Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (Routledge Classics)

Great book for making you think. Interestingly Popper's thesis, that more or less all knowledge is only our current best guess, seems to be widely accepted amongst scientists today. As so often popular perceptions are some way behind. The great thing about Popper as compared to others like Wittgenstein, is that he writes to be read. The footnotes are very dense but the main track is lucid and easily comprehended. If you are into philosophy this is a must read.

Great collection of Popper's writing. Challenging at times but worth the high price. Is this due for a reprint?

A jolly good read in little bits for an old timer.

Fabulous book and good quality print.

Thank you!

This is not a fast read. Although written in very clear style, it requires regular stops for thinking. Popper clearly demarcates myth from science even though science must begin with myth, he says. Criticism of myth is the key to scientific attitude. Unfortunately, far too often myth proves too seductive to be challenged and dogma prevails.

This book "Conjectures and Refutations", dedicated to his friend Hayek, contains conferences and texts of the 1950's and the 1960's, so it is the time of maturity for Karl Popper, after his basic work of 1935: "The Logic of Scientific Discovery".Considering the whole book, it is first of all a treatise on philosophy of science, but we find here the general philosophy of Popper, facing the main problems in the theory of knowledge: science, metaphysics, history of philosophy, language, the body-mind question, humanism and reason, and politics. He did apply his theory of knowledge from the Presocratics to the Vienna Circle and the modern "linguistic turn" in the XXth century, studying Hume, Kant, Berkeley, Hegel, Copernic, Newton, Einstein... It is always the same method that appears, of trying and error, or conjectures and refutations (the title), through testing theories, that leads to elimination or corroboration. Corroboration means approaching "truth" according to the theory of Tarski, Popper's reference here. We never reach an absolute certainty, but only temporary results, until the next problems appear, and calling new tests for the scientists and so on...Then, the problematic of the author do help us to give answers to a lot of questions in physics, astronomy, empirical sciences, social sciences, politics and in general philosophy. Upon his logical foundations and his critical rationalism, with his criterion of demarcation: refutation, Popper defended a real and objective knowledge, a free research in science and democracy in politics.(See also "Objective Knowledge" for his evolutionary theory of knowledge).

Not judging the content in this review, only the kindle formatting. I think it is preposterous that someone is charging for this stuff. It seems like it's been edited as a joke, cause just copying and pasting a book without any formatting whatsoever would have produced something more stable.Honestly, it takes a lot of effort to adapt a book to kindle formatting this badly. Buy the book, but not this version of it.

Completely transformed how I see the world. It taught me to see everything as a process of guesswork that we improve upon through trial and error. Despite the fact that it deals with technical issues, the prose is beautiful.If you are in philosophy, science, or a social science, I cannot recommend this enough.

Great book (content-wise), but also in good condition.

Even if you are not into philosophy in general but are interested in the way you think and are keen to enhance it, this one is for you. By means of explanation of methodologies of establishing (or refuting) scientific theories, Popper provides a guidance to make your arguments better or stronger. I realised flaws in my own thinking thanks to this book. I think this one is essential for thinking critically. This book also has a fair amount of progression in history of establishing theories and the tales of pre-Socratic traditions are quite interesting which one might not get to read in other books that provide a narrative of philosophy.

原文を調べる必要があり購入した。翻訳の労作　＜藤本隆志・石垣壽郎・森博共訳（1980）『推測と反駁』叢書ウニベルジタス　法政大学出版会＞は手元にあり、ポパーの科学論の諸相を読んできたが、原文を見る必要に迫られ、参照した。ポパーの原文は明晰であることを再確認した。

Excellent thoughtful work on important aspects of Epistemology from the great Karl Popper.