Critical Approaches to Science and Philosophy

This collection of essays, written on four continents by scientists, philosophers, and humanists, was initially presented to Karl R. Popper on his sixtieth birthday as a token of critical admiration and in recognition of his work. But the volume also stands on its own as a remarkable series of statements utilizing Popper's critical vision in the study of philosophy proper, logic, mathematics, science as method and theory, and finally in the study of society and history.
The core position of this volume and its contributors is that the progress of knowledge is not a linear accumulation of definitive acquisitions but a zig-zagging process in which counterexamples and unfavorable evidence ruin generalizations and prompt the invention of more comprehensive and sometimes deeper generalizations, to be criticized in their turn. A critical approach to problems, procedures, and results in every field of inquiry is therefore a necessary condition for the continuance of progress.