Popper, Karl R., 1963- Conjectures and Refutations The Growth of Scientific Knowledge

Preface

Introduction

On the Sources of Knowledge and of Ignorance

Conjectures

1. Science: Conjectures and Refutations
   • Appendix: Some Problems in the Philosophy of Science
2. The Nature of Philosophical Problems and their Roots in Science
3. Three Views Concerning Human Knowledge
   1. The Science of Galileo and Its New Betrayal
   2. The Issue at Stake
   3. The First View: Ultimate Explanation by Essences
   4. The Second View: Theories as Instruments
   5. Criticism of the Instrumentalist View
   6. The Third View: Conjectures, Truth, and Reality
4. Towards a Rational Theory of Tradition
5. Back to the Presocratics
   • Appendix: Historical Conjectures and Heraclitus on Change
6. A Note on Berkeley as Precursor of Mach and Einstein
7. Kant’s Critique and Cosmology
   1. Kant and the Enlightenment
   2. Kant’s Newtonian Cosmology
   3. The Critique and the Cosmological Problem
   4. Space and Time
   5. Kant’s Copernican Revolution
   6. The Doctrine of Autonomy
8. On the Status of Science and of Metaphysics
   1. Kant and the Logic of Experience
   2. The Problem of the Irrefutability of Philosophical Theories
9. Why are the Calculi of Logic and Arithmetic Applicable to Reality?
10. Truth, Rationality, and the Growth of Scientific Knowledge
    1. The Growth of Knowledge: Theories and Problems
    2. The Theory of Objective Truth: Correspondence to the Facts
    3. Truth and Content: Verisimilitude versus Probability
    4. Background Knowledge and Scientific Growth
    5. Three Requirements for the Growth of Knowledge
    • Appendix: A Presumably False yet Formally Highly Probable Non-Empirical Statement

Refutations

11. The Demarcation Between Science and Metaphysics
    1. Introduction
    2. My Own View of the Problem
    3. Carnap's First Theory of Meaninglessness
    4. Carnap and the Language of Science
    5. Testability and Meaning
    6. Probability and Induction
12. Language and the Body-Mind Problem
    1. Introduction
    2. Four Major Functions of Language
    3. A Group of Theses
    4. The Machine Argument
    5. The Causal Theory of Naming
    6. Interaction
    7. Conclusion
13. A Note on the Body-Mind Problem
14. Self-Reference and Meaning in Ordinary Language
15. What is Dialectic?
    1. Dialectic Explained
    2. Hegelian Dialectic
    3. Dialectic After Hegel
16. Prediction and Prophecy in the Social Sciences
17. Public Opinion and Liberal Principles
    1. The Myth of Public Opinion
    2. The Dangers of Public Opinion
    3. Liberal Principles: A Group of Theses
    4. The Liberal Theory of Free Discussion
    5. The Forms of Public Opinion
    6. Some Practical Problems: Censorship and Monopolies of Publicity
    7. A Short List of Political Illustrations
    8. Summary
18. Utopia and Violence
19. The History of Our Time: An Optimist’s View
20. Humanism and Reason

Addenda

Some Technical Notes

1. Empirical Content
2. Probability and the Severity of Tests
3. Verisimilitude
4. Numerical Examples
5. Artificial vs. Formalized Languages

Index of Names

Index of Subjects