Thanks! I appreciate knowing this. Do you happen to know if there’s a connection between these 1950′s rationalists, and the “critical rationalists” (who are a contemporary movement that involves David Deutsch, the “taking children seriously” people, and some larger set of folks who try to practice a certain set of motions and are based out of the UK, I think)?
the “critical rationalists” (who are a contemporary movement that involves David Deutsch, the “taking children seriously” people, and some larger set of folks who try to practice a certain set of motions and are based out of the UK, I think)?
Critical rationalism is basically the scientific philosophy of Karl R. Popper.
An Austrian, he relocated to the UK in the 30s for similar reasons to Sigmund Freud’s. So CR ended as being a kind of UK thing, despite having its roots in the Vienna Circle. (It also has a following in Oz and NZ, but not so much in the states).
It’s not particularly contemporary, therefore...more of a version 2.0 of logical positivism. I don’t know of any specific connection between mid 20th century UK atheism/humanism and CR...but it would be strange if there were none.
There were a lot of developments in philosophy-of-science post WWII—Kuhn, Feyerabend , etc—and CR somewhat faded from fashion until Deutsch revived it with his popular work in the 1990s. (Although Popper’s falsificational criterion for science remains popular among working scientists).
Deutsch’s (and other subsequent) versions of CR got entangled with Austrian economic, libertarianism ,and various other minority beliefs.
I think the link in your comment points to something that seems like a one-man show. The man’s name is Elliot Temple.
He has a picture on his homepage about the philosophical traditions he builds on, and apparently he makes somemoney selling his wisdom, but is he actually a part of some larger debate? I mean, other than the forum he owns and writes most of the comments on, with only two or three other active participants.
By the way, he was posting on LW, and got banned. He accuses David Deutch of organizing harassment against him, and generally seems obsessed about him. Generally, he seems… well, crazy… in a way that is not immediately obvious, but once you start talking to him and get his attention, you are probably going to regret it, because he just can’t stop. He will write a ton of text, a separate essay analyzing the meaning and logical flaws of every single sentence you wrote, then he will accuse you of being irrational, and then he will accuse you of being irrational for not responding to him in the same way, and then he will keep writing articles on his blog about how irrational and cowardly you are for avoiding him.
Thanks! I appreciate knowing this. Do you happen to know if there’s a connection between these 1950′s rationalists, and the “critical rationalists” (who are a contemporary movement that involves David Deutsch, the “taking children seriously” people, and some larger set of folks who try to practice a certain set of motions and are based out of the UK, I think)?
Critical rationalism is basically the scientific philosophy of Karl R. Popper. An Austrian, he relocated to the UK in the 30s for similar reasons to Sigmund Freud’s. So CR ended as being a kind of UK thing, despite having its roots in the Vienna Circle. (It also has a following in Oz and NZ, but not so much in the states).
It’s not particularly contemporary, therefore...more of a version 2.0 of logical positivism. I don’t know of any specific connection between mid 20th century UK atheism/humanism and CR...but it would be strange if there were none.
There were a lot of developments in philosophy-of-science post WWII—Kuhn, Feyerabend , etc—and CR somewhat faded from fashion until Deutsch revived it with his popular work in the 1990s. (Although Popper’s falsificational criterion for science remains popular among working scientists).
Deutsch’s (and other subsequent) versions of CR got entangled with Austrian economic, libertarianism ,and various other minority beliefs.
I think the link in your comment points to something that seems like a one-man show. The man’s name is Elliot Temple.
He has a picture on his homepage about the philosophical traditions he builds on, and apparently he makes some money selling his wisdom, but is he actually a part of some larger debate? I mean, other than the forum he owns and writes most of the comments on, with only two or three other active participants.
By the way, he was posting on LW, and got banned. He accuses David Deutch of organizing harassment against him, and generally seems obsessed about him. Generally, he seems… well, crazy… in a way that is not immediately obvious, but once you start talking to him and get his attention, you are probably going to regret it, because he just can’t stop. He will write a ton of text, a separate essay analyzing the meaning and logical flaws of every single sentence you wrote, then he will accuse you of being irrational, and then he will accuse you of being irrational for not responding to him in the same way, and then he will keep writing articles on his blog about how irrational and cowardly you are for avoiding him.