Jed Lea-Henry

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Jed Lea-Henry

September 1, 2021

The Popperian Podcast #12 – Jonathan Rauch – ‘The Constitution of Knowledge’

Jed Lea-Henry

September 1, 2021

This episode of the Popperian Podcast features an interview that Jed Lea-Henry conducted with Jonathan Rauch. They speak about Jonathan’s books Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought and The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth, the Popperian influence within them both, where (and how) the message of Karl Popper remains resonant and important today for the societies we live in, how Popperian epistemology can and should be stretched into the social sciences and humanities, the problem of institutional arrangements and how Popper overlooked this aspect of knowledge creation, and importantly how we can build on this (through Madisonian epistemology) to create a more robust system of turning disagreement into truth – The Constitution of Knowledge.

Jonathan Rauch is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, is the author of eight books and many articles on public policy, culture, and government. He is a contributing writer for The Atlantic and recipient of the 2005 National Magazine Award, the magazine industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. His latest book, published in 2021 by the Brookings Press, is The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth, a spirited and deep-diving account of how to push back against disinformation, cancelling, and other new threats to our fact-based epistemic order.

*** The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth The Constitution of Knowledge : Jonathan Rauch : 9780815738862 (bookdepository.com)

*** Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought, Expanded Edition Kindly Inquisitors : Jonathan Rauch : 9780226145938 (bookdepository.com)

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Jed Lea-Henry

July 28, 2021

The Popperian Podcast #11 – David Edmonds – ‘Wittgenstein's Poker’

Jed Lea-Henry

July 28, 2021

This episode of the Popperian Podcast features an interview that Jed Lea-Henry conducted with David Edmonds. They speak about David’s book Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers. Blurb: “On October 25, 1946, in a crowded room in Cambridge, England, the great twentieth-century philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper came face to face for the first and only time. The meeting -- which lasted ten minutes -- did not go well. Their loud and aggressive confrontation became the stuff of instant legend, but precisely what happened during that brief confrontation remained for decades the subject of intense disagreement.”

David Edmonds is a multi-award winning presenter/producer at the BBC and the host of The Big Idea. He is the author of many books, including Would You Kill the Fat Man? and (with John Eidinow) the international best-seller Wittgenstein’s Poker. His latest book (co-written with Hugh Fraser), is a children’s book Undercover Robot. He’s a Distinguished Research Fellow at Oxford University’s Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and a columnist for the Jewish Chronicle. With Nigel Warburton he produces the popular podcast series Philosophy Bites which has had over 40 million downloads. He also runs Philososphy247 and presents Social Science Bites.

*** Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers Wittgenstein's Poker : David Edmonds : 9780571227358 (bookdepository.com)

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Jed Lea-Henry

June 25, 2021

The Popperian Podcast #10 – Richard Landes – ‘Deutsch's Theory of the Pattern - The Widespread Compulsion to Legitimise Hurting Jews’

Jed Lea-Henry

June 25, 2021

This episode of the Popperian Podcast features an interview that Jed Lea-Henry conducted with Richard Landes. They speak about the history of antisemitism, its unique characteristics and intensity throughout centuries and millennia, the strange ability of ordinary people to uncritically accept nearly any claim against the Jews (no matter how farfetched it is), the lethal narratives that are told about the Jews and how they are consistently used as a projection for the moral failings of their enemies, and importantly how all this hatred is best explained by The Pattern which David Deutsch describes in his upcoming book as the need to preserve the legitimacy of hurting Jews… simply for being Jews.

Professor Richard Landes was trained as a medievalist at Princeton University (MA 1979, PhD 1984). His work focused on apocalyptic beliefs and millennial movements (Heaven on Earth, 2011), initially around the year 1000 (Peace of God, 1986; Relics, Apocalypse and the Deceits of History, 1996; Apocalyptic Year 1000, 2003). He has increasingly focused on contemporary movements (Paranoid Apocalypse, 2006), and especially Global Jihad. He made a series of documentaries in 2005/6 titled “According to Palestinian Sources…,” which document the extensive staging of footage (Pallywood), the staging of the Al Durah footage (Making of an Icon), and the impact of that fake, broadcast as “news” by Western news media (Icon of Hatred). In 2015, Richard retired from Boston University where he was a Professor in the History Department, and now resides in Jerusalem.

You can follow Richard at: Richard Landes (@richard_landes) / Twitter

And keep up to date with his blog at: Augean Stables | "Always be ready to speak your mind and a base man will avoid you." (William Blake, 1796) (theaugeanstables.com)

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Jed Lea-Henry

June 14, 2021

The Popperian Podcast #9 – Jeremy Shearmur – ‘Karl Popper, Friedrich Hayek and the Future of Liberalism’

Jed Lea-Henry

June 14, 2021

This episode of the Popperian Podcast features an interview that Jed Lea-Henry conducted with Jeremy Shearmur. They speak about the time that Jeremy spent working with Karl Popper at the London School of Economics, the seeds of classical liberalism within Popper’s epistemology, the role for free markets as constant feedback mechanisms for the consent of people, the failure of politics to achieve this level of responsiveness, how Friedrich Hayek’s views differ from Popper’s and where Popper was influenced by Hayek, the problems/challenges that face classical liberalism, and the future direction of classical liberalism.

Jeremy Shearmur was educated at the London School of Economics, where he also worked as Popper’s assistant. He subsequently taught philosophy at Edinburgh, political theory at Manchester, and was Director of Studies at the Centre for Policy Studies in London. He then worked as a Research Associate Professor at the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University, and subsequently taught political theory and then philosophy at the Australian National University. He is now retired from the ANU as an Emeritus Fellow and is living in Dumfries in Scotland, where he is still very much engaged in academic work. He is the author of ‘Hayek and After’ and ‘The Political Thought of Karl Popper’, and for anyone interested in his ongoing lecture series on Karl Popper and critical rationalism, Jeremy can be reached at: jeremy.shearmur@fallowfield.info

For enquiries not related to the lecture series or upcoming conferences, please instead use: Jeremy.Shearmur@anu.edu.au

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Jed Lea-Henry

May 31, 2021

The Popperian Podcast #8 – James Kierstead – ‘New Zealand and the Authoritarianism of Plato’

Jed Lea-Henry

May 31, 2021

This episode of the Popperian Podcast features an interview that Jed Lea-Henry conducted with James Kierstead. They speak about Karl Popper’s work The Open Society and Its Enemies, the years that Popper spent in New Zealand writing this book, what Popper thought about his adopted country, Popper’s attack on Plato for his “unmitigated authoritarianism”, how valid this attack was, the controversy surrounding the book and how we should examine it today in light of new scholarship, and the importance of freedom of speech and freedom of expression for the Open Society.

James Kierstead was born into a Canadian army family and grew up in Canada, Germany, and England. He got the chance to learn Greek and Latin at Sherborne School in Dorset after winning a scholarship and subsequently studied classics (Literae Humaniores) at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and ancient history at King's College London. After that, James moved to California, where he studied political theory and wrote a PhD thesis on Athenian democracy under Professor Josiah Ober. Since coming to Wellington in 2013 he has continued to research and teach in the field of ancient Greek democracy, and he also oversees the Victoria Ancient Theatre Society (VATS), which produces an ancient play every year. James also spent a little time in Athens over the years; in 2016 he was an Early Career Fellow at the British School at Athens, and also spent time at the American School and the German and Canadian Institutes, as well as volunteering with the Agora Excavations and Museum.

*** Karl Popper's Open Society and its Enemies, and its Enemies ((PDF) Karl Popper's Open Society and its Enemies, and its Enemies | James Kierstead - Academia.edu).

*** Free Kiwis! (James Kierstead - YouTube).

*** You can follow James Kierstead’s ongoing work at: James Kierstead | Victoria University of Wellington - Academia.edu and James Kierstead Profile | Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington (wgtn.ac.nz)

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Jed Lea-Henry

May 24, 2021

The Popperian Podcast #7 – Oseni Taiwo Afisi – ‘Karl Popper and Africa’

Jed Lea-Henry

May 24, 2021

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

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Jed Lea-Henry

April 11, 2021

The Popperian Podcast #6 – Steve Fuller – ‘Karl Popper vs. Thomas Kuhn’

Jed Lea-Henry

April 11, 2021

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.

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Jed Lea-Henry

March 31, 2021

The Popperian Podcast #5 – Maarten Boudry – ‘Diagnosing Pseudoscience - Why the Demarcation Problem Matters’

Jed Lea-Henry

March 31, 2021

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).

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Jed Lea-Henry

February 21, 2021

The Popperian Podcast #4 – Robin Attfield – ‘Pre-echoes of Popper - Xenophanes and Parmenides’

Jed Lea-Henry

February 21, 2021

This episode of the Popperian Podcast features an interview that Jed Lea-Henry conducted with Robin Attfield. They speak about the life and work of the pre-Socratic philosophers Xenophanes and Parmenides, how Xenophanes in particular has been unjustly disparaged and misunderstood over the years, how Karl Popper rehabilitated Xenophanes’ image and his philosophy, the place of both Xenophanes and Parmenides as earlier exponents of Popper’s critical rationalism and falsificationism, the method used by Popper to interpret Herodotus in support of his conjectures about Xenophanes, whether it is possible to consider Xenophanes and Parmenides as ‘Popperian’, and whether Popper’s own study of Xenophanes is strictly ‘Popperian’.

Robin Attfield is Professor Emeritus at Cardiff University where he taught philosophy from 1968. He is the author of 'Environmental Ethics: A Very Short Introduction' (Environmental Ethics: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions): Attfield, Robin: 9780198797166: Amazon.com: Books), ‘Environmental thought: A Short History’ (Amazon.com: Environmental Thought: A Short History (9781509536665): Attfield, Robin: Books), ‘The Ethics of the Global Environment’ (The Ethics of the Global Environment (Edinburgh Studies in Global Ethics): Attfield, Robin: 9780748654819: Amazon.com: Books), ‘Wonder, Value and God’ (Amazon.com: Wonder, Value and God (9781138388161): Attfield, Robin: Books), and 'Ethics: An Overview' (Amazon.com: Ethics: An Overview (9781441182050): Attfield, Robin: Books).

Pertinent to this podcast Robin is also the author of: ‘Popper and Xenophanes’ ((PDF) Popper and Xenophanes (researchgate.net)) and ‘Popper's Parmenides’’ ((PDF) Popper's Parmenides (researchgate.net)).

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Jed Lea-Henry

January 27, 2021

The Popperian Podcast #3 – Nicholas Maxwell – ‘More Popperian than Popper’

Jed Lea-Henry

January 27, 2021

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).

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Jed Lea-Henry

January 5, 2021

The Popperian Podcast #2 – Matteo Collodel – ‘Karl Popper vs. Paul Feyerabend’

Jed Lea-Henry

January 5, 2021

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) 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. 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 author 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.academia.edu/2969684/Was_Feyerabend_a_Popperian_4th_Draft_11_February_2015_).

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Jed Lea-Henry

November 29, 2020

The Popperian Podcast #1 – David Deutsch – ‘Karl Popper and the Beginning of Infinity’

Jed Lea-Henry

November 29, 2020

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/

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