Jed Lea-Henry

Support via Bitcoin - 31wQMYixAJ7Tisp773cSvpUuzr2rmRhjaW

*** Underlying artwork by Arturo Espinosa

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).

Support via Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/jedleahenry

Support via PayPal – https://www.paypal.me/jrleahenry

Support via Bitcoin - 31wQMYixAJ7Tisp773cSvpUuzr2rmRhjaW

*** Underlying artwork by Arturo Espinosa

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)).

Support via Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/jedleahenry

Support via PayPal – https://www.paypal.me/jrleahenry

Support via Bitcoin - 31wQMYixAJ7Tisp773cSvpUuzr2rmRhjaW

*** Underlying artwork by Arturo Espinosa

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).

Support via Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/jedleahenry

Support via PayPal – https://www.paypal.me/jrleahenry

Support via Bitcoin - 31wQMYixAJ7Tisp773cSvpUuzr2rmRhjaW

*** Underlying artwork by Arturo Espinosa

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_).

Support via Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/jedleahenry

Support via PayPal – https://www.paypal.me/jrleahenry

Support via Bitcoin - 31wQMYixAJ7Tisp773cSvpUuzr2rmRhjaW

*** Underlying artwork by Arturo Espinosa

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/

Support via Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/jedleahenry

Support via PayPal – https://www.paypal.me/jrleahenry

Support via Bitcoin - 31wQMYixAJ7Tisp773cSvpUuzr2rmRhjaW