Popper and After

Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists focuses on a tendency in the philosophy of science, of which the leading representatives are Professor Sir Karl Popper, the late Professor Imre Lakatos, and Professors T. S. Kuhn and P. K. Feyerabend. Their philosophy of science is in substance irrationalist. They doubt, or deny outright, that there can be any reason to believe any scientific theory; and a fortiori they doubt or deny, for example, that there has been any accumulation of knowledge in recent centuries. The book is composed of two parts and Part One explains how these writers succeeded in making irrationalism about science acceptable to readers. Part Two explores the intellectual influence that led these writers to embrace irrationalism about science.

Preface

Part One Philosophy and the English Language—How Irrationalism about Science is Made Credible

Chapter 1 Neutralizing Success-Words

Chapter 2 Sabotaging Logical Expressions

Part Two How Irrationalism About Science Began

Chapter 3 The Historical Source Located

Chapter 4 The Key Premise of Irrationalism Identified

Chapter 5 Further Evidence for this Identification

Notes

Bibliography

Index