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Title: Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach by Karl R. Popper ISBN: 0-19-875024-2 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1972 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.83 (6 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: not good
Comment: This is a useless book, as I learnt after various re-readings of it and other philosohy of science books. The main points of the first chapter (on the problem of induction) have been long ago refuted by "the scourge of popperian deductivism", the great American philosopher Adolf Grünbaum. Popper's purported "solution" to the problem of induction is not taken seriously by professional philosophers (not to mention inductive logicians like Gaifman et. al.). The impression that one gets in the first (and last) reading of this chapter is the same as Schrödinger's, who said after reading Popper's Logik der Forschung (as reported by Feyeraband): "He says he does something about Hume's problem - but he doesn't, he just talks, and talks, and talks, and Hume's problem is still unsolved".
One of the notions which pervade the whole book, "verisimilitude", had been defined by Popper in a seemingly unobjectionable way in the 1960s, and verisimilitude was thought by Popperians (including Popper) to be an accessible and legitimate aim of science, given that truth was seen as an important but very elusive target. Popper even tells us here (chapter 8) that with his novel definition he has rehabilitated the notion of "verisimilitude" just as Tarski had rehabilitated the notion of truth. This turned out to be a vain hope. Popper's definition of verisimilitude was shown to be completely wrong - in that two FALSE theories could not be compared with respect to their verisimilitude in Popper's sense -, and moreover, since the 1970s all the work which has been done on this topic seems to support the conclusion that verisimilitude is neither a clear nor a useful a notion. Yet Popper had maintained that "we cannot do without this idea". The consequences of this failure for Popper's account of scientific knowledge, and for this book in particular, should therefore be evident for everyone. Moreover, the negative results concerning verisimilitude were discovered after the first edition of this book had been published. The make-shift amendments in the second edition are hardly enough to improve matters.
The conception of knowledge as a Darwinian process is a nice idea, but it is rather vague and also too emphatic and one sided: knowledge also has its "Lamarckian" aspects. The story about the amoeba and Einstein (Einstein is not ESSENTIALLY more intelligent than the ameba) is funny. The production of correct answers cannot, it seems, be reduced to the sheer overproduction of hypotheses and the elimination of incorrect ones. The process of HOW some hypotheses are designed from initial data is also important - a logic of discovery, that is. Popper is not interested in this, despite the title of his classic book on scientific method - the reason being...that any process of discovery is not DEDUCTIVELY VALID!
Another curious feature of the "objective knowledge" which Popper describes is that it resides in a platonic heaven of "statements in themselves": it is a knowledge "without a knowing subject" (sic), although, curiously enough, it is somehow dependent (if I understood this platonic myth correctly) on what we humans do.
The chapter on "The aim of Science" contains a point which was made by Popper in 1949. Newton's theory does not entail Kepler's third law nor Galileo's law of falling bodies: it is actually incompatible with them. The incompatibility with Galileo's law was perhaps more well known before Popper wrote this essay than the incompatibility with Kepler's law. But the lesson which Popper derives from this, namely, that inductivism is refuted, is certainly spurious.
The chapter on clouds (inderterministic systems) and clocks (deterministic systems) is suggestive in the poetic wording and the stories, but does not add much to the debate of determinism-indeterminism. Popper believes that all systems are clouds, although some more clocklike than others. Here is an argument: the determinist thesis implies that a deaf physicist would have been be able to write Mozart's compositions just by knowing Mozart's physical state at a certain time and predicting what he would write in the pentagram; but this is absurd. Therefore determinism is wrong.
The chapter on Evolution and the tree of knowledge is all wrong. Popper's views on the (un)scientific character of evolutionary theory were shown to be wrong by scientists and philosophers alike. This time, Popper says that the only thing Darwin did was to show that evolutionary explanations "can exist", that is, "are not logically impossible" (!), and that no Darwinist has ever provided evolutionary explanations of anything at all. Later Popper admitted that his views on Darwinism were sheer mistakes, but even so the later reformulations of his views were found to be also terribly misleading and confused. What is even more curious, Popper objects to the usual definition of fitness in terms of reproduction rates on the grounds that it does not take into account that such rates might be due not to fitness but to fecundity; but his amended statistical definition of comparative fitness (A is more fit than B if its survival rate is greater and its fecundity rate is less or equal) has all the vices of every attempt to DEFINE fitness in terms of survival rates: it renders evolutionary explanations circular (A survived because fit, and A is fit because it survived).
The "Logic" part of Popper's "A realist view of Logic, Physics and History" (ch. 8) is extremely odd. He defends classical logic on sheer PRAGMATIC grounds (its utility as a canon of critical procedure), but he does not answer the question of whether there is any CORRECT logic amongst the many logics, which is the WHOLE question of "realism" about logic.
The chapter on Tarski (ch.9) is also mainly incorrect. His discussion of the problem of truth bearers in note 1 is completely muddled and rash. For instance, he says that he employs "sentence" as a synonym of "interpreted sentence OR PROPOSITION" (!). The interpretation of Tarski's theory as a theory of correspondence with FACTS is entirely arbitrary. Tarski nowhere talks about facts, but Popper speaks EVERYWHERE about them, even of "supposed" facts, of "real" facts, of "the world of facts" and what not. He also says that "Tarski's theory" allows us to define REALITY as "that with which true sentences correspond". Reality would in turn be "the set of real facts". It is needless to say that these grotesque fancies are not to be found nor suggested in Tarski's careful and precise work on truth.
There is almost nothing to be learnt from this book, and much to become confused about.
Rating: 3
Summary: Good overview of 20th century philosophy of science
Comment: In a recent article on the relation between natural philosophy and quantum chromodynamics (the physical theory of the strong nuclear interaction), Frank Wilcek, a well-recognized researcher in elementary particle physics, included the following entertaining passage:
A man walks into a bar, takes a seat on the next-to-last stool, and spends the evening chatting up the empty stool next to him, being charming and flirtatious, as if there were a beautiful women in that empty seat. The next night, same story. And the next night, same story again. Finally the bartender can't take it any more. She asks, "Why do you keep talking to that empty stool as if there were a beautiful woman in it?".
The man answers, "I am a philosopher. Hume taught us that it's logically possible that a beautiful woman will suddenly materialize on that stool, and no one has ever refuted him. If one does appear, then obviously I'll seem very clever indeed, and I'll have the inside track with her."
"That's ridiculous", says the bartender, who happens to be a physicist. "Plenty of very attractive women come to this bar all the time. You're reasonably presentable, and extremely articulate; if you applied your charm on one of them, you might succeed".
"I thought about trying that," he replies, "but I couldn't prove it would work."
I included this passage in this review not to ridicule the work of David Hume but to emphasize that his philosophy of science is in no way troubling. The author of this book though spent most of his professional life attempting to refute the views of Hume and then justify the practice of science "objectively". In the first few paragraphs of this book, the author sounds bitter about the lack of recognition for his work on "the problem of induction", which he felt Hume had shown to have devastating consequences on the "truth" of science. The search for an objective, rational "foundation" of science has occupied the time of this author and many others, who hold to the idea that scientific knowledge needs such a foundation and the Humean challenge must be answered. To those readers who agree with the author in this regard, this book would be of interest. To those who do not, this book could possibly be read as an exercise in mental gymnastics. There are some places in the book where issues are raised that are important in fields such as artificial intelligence, but as a whole the book is typical of 20th century philosophy of science: it holds as axiomatic that scientific knowledge needs an underlying foundation.
Since I personally do not believe the David Hume has to be answered at all, a review of the author's arguments against Hume would be misplaced. Having read Hume's works in detail, and having walked away from them puzzled as to why they are considered so "formidable" or "devastating", my interest in this book was purely subjective: that of gaining insight as to why many philosophers of science are so deeply troubled by Hume's philosophy and other science skeptics. Finishing the book still left my questions unanswered in this regard, and judging by a perusal of the literature on the philosophy of science, Humean skepticism is still considered the "thing to answer". Scientific truth is still held in doubt to a large degree, and debates on it in the social and political realm usually take place in the context of religion or why creationism should be taught in the public schools.
But science needs no foundation. The game of philosophy should now be what consequences science has for philosophy. What theories of truth, of ethics, of knowledge, are possible for philosophy because of science? If this book were rewritten to reflect this attitude, its content would be very different, possibly more elaborate in its views. The avenues that science opens up in ethics, epistemology, and ontology are rich in information theory, mathematics, logic, and many other areas. Scientific and technological advances are exploding at an unprecedented rate, and no Humean challenge or backlash can stop it.....thankfully.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Splendid intro to common-sense epistemology!
Comment: To those who've not read Popper before, I highly reccomend that you statrt now- and with this book. To those who have experienced these pages first-hand, you understand why Popper and the theories herein are so important.
As short-windedly as possible, I'd like to say how I came to read him. I had forayed into philosophy through Ayn Rand who managed to convince me- as she does so many readerss- that philosophy is a chasm between soft relativism and hard objectivism. Either one believes in absolute truth and reasons 100% ability to grasp it, she wrote, or that truth is a chimera and as such, reality is mutable. I believed her. Later though, I grew restless. Truth is out there, I supposed, but how can we guarantee that our beliefs are and will always be correct? Grudgingly, I read Popper and it all made sense.
Most are familiar with Poppers theories on demarcation and epistemology but this book goes into great detail on both in clear, enjoyable language. Truth, Popper tells us, is absolute. It is certainty that creates the dilemma. Since experience has shown us that objective reality exists, science works but does not take us the full way. Theories are superceded and what once seemed true may not tomorrow. So the ultimmate test of a theory should not be whether it can be VERIFIED- if we look for supporting evidence of a pretty good yet minorly false theory, we'll probably find it- but whehter the theory can be FALSIFIED- if we look for evidence against a pretty good yet minorly false theory, it's easier, quicker and beter to find IT. What does this mean? Reality exists, otherwise why do science- it's just our CERTAINTY of any belief that will prove elusive. This book, in its small yet powerful essays, explains, examines and defends this theory of an evolutionary approach to knowledge (i.e., science.) Popper is not Foucoult; his intention is not to destroy science but to enhance it.
If you're like me, in awe of Popper's theories, perplexed as to why more people aren't and would like to read others who give similar views, one can do no better than C.S. Pierce and John Dewey. Especially Dewey's "Quest for Certainty" which underlines the experimental process of knowledge and breaks down the false dualism of knowledge and action. Also, Michael Polanyi and Thomas Kuhn (don't believe what Kuhn's critics, even Popper himself, says about him) have similar approaches. for a contemporaary Popperian style, read Susan Haack's "Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate." Not to dissuade you from reading this first as this is the starting points, the other books are enhancements. Fall in love with science!
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Title: The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper ISBN: 0415278449 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: 29 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Kuhn, Thomas S. Kuhn ISBN: 0226458083 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 1996 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge by Karl Raimund Popper, Karl Popper ISBN: 0415285941 Publisher: Routledge Classics Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Against Method by Paul Feyerabend ISBN: 0860916464 Publisher: Verso Pub. Date: 01 September, 1993 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Open Society and Its Enemies (Volume 1) by Karl R. Popper ISBN: 0691019681 Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 1971 List Price(USD): $22.50 |
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