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

The Popperian Podcast

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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*** Underlying artwork by Arturo Espinosa