmetric subsumption, we obtain the means to track at which level of complexity semiosis finds itself, in a given case. Since the bulk of such a “trinitarian” metaphysics would be devoted to countenancing un-interpreted phenomena, I argue that current misgivings about sign-based ontologies are largely misplaced.

.Taking as my starting-point Cora Diamond’s paper ‘What nonsense might be’, I extend her ‘austere’ conception of nonsense to encompass the talking of nonsense.  We need to focus on the utterer as well as the utterance.  This brings out how difficult it is going to be to DIAGNOSE the talking of (philosophical) nonsense, without falling into the ‘sense that is senseless’ trap (PI, I, 500).  It is not clear to what extent Diamond sees the problem here.  I suggest that if there is a way round the difficulty, it will involve adopting a therapeutic approach.

Axioms are presented which demonstrate that our system of Cartesian coordinates evolved from the Pythagorean concept of ratio, which arose from the discovery that the integers corresponded to the harmonies produced by a stretched string. It was here were we find the seminal connection being made between number and nature and, hence, the birth of science. These are the harmonic analogues to the Euclidean axioms of geometry but are about two millennia overdue. However, Pythagoras' discovery has been forgotten in physics and consequently it has not recognised that these ratios not only form the very foundation of modern wave theory, including Fourier analysis, but also of the space and time axes themselves. For it is shown that if the equations that describe wave motions are to be correct, then space and time cannot be regarded as 'independent variables' at all for a wave will always supply its own measure of space and time in the form of its wavelength and period. Once this is seen then the entire facade of metaphysical 'space and time' begins to crumble. For example, differentiation and integration with respect to space and time can always and in principle be substituted by operations involving ratios and wavenumber or frequency and 'space and time' (or the variables x and t) completely disappear from the equations. After the axioms are given and their consequences developed, the conclusion is clear; our sense of space and time grew from our collected experiences of periodicities or regularities within nature and it is these which make up the laws of physics. it is why they appear as 'eternal' or 'timeless'. The universe is no longer described by the motion of points in an a priori Cartesian coordinate system but by the fact that these axes themselves represent the class of wavenumbers and frequencies of observable wave phenomena. And special relativity is no exception: Einstein's definition of time dilation, as opposed to length contraction, contravenes the principle of relativity with respect to wave motion. It was (albeit unconsciously) biased to agree with the particle-like picture of the universe handed down from classical kinematics.

Edward Witherspoon distinguishes Wittgenstein’s conception of nonsense from Rudolf Carnap’s.  The latter does not fully take into account the fact that, if something really is nonsense, it has no more meaning than ‘Ab sur ah’ and therefore cannot have any logical properties.  He finds the Carnapian conception even in professed Wittgensteinians such as Peter Hacker and Gordon Baker who think of themselves as rejecting it.  My question is where this leaves the notion of PHILOSOPHICAL nonsense.  Could anything that was utterly devoid of content play the crucial deceptive role that nonsensicalists, including Wittgensteinians, assign it?  Could it ever be detected if it did?

This paper constitutes one extended argument, which touches on various topics of Critical Rationalism as it was initiated by Karl Popper and further developed (although into different directions) in his aftermath. The result of the argument will be that critical rationalism either offers no solution to the problem of induction at all, or that it amounts, in the last resort, to a kind of Critical Rationalist Inductivism as it were, a version of what I call Good Old Induction. One may think of David Miller as a contemporary representative of what I consider as the ‘no solution’ version of critical rationalism, while Alan Musgrave stands for the version of ‘critical rationalist induction’. Popper’s own writings admit of either interpretation.

Few would doubt that one often encounters the preposterous in philosophy.  Some would claim that preposterousness in philosophy is often a matter of literal nonsensicality, i.e. meaninglessness.  Is this plausible or is it itself an example of a preposterous philosophical claim?

I. Introducción; II. El neopositivismo; III. El falsacionismo; IV. El paradigmático Thomas S. Kuhn; V. Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad. (CTS); VI. Análisis de la política científico-tecnológica en el Uruguay;

El presente trabajo pretende dar cuenta de una parte del debate epistemológico y filosófico referente a la construcción de conocimiento, particularmente el científico. Para ello se propone una revisión de cuatro grandes ejes del pensamiento filosófico, a saber: la corriente neopositivista, el falsacionismo, los aportes de Tomas Kuhn, y la contemporánea corriente de Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad. El punto de base del análisis refiere a la posibilidad de generar conocimiento científico y en cuáles son sus requisitos, lo mismo que decir, en qué consiste su validez. El escrito se estructura en cuatro secciones que pretenden no ser independientes sino conformar un cuerpo común que permita dar coherencia a las sentencias propuestas.

I am planning a history of the notion of philosophical nonsense and naturally difficult historical and exegetical questions have come up.  Charles Pigden has argued that the notion goes back at least as far as Hobbes and that Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant (on some interpretations) and pragmatists such as William James, as well as numerous Twentieth-Century philosophers make use of it.  In this ‘paper’ I put forward for general discussion such questions as whether Hobbes was the first 'nonsensicalist', whether Kant was a 'nonsensicalist' at all, which philosophers if any have considered contradictions to be meaningless and whether Wittgenstein thought that his concept of criterion could legitimately be used verificationistically.  I shall continue to add further questions as they occur to me.

I argue that social-contract theory cannot succeed because reasonable people may always disagree, and that social-contract theory is irrelevant to the problem of the legitimacy of a form of government or of a system of moral rules. I note the weakness of the appeal to implicit agreement, the conflation of legitimacy with stability, the undesirability of “public justification” and the apparent blindness to the evolutionary critical-rationalist approach of Hayek and Popper. I employ that approach to sketch answers to the theoretical, historical and practical questions about the legitimacy of government or of systems of moral rules.

I apply Karl Popper’s conception of critical rationality to the question of personal fulfilment. I show that such fulfilment normally depends upon the person achieving positive freedom, and that positive freedom requires negative freedom, including freedom of expression. If the state has legitimacy, its central duty must be the enforcement of those rules that provide the best prospects for personal fulfilment for the people under its jurisdiction. The state is therefore morally debarred from suppressing freedom of expression. I consider and rebut arguments from falsity, harm, offence, and democratic principles, which are intended to show that the state should prohibit the expression of some types of content. I go on to argue that common university speech codes are incompatible with the aims of an institution of higher education.

Self-driving vehicles have recently started to come into society with the promise of reducing road accidents, and together with them came the need for new and suitable regulations. What constitutes the main source of concern is the possibility of such vehicles to find themselves in dilemmatic situations where they will autonomously have to make life-or-death decisions. For this reason, we will conduct a brief disquisition to understand how people react to the same dilemmatic problems and discuss whether it is possible for the same principles to apply to machines as well.

Com este estudo, pretende-se demonstrar que a adoção expressa do método indutivo pelo Código de Processo Civil, como se observa em seu art. 375, impede por completo o salto epistemológico para uma compreensão adequada da teoria da decisão jurídica na vigência da Constituição Federal de 1988, a qual acolhe o devido processo como medium da racionalidade discursiva dos direitos fundamentais garantidos por meio de um espaço-político procedimentalizado aberto a todos.

It appears that light may be thrown on the nature of moral principles if they are construed as moral laws analogous to ceteris-paribus laws of nature. Luke Robinson objects that the analogy either cannot explain how moral principles are necessary or cannot explain how obligations can be pro-tanto; and that a dispositional account of moral obligation has explanatory superiority over one in terms of moral laws. I explain the analogy, construing laws of nature as necessary relationships after the fashion of William Kneale and Karl Popper. I then show that Robinson’s objections are mistaken and that if the difference between a dispositional account and a law account is not merely verbal, then it is the law account that is superior. I also dispel the common confusion between the necessity of laws and the existence of forces.

In the first part of this text, we analyze Descartes, who is considered the father of modern philosophy and also, to some extent, the founder of modern idealism, who sought to demonstrate  the  existence  of  God  and  the separation between soul and body. Descartes is undoubtedly  a  Christian  and,  for  this  very reason, he reasoned from Christian texts and Christian  theology.  Its  process  is  to  submit everything  to  doubt  as  a  general  principle. Hume, in turn, begins by differentiating the two types of approaches to moral philosophy or the science of human nature, considering that each of  them  may  not  only  interest  but  also contribute to human development. Husserl uses phenomenology  as  a  method  of  descriptive investigation.  Popper  considers  that  the hypotheses or systems of theories of the so-called  empirical  sciences,  especially  their procedures, should be submitted to the logical analysis of scientific investigation or the logic of knowledge. In the second part, we find that Schutz considers that in order to interpret and explain  human  action  and  thought,  it  is necessary to start at a point that precedes the scientific, everyday reality. It is in this everyday region in which there can be understanding, because in it there is an effective participation of man. The understanding between people, with all  the  setbacks,  challenges,  achievements, occurs exactly in this context, that of everyday reality. There the man acts, communicates. A normal, attentive person lives and acts. Berger and Luckman, in turn, propose to unveil the foundations of knowledge in everyday life. Not from intellectuals, but from “everyday” agents in  their  equally  everyday  and  ordinarily ordinary lives.KEYWORDS:  empirical  method  of knowledge,  Descartes,  Hume,  Husserl  and 2 René Descartes (1596-1650) 3 Meditações (1ª a 4ª) Popper, construction of sociological theories, Schutz, Berger and Luckman.

I summarise Robert Audi's 'Moral Perception.' I concede that there is such a thing as moral perception. However, moral perceptions are culturally-relative, which refutes Audi’s claims that moral perception may ground moral knowledge and that it provides inter-subjectively accessible grounds which make ethical objectivity possible. Audi's attempt to avoid the refutation tends to convert rational disputes into ad hominem ones. I illustrate that with the example of the ethics of prostitution.

The criterion of demarcation of Popper clearly separates the mathematics of empirical sciences. Popper did not develop a philosophy of mathematics in a systematic form. Usually, Lakatos is considered the responsible for the application of the Popper’s philosophy of science to the mathematics. However, one can find in Popper’s writings his answers to some problems of the philosophy of mathematics. Our objective is to present briefly some of his ideas that constitute what we can call Popper’s Philosophy of Mathematics.