The Popperian Podcast

This episode of the Popperian Podcast features an interview that Jed Lea-Henry conducted with Oseni Taiwo Afisi. They speak about Karl Popper’s book The Open Society and Its Enemies, the ideas and history behind the work, the place for the Open Society and Popper’s epistemology within the African context, how the communalism and collectivism in traditional Africa does not make it analogous to the repressive and totalitarian societies that Popper argued against, the difficult line between group rights and individual rights, the question of tribalism and Africa’s development, Popper’s concept of piecemeal social engineering in the African milieu, and the challenges of multiculturalism and heterogeneity to the Open Society in postcolonial Africa. Oseni Taiwo Afisi is the current Head of the Department of Philosophy, Lagos State University, Nigeria. His areas of competence include critical thinking, logic, political philosophy and Philosophy of science with a special interest in Karl Popper’s critical rationalism. He received his Bachelor and Master’s degrees in Philosophy from the University of Lagos, Nigeria, and later proceeded to the University of Canterbury, New Zealand where he wrote his thesis on Karl Popper’s Critical Rationalism and the Politics of Liberal-Communitarianism, and obtained a PhD. degree in philosophy. He was a visiting academic to the Australian National University in 2011. *** Karl Popper and Africa: Knowledge, Politics and Development (Karl Popper and Africa: Knowledge, Politics and Development : Oseni Taiwo Afisi : 9783030742133 (bookdepository.com)). *** You can follow Oseni Taiwo Afisi’s ongoing work at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Oseni-Taiwo-Afisi Support via Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/jedleahenry Support via PayPal – https://www.paypal.me/jrleahenry Shop – https://shop.spreadshirt.com.au/JLH-shop/ Support via Bitcoin - 31wQMYixAJ7Tisp773cSvpUuzr2rmRhjaW Website – The Popperian Podcast — Jed Lea-Henry Libsyn – The Popperian Podcast (libsyn.com) Youtube – The Popperian Podcast - YouTube Twitter – https://twitter.com/jedleahenry RSS - https://popperian-podcast.libsyn.com/rss *** Underlying artwork by Arturo Espinosa

This episode of the Popperian Podcast features an interview that Jed Lea-Henry conducted with Steve Fuller. They speak about Steve’s book Kuhn Vs. Popper: The Struggle for the Soul of Science, how Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn each regarded the scientific method, the differences between these two conceptions, the significance of the arguments involved and how they defined both science and public opinion (and continue to do so), the history of science and how it should be understood, the moral implications and responsibilities associated with each man’s theory, how the disagreement played out over time, and what happened at the infamous 1965 Popper-Kuhn debate at Bedford College, University of London.   Steve Fuller holds the Auguste Comte Chair in Social Epistemology in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick. He is the founder of the research program of social epistemology, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the UK Academy of Social Sciences, and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Breakthrough Institute, the leading ‘ecomodernist’ think-tank, and an Affiliate Scholar at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, the leading ‘transhumanist’ think-tank. Steve is the author of twenty-five books, which have been translated into more than twenty languages. *** Kuhn Vs. Popper: The Struggle for the Soul of Science (Results for Kuhn Vs.Popper: The Struggle for the Soul of Science | Book Depository). *** You can follow Steve Fuller’s ongoing work at: Steve Fuller (warwick.ac.uk) and Steve Fuller | University of Warwick - Academia.edu. Support via Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/jedleahenry Support via PayPal – https://www.paypal.me/jrleahenry Shop – https://shop.spreadshirt.com.au/JLH-shop/ Support via Bitcoin - 31wQMYixAJ7Tisp773cSvpUuzr2rmRhjaW Website – The Popperian Podcast — Jed Lea-Henry Libsyn – The Popperian Podcast (libsyn.com) Youtube – The Popperian Podcast - YouTube Twitter – https://twitter.com/jedleahenry RSS - https://popperian-podcast.libsyn.com/rss *** Underlying artwork by Arturo Espinosa

This episode of the Popperian Podcast features an interview that Jed Lea-Henry conducted with Maarten Boudry. They speak about how we distinguish between science and pseudoscience (otherwise known as the demarcation problem), Karl Popper’s famous solution involving falsifiability, why the demarcation problem persists and remains a live issue and how Popper’s solution might be inadequate, Maarten’s alternative solution that naturalises the problem and focusses on what pseudosciences have in common and how they operate, the epistemology of conspiracy theories, the limits of science and what constitutes scientism, the interesting question of when is it rational to accept falsehoods, and why the demarcation problem still matters today. Maarten Boudry is a postdoctoral fellow of the Flemish Fund for Scientific Research (FWO) and current holder of the 'Etienne Vermeersch Chair' at Ghent University. In 2011, he defended his dissertation on pseudoscience, Here Be Dragons. Exploring the Hinterland of Science. He is the author of more than 40 academic papers, published in journals such as Philosophy of Science, Philosophia, Quarterly Review of Biology, Science & Education and Biology & Philosophy. Together with Massimo Pigliucci, he edited two academic volumes: Science Unlimited? On the Challenges of Scientism (2018) and Philosophy of Pseudoscience. Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem (2013). His research interests include atheism and naturalism, evolutionary epistemology, beneficial misbeliefs, reasoning fallacies, and the conflict between science and religion. He is also the author of four popular books on science and philosophy (in Dutch). *** You can follow Maarten Boudry’s academic work, and find the articles mentioned in this podcast, at Maarten Boudry | Ghent University - Academia.edu and Maarten Boudry – Filosoof en auteur and Dr. Maarten Boudry | Faculty of Arts and Philosophy - Research Portal (ugent.be). Support via Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/jedleahenry Support via PayPal – https://www.paypal.me/jrleahenry Shop – https://shop.spreadshirt.com.au/JLH-shop/ Support via Bitcoin - 31wQMYixAJ7Tisp773cSvpUuzr2rmRhjaW Website – The Popperian Podcast — Jed Lea-Henry Libsyn – The Popperian Podcast (libsyn.com) Youtube – The Popperian Podcast - YouTube Twitter – https://twitter.com/jedleahenry RSS - https://popperian-podcast.libsyn.com/rss *** Underlying artwork by Arturo Espinosa

Philosopher Robin Attfield discusses the misrepresented Xenophanes and Parmenides, their influence on Karl Popper's critical rationalism, Popper's method of interpreting Herodotus, and the debate on whether Xenophanes and Parmenides can be considered 'Popperian'. Attfield sheds light on the historical connection between ancient philosophy and modern scientific inquiry.

This episode of the Popperian Podcast features an interview that Jed Lea-Henry conducted with Nicholas Maxwell. They speak about Karl Popper’s scientific method, what Maxwell’s disagreements with Popper are, the difference between bare and dressed falsificationism, the problems presented by the apparent unity of knowledge and the preference within science for unified theories, as opposed to infinitely more available dis-unified ad hoc theories, the place for metaphysical assumptions within the testable framework of science, and importantly what is Maxwell’s theory of Aim-Oriented Empiricism and how it represents an improvement on Popper’s falsificationism. Nicholas Maxwell is an emeritus reader in philosophy of science at University College London, where he previous taught philosophy of science for nearly thirty years. He is the author of What’s Wrong With Science? (Bran's Head Books, 1976), From Knowledge to Wisdom (Blackwell, 1984), The Comprehensibility of the Universe (OUP, 1998), Is Science Neurotic? (World Scientific, 2004), Cutting God in Half – And Putting the Pieces Together Again: A New Approach to Philosophy (2010), How Universities Can Help Create a Wiser World: The Urgent Need for an Academic Revolution (Imprint Academic, 2014), Global Philosophy (2014), In Praise of Natural Philosophy: A Revolution for Thought and Life (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2017), Understanding Scientific Progress: Aim-Oriented Empiricism (Paragon House, 2017), Karl Popper, Science and Enlightenment (UCL Press, 2017), Science and Enlightenment: Two Great Problems of Learning (Springer, 2019), The Metaphysics of Science and Aim-Oriented Empiricism: A Revolution for Science and Philosophy (Synthese Library, Springer, 2019), Our Fundamental Problem: A Revolutionary Approach to Philosophy (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020), The World Crisis - And What To Do About It (World Scientific, Spring 2021) (all available at: https://www.amazon.com/Nicholas-Maxwell/e/B001HPF2LO/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1 and Results for nicholas maxwell | Book Depository). *** Nicholas Maxwell’s academic profile (About Me | From Knowledge to Wisdom - UCL – University College London). Support via Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/jedleahenry Support via PayPal – https://www.paypal.me/jrleahenry Shop – https://shop.spreadshirt.com.au/JLH-shop/ Support via Bitcoin - 31wQMYixAJ7Tisp773cSvpUuzr2rmRhjaW Website – The Popperian Podcast — Jed Lea-Henry Libsyn – The Popperian Podcast (libsyn.com) Youtube – The Popperian Podcast - YouTube Twitter – https://twitter.com/jedleahenry RSS - https://popperian-podcast.libsyn.com/rss *** Underlying artwork by Arturo Espinosa

This episode of the Popperian Podcast features an interview that Jed Lea-Henry conducted with Matteo Collodel. They speak about the role that Karl Popper and critical rationalism played in the intellectual development of Paul Feyerabend, the nature of the Feyerabend-Popper relationship, the Popperian ‘School’ that formed at the London School of Economics and the strained relationships that developed within this group, the differing accounts of the members and the controversies that arose, where and how Feyerabend’s philosophy broke with Popper’s, and whether or not Feyerabend should be considered a Popperian. Matteo Collodel earned his diploma di laurea (BA+MA) and his PhD in Philosophy from the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy), with the philosophy of science as his main area of specialization and historically-oriented dissertations on the development of Mary B. Hesse’s thought (2001) and of Paul K. Feyerabend’s idea of incommensurability (2007), respectively. Matteo is a ‘subject expert’ at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (https://www.unive.it/data/people/23719605) and he worked on an archival project at Humboldt University of Berlin (funded by the German Research Foundation) whose main aim was to collect, transcribe and edit Feyerabend’s correspondence with Popper, Feigl, Carnap, Hempel, Kuhn, Watkins, Agassi, and Lakatos, among others. Matteo is the co-editor of the book ‘Feyerabend’s Formative Years. Volume 1. Feyerabend and Popper’ (https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030009601) and his regular academic work can be found at: Matteo Collodel | Humboldt Universität zu Berlin - Academia.edu *** Was Feyerabend a Popperian? (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0039368115000977?via%3Dihub and https://www.academia.edu/2969684/Was_Feyerabend_a_Popperian_4th_Draft_11_February_2015_). Support via Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/jedleahenry Support via PayPal – https://www.paypal.me/jrleahenry Shop – https://shop.spreadshirt.com.au/JLH-shop/ Support via Bitcoin - 31wQMYixAJ7Tisp773cSvpUuzr2rmRhjaW Website – The Popperian Podcast — Jed Lea-Henry Libsyn – The Popperian Podcast (libsyn.com) Youtube – The Popperian Podcast - YouTube Twitter – https://twitter.com/jedleahenry RSS - https://popperian-podcast.libsyn.com/rss *** Underlying artwork by Arturo Espinosa

This episode of the Popperian Podcast features an interview that Jed Lea-Henry conducted with David Deutsch. They speak about the history of humanity and philosophy, epistemology and the problem of discovering truth, failed attempts to solve this such as with empiricism and induction, Karl Popper’s solution to this problem (conjecture and refutation), and how this animates and leads us to the Open Society. David Deutsch is a Visiting Professor of physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation, the Clarendon Laboratory (Oxford University), an Honorary Fellow of Wolfson College (Oxford), and the author of The Fabric of Reality and The Beginning of Infinity. David works on fundamental issues in physics, particularly the quantum theory of computation and information, and constructor theory. **** Link to David Deutsch’s personal website: http://www.daviddeutsch.org.uk/ Support via Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/jedleahenry Support via PayPal – https://www.paypal.me/jrleahenry Shop – https://shop.spreadshirt.com.au/JLH-shop/ Support via Bitcoin - 31wQMYixAJ7Tisp773cSvpUuzr2rmRhjaW Website – The Popperian Podcast — Jed Lea-Henry Libsyn – The Popperian Podcast (libsyn.com) Youtube – The Popperian Podcast - YouTube Twitter – https://twitter.com/jedleahenry RSS - https://popperian-podcast.libsyn.com/rss *** Underlying artwork by Arturo Espinosa