From: Stirling Westrup (sti@cam.org)
Date: Thu Sep 07 2000 - 16:32:54 MDT
Jason Joel Thompson wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Stirling Westrup" <sti@cam.org>
>
> a Popperian falsificationist. To me, facts are predictive theories
> > about outcomes of experiments which have been tested and have so far
> > failed to be disproved. As far as I am concerned almost nothing matches
> > your criteria for a fact, since nothing non-trivial can be proven true,
> > and it is thus not a useful definition.
>
> Well spoken. From what does Popperian falsificationism derive?
>
Karl Popper was a philosopher of science who died in 1994. I first
encountered his work in 1990 when I read one of his books that I borrowed
from a friend at work. The book (whose title I can no longer recall) had
been published in the 1950's, and except for an appendix about the evils
of communist thinking, was highly enjoyable. His philosophy almost exactly
matched my own, but he had taken the trouble to refine it further, and had
worked out many implications that I had not. I found that everywhere where
our philosophies disagreed, he was able to convince me that his approach
was correct. By the time I finished the book, I was a dedicated Popperian.
You can find out more about him and his work at:
The Karl Popper Web: http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~tkpw/
--
Stirling Westrup | Use of the Internet by this poster
sti@cam.org | is not to be construed as a tacit
| endorsement of Western Technological
| Civilization or its appurtenances.
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