Talk:Karl Popper

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Karl Popper has been listed as a good article under the good-article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a review.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
GA	This article has been rated as GA-Class on the Project's quality scale. [FAQ] (If you rated the article, please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)
	This article is supported by the Science and academia work group.

	This article is part of the History of Science WikiProject, an attempt to improve and organize the history of science content on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. You can also help with the History of Science Collaboration of the Month.
GA	This article has been rated as GA-Class on the quality scale.
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale.

	Philosophy Portal This article is within the scope of the Philosophy WikiProject, which collaborates on articles related to philosophy and the history of ideas. Please read the instructions and standards for writing and maintaining philosophy articles. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.
GA	This article has been rated as GA-Class on the Project's quality scale. (If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)

Talk:Karl Popper\Archive1

Contents 1 Style for Nupedia credit? 2 Continental tradition 3 Peter Singer's criticism 4 Talk about jealousy!! 5 References section is an abomination 6 Oh my shirt 7 New photo 8 Excelelnt review of the Self and Its Brain 9 GA Re-Review and In-line citations 10 Popper's Unpopularity 11 More about Melvyn Bragg's show and comments 12 Are Bragg's comments about Popper "petty and tendentious"? 13 Removed categories per Wikipedia:Categorization of people

[edit] Style for Nupedia credit?

Article says: "An earlier version of the above article was posted on 16 May 2001 on Nupedia; reviewed and approved by the Philosophy and Logic group; editor, Wesley Cooper; lead reviewer, Wesley Cooper; lead copyeditors, Cindy Seeley and Ruth Ifcher."

What are Wikipedia style guidelines for credits of this type? I was under the impression that Wikipedia articles don't have explicit credits. Is there some exception for former Nupedia articles? -- Writtenonsand 01:45, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Nupedia, the predecessor to Wikipedia, did have a review and approval procedure. Wikipedia was started by Larry Sanger, Nupedia's editor, as a means of speeding up their disappointingly slow progress. Then Wikipedia boomed and took over, so Nupedia was shut down and Sanger (who holds a PhD in philosophy), left the project. --Blainster 21:18, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Continental tradition

What does "continental tradition" mean? Idealist? Hegelian specifically? The philosophical distinctives of the various German schools of thought of the nineteenth century: Hegel, Kant, Marx, etc.? Continental rationalism? Something else entirely? Srnec 05:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh..I think I know what the problem here is. The criticism that Taylor aims at Popper states literally that Popper belittles the "tradition" or something alon those lines. Well, it doesn't get ANY vaguier than that. So, after reading Taylor's article and little bit about Taylor, it is easy to deduce that he is referring to what is now commonly though meanignlessy called "continental philosophy" (i.e. phenomenology, exitentialism, Franfurt school , postmodermism perhaps) versus "analytic" philosophy. I wrote continental school or tradtion. I will make this more specific and add a link, if there is not one already--Lacatosias

[edit] Peter Singer's criticism

Is this argument from Singer's NYRoB essay adequately represented in the article?

Popper wants to say that it is possible to avoid assuming that the future will, or probably will, be like the past, and this is why he has claimed to have solved the problem of induction. We do not have to make the assumption, he tells us, if we proceed by formulating conjectures and attempting to falsify them.

Unfortunately, we still have to act. If I did not assume that because water has come out of my tap in the past when I turned the handle the same will happen today. I might equally sensibly hold my glass under the electric light. On this pragmatic issue Popper's more recent contributions do have a little more to say, but it does not help. He says that, as a basis for action, we should prefer "the best-tested theory." This can only mean the theory that has survived refutation in the past; but why, since Popper says that past corroboration has nothing to do with future performance, is it rational to prefer this? Popper says that it will be "rational" to do so "in the most obvious sense of the word known to me…. I do not know of anything more 'rational' than a well-conducted critical discussion."

The reader familiar with Popper's contempt for linguistic philosophy will rub his eyes at this. Popper has picked up that once trusty but now discarded weapon of linguistic philosophers, the argument from a "paradigm usage" of a word—in this case, the word "rational." The argument proves nothing. As Popper himself has said many times, words do not matter so long as we are not misled by them. Popper's argument is no better than Strawson's claim that induction is valid because inductive reasoning is a paradigm of what we mean by "valid" reasoning. In fact Popper's identification of a "well-conducted critical discussion" with the idea of rationality is doubly unhelpful, since until we know how to establish which theory is more likely to hold in the future we have not the faintest idea how to conduct a "well-conducted critical discussion" that has any bearing on the question we want answered.

More fundamental still is the question how, even in theory, we can possibly prefer one hypothesis to another, or take one as a nearer approximation to truth than the other, if past corroboration has no implications for the future. Without the inductive assumption, the fact that a theory was refuted yesterday is quite irrelevant to its truth-status today. Indeed, in the time it takes to say: "This result corroborates Einstein's theory but not Newton's," all the significance of the remark vanishes, and we cannot go on to say that therefore Einstein's theory is nearer to the truth. So jettisoning the inductive assumption makes nonsense of Popper's own theory of the growth of scientific knowledge. While it is true that on Popper's view induction is not a means of scientific discovery, as it was for Bacon, it remains indispensable, and the logical problem of induction is no nearer to solution than it was before Popper tackled it.

[edit] Talk about jealousy!!

"Martin Gardner claimns that Popper was egotictial and jeaolous of Carnap."

This is a great honor for Carnap, if true, I should think. Enormous fame and recognition carries that sort if thing with it in philosophy. But Popper has far surpassed Carnap in those terms. Proof: The criticism section is longer than the article itself!! Does any philosopher have anything positive to say about old Carl??----Francesco Franco 17:17, 17 July 2006 (UTC) 09:11, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References section is an abomination

I'll work on some of this, but I only wrote a small part of this article. I doubt I can find all the sources,. Thanks to Seth Mahoney for highlighting this problem. I'm using the standard ref format for Wikipedia, if I can rememeber how it works (;. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 08:24, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Oh my shirt

Even the Popper photo has been taken down. Good 'eavens!! What can be done about these "image" problems? --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 14:51, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New photo

The article does not discuss the book in question. Also, you need to provide an explicit fair use rationale. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 17:02, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Excelelnt review of the Self and Its Brain

following is an excellent review of The Self and Its Brain, which as the culminating work of Popper's career should certainly play a larger role in the article about him. As I have never edited any Wiki articles, I provide this review for more knowledgeable veterans to incorporate. (note, I am not John Gray)

Reason Papers No. 7 (Spring 1981) 121-124. Copyright O 1981 by the Reason Foundation. JOHN N . GRAY Jesus College, Oxford

THE SELF AND ITS BRAIN Though it has had an immense influence outside of philosophy, the thought of Karl Popper continues to be neglected and misunderstood by most professional philosophers. Nor do we need to look far for an explana- tion of the fact that Popper's philosophy has received more serious atten- tion from social theorists, working scientists, historians of art, and practic- ing politicians, for example, than from the main body of academic philosophers. Popper's conception of the proper approach to philosophy has put him in permanent opposition to the dominant schools of our age, whose view of the subject he has ceaselessly criticized. Popper has always denied that there is an esoteric method peculiarly ap- propriate to philosophy, and he has always insisted that philosophical problems grow naturally from difficulties in other areas of inquiry. Against both logical positivism and linguistic philosophy, whose major exponents he knew personally when the seeds of these movements were sown in the Vienna Circle during the interwar years, Popper claims that the problems of philosophy are to do with the world and our knowledge of the world. They are not pseudoproblems, to be dissolved by some method of linguistic or conceptual analysis that shows them to be devoid of significance, but genuine questions to which a diversity of meaningful answers may be proposed. Philosophy is, in fact, simply a critical investiga- tion, at a high level of abstraction, of our commonsense beliefs. In the theory of knowledge, Popper's distinctive contribution is his sug- gestion that what distinguishes science from myth, metaphysics, and pseudoscience is the falsifiability of its claims about the world. In sharp contrast to popular conceptions of science derived from the works of Bacon and Descartes, Popper asserts that science has no foundation of cer- tainty either in observation or in the order of our ideas and that no formula can be found that guarantees scientific discovery or the growth of knowledge. According to Popper, science is a creatively conjectural enter- prise, in which bold hypotheses (themselves often stumbled upon unawares, or grasped in a flash of intuitive insight) are propagated and then subjected to severe testing by attempted refutation. Similarly, in philosophy we consider questions suggested by our circumstances as reflec- tive creatures who find themselves in a largely unknowable world, and the appropriate procedure is to adopt a critical approach in which rival views are scrutinized as to their adequacy to the demands of the current problem situation. In The Self and Its Brain: An Argument for Interactionism (Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer-Verlag, 1977, 597 pages), Popper has col- laborated with his friend, the Nobel Prize-winning neurophysiologist Sir John Eccles, to produce a book of the first importance in which this approach to philosophy is well exemplified. In it the ancient problem of the relation of body to mind is treated, not as a result of a linguistic or concep- tual confusion, but as a real difficulty in our thought about ourselves. The rival accounts of this relation-the various sorts of materialism and of dualism, for example-are all canvassed as more or less satisfactory responses to this difficulty. At one level, the book may be seen as a sus- tained polemic against reductionism. According to Popper and Eccles, the conception of man as "nothing but" a physico-chemical mechanism is at once scientifically unsupported, philosophically-inadequate, and morally pernicious. Their aim is to reinstate "the ghost in the machine," that troublesome wraith of Cartesian philosophy, which it has been the pas- sionate concern of several generations of materialists to exorcise. At another level, the book may be seen as an application to the mind-body problem of Popper's theory of a three-tiered world, comprising not only material objects and states of mind (which he calls "World 1" and "World 2," respectively) but also a domain of intelligibles, virtual objects or abstract entities (which he calls "World 3"). The book-which is a handsomely produced and remarkably inexpensive volume-has three parts. In the first part, written by Popper, a philosophical refutation of materialism is attempted in an argument of un- paralleled erudition and clarity. In the second part, Eccles gives an absorb- ing account of the neurophysiology of consciousness, proposing the hypothesis that the mind is an independent entity active in causal interac- tions with the "liaison areas" of the dominant cerebral hemisphere. The third section is based on twelve conversations between the two men, re- corded in late September of 1974 at the Villa Serbelloni on Lago di Como, and brings out clearly some important differences in view between them. Popper's contribution contains many very good things. He contends that nothing can show a priori the superiority of the materialist position, and, in a fascinating section on the self-transcendence of materialism in modern science, he shows how at least some versions of materialism belong to a phase of scientific thought now long obsolete. He adduces some important and, in my view, wholly conclusive arguments against the doctrines of parallelism and epiphenomenalism, which deny to mind the causal potency it is thought to possess in ordinary thought and language. He gives us a marvelously fresh account of the history of the mind-body problem, rightly giving special attention to the theories of Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza. His contribution also contains what is in many respects the most pro- vocative and constructive section of the book, a chapter on the self in which an evolutionary approach to the phenomenon of selfhood is espoused. Undoubtedly the most controversial part of Popper's argument against materialism, however, is that which appeals to his theory of a Third World of abstract entities. Popper shares with Plato, the logician Frege, and the influential contemporary American philosopher W. V. Quine, the belief that a domain of objective structures must be postulated that is indepen- dent of the realms of matter and mind and that can interact causally with them. His "World 3" differs in several important respects from Plato's realm of essences, from Frege's third realm sf thoughts, and from the do- main of classes, or sets, postulated by Quine (who, interestingly, combines the commitment to abstract entities with a rejection of mentalism), but it has in common with these accounts the fundamental commitment to a pluralist view of the world. If I am not mistaken, it is his appeal to the real- ity of the Third World, which Popper invokes partly in order to account for certain features of evolution by natural selection, that constitutes his crucial argument against the most powerful contemporary variant of materialism, the so-called identity theory. This very influential view pro- poses the theoretical identity of mental and physical events: as a matter of fact, rather than of logic, the mind is claimed to be identical with the ner- vous system (or certain aspects thereof). While the identity theory has the advantage over other doctrines of-allowing for the causal potency of the mind, argues Popper, it involves a view of the world that neglects the emergence in it of life, mind, and abstract objects. Thus Popper reveals that his argument against this most attractive form of contemporary materialism presupposes the truth of the "Three Worlds" doctrine. If we can avoid postulating World Three, there is every reason to suppose we can do without World Two, as well. Some of the weaknesses of Popper's argument for World Three have been identified by Paul Feyerabend in his masterly review of Popper's Ob- jective Knowledge (Inquiry 17 [1974]: 475-507). Feyerabend notes correctly that none of Popper's arguments for the autonomy of abstract objects establishes their irreducibility in terms of mental or physical states and processes. Pointing out, as Popper does, that such things as numbers, arguments, and theories exert a causal influence in the mental and physical realms cannot by itself show that such things do not themselves belong to those realms: to show a causal connection is not to mark an ontological distinction. Too often, as Feyerabend remarks, Popper proceeds by ex- cluding certain things from the physical and mental realms and then trium- phantly discovers them in World Three. He even elevates this game of hide- and-seek into a methodological principle, stipulating (bizarrely) that we are to resort to Occam's razor only after we have decided which entities are ir- reducible. Where Popper abjures this procedure, his arguments often take him on unfortunate excursions into the philosophy of mathematics. The present reviewer is even more reluctant than Feyerabend to follow Popper into what has become a forbiddingly technical area of inquiry. Three points may be worth making, however. First, it is far from clear that the advantages of Platonism in mathematics can be purchased by Popper unless he forgoes the Hegelian satisfaction of allowing error and progress into the Third World. Secondly, Wittgenstein's far more adequate and fruitful work in the philosophy of mathematics may remind us of a point that Popper has neglected and that is of fundamental importance for all areas of philosophy: there is an indispensable place for the notion of the in- dependently real even in a philosophy that adopts a radically constructivist or conventionalist view of mathematical knowledge. One may allow that mathematical theorems and calculations, like moral judgments, may be publicly testable and defeasible without allowing that (in mathematics or in morals) there is knowledge of any realm outside of human practices and conventions. And since acknowledgement of the public character of mathematical notions involves no ontological commitment, it is compatible with a physicalist ontology. Thirdly, and finally, Popper's philosophy con- tains no resources to resist physicalism, since his only arguments for World Two are arguments that invoke World Three. If, as I have argued, Popper's postulated World Three is unnecessary, he has no reason to move beyond the First World of physical objects and laws. It is their common commitment to a pluralist theory of what the world contains that motivates Popper and Eccles in their argument for interac- tionism. Their views diverge in other areas, with Eccles displaying a strong concern to preserve the theoretical possibility of the survival of human per- sonality beyond bodily death, to which Popper is comparatively indifferent and which is in any case uncongenial to his evolutionary mode of thought about man's place in the universe. Popper and Eccles both believe that the currency of a mechanistic view of man has contributed to the modern disrespect for human life and dignity-a belief that may be contested by those who, like the present reviewer, see no logical or empirical connection between materialist positions in the philosophy of mind and contemporary inhumanity. Their most important shared commitment, however, is to a conception of the task of philosophers as self-critical conjectural thought about man's relation to the world-a view that sets them apart from the mainstream of current philosophical opinion. It is because this book ex- emplifies the virtues of such a conception of philosophy that all philosophers should read it-even though few will find its argument finally persuasive.

Oh, believe me,I'm a great admirere of Karl Popper.

But, the fact is, his bizarre dualistic views in philosophy of mind are not among his most admirable acheivements. Sorry, I'm not going to add mention of "Self and Brain" with the conseuqnce of having to post about 15,000 merited criticisms of it. It would actually worsen the article. Please read "the Logic o Scientific Discovery, "Conjectites abd Refutsations", "on the Poverty of Historicism", "The Open Society and its Enemies", "All the world is problem solving" etc.. instead of that other nonsense about three worlds.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:24, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Goodness gracious...if ever Notturno was right... Regardless of whether you personally think it is 'nonsense', and whether the '15,000 merited criticisms' (are you sure it isn't 20,000 or 30,000, how about 50,000?) are really merited, Popper's 'three worlds' concept is an important component of his philosophy and some mention of it needs to be made, preferably by someone who hasn't so severe an allergic reaction to any mention of it.--Calamus, 1119 EDT, 3 September 2006

You must simply take my word on this matter. I have it from Sir Karl himself that he had formally renounced this notion of six or seven worlds back in the early may of 1972 but that this was never made known to anyone. Later that evening, he was taken out of his home and brough to a unspecified detention camp by memebers of the KGB. He was shot and replace by a doppleganger which had been consrtucetd to resemeble Popper in every partcualr, except that the Popper2 version had not recounced the doctine of three worlds. Thus it is to Popper2 that the notion should be attrinbted and a new page started for Popper2. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 15:45, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Rejecting his conclusions is no justification for not including this material in the Wiki about him!

Popper himself told you this? It is curious then, that the he didn't strike the appropriate material from the 2nd addition of his 'Objective Knowledge', and didn't object to the publication of 'Knowledge and Body-Mind Problem' (which I think was published while he was still alive, and even if it wasn't, 'The Myth of the Framework' was, as I recall, and it too makes reference to objective knowledge). I haven't read 'A World of Propensities' in a while, but I think he still mentions it there, too. Why didn't he recant in public? Even his philosophical allies would have been happy to see it and reassured that Popper had not become a senile old fool. No one else seems to be aware of his mysterious recantation, either. Herbert Keuth, e.g., in his recent treatment of Popper's philosophy, considers the 'three worlds' to be as worthy of discussion as anything else (he doesn't like it either, though). I am afraid your word, which I reject without trying to denigrate it, is just not enough for me (and wouldn't be enough for any good Popperian), and I still say that a succinct overview of this aspect of Popper's metaphysics should be included in this article. Even if he rejected this view later on, it should still be covered here (other thinkers who have Wiki pages have sections dealing with ideas that they abandoned).--Calamus, 1406 EDT, 16 September 2006

I agree completely with Calamus on this issue, based on my comprehensive knowledge of Popper around the time of my 1982 In Pursuit of Truth: Essays on the Philosophy of Karl Popper (edited anthology). PaulLev 21:29, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Alright, alright!! It was a bad attempt at humor. Go ahead and add something on it, already. This is Wikipedia!! Do I have to do everything myself?--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:07, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Lacatosias said further up: We have a serious problem here, folks. Listen up, listen up....I don't understand why I'm being almost compltely ignored in this place!! This is VERY IMPORTANT. Popper does not discuss "evolutionary epistemology" in his "Conjectures and Refutations." Not AT ALL: I hav the book right here in front of me. Where is it?? Anyone??

Reply: Popper discusses evolutionary epistemolgy directly in at least two chapters of the book _All LIfe is Problem Solving_. Also see Popper's reply to Donald's Campbells paper "Evolutionary Epsitemology" in the Schilpp volume The Philosophy of Karl Popper. It boggles the mind why some people think one or two books by an author is the final word by the author. No wonder some people around here are "almost completely ignored."

Typical phenomenon exclusive to Wikipedia I'm afraid. But easy to clear up. The context for that comment no longer exists!! If you had looked back into the history, you would have found that the article, at one point, stated (or implied) that evolutionary epistemlogy was discussed specifically in "Conjectures and Refutations". I corrected that and left a note on the talk page to note the error that I was correcting. Nothing more. Of course, Popper discusses evolutionary epistemology in other works. That was not the context. I hope that's clear now.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:36, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Re-Review and In-line citations

Note: This article has a small number of in-line citations for an article of its size and currently would not pass criteria 2b.
Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 01:46, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Popper's Unpopularity

Here's the complete text of Melvyn Bragg's newsletter, written 8th Feb 2007, the same day as the broadcast of his Radio Four programme:

Hello,

I wish I’d known the work of Karl Popper much better in the late Fifties and through the Sixties. The prevailing notion in the late Fifties and early Sixties was that there was still a lot of life in Marxism. Even if it had got some things wrong, they would surely come right because so much of it was right. I genuinely distrusted that but found it extremely hard to marshal enough energy, let alone vehemence, behind my own point of view. Marxism was like some weed that gets to your feet in shallow waters and trips you up and never lets you go. Popper’s blast through it would have been a great help.

Even more, I could have benefited from his attack on Adler and Freud in the Sixties. Freud seemed to enmesh thought about motivation in a way that left me claustrophobic. Just as I tried to oppose Marxism with what seemed to be the poor tools of piecemeal Labour Party thought and pragmatism, so my only defence against Freudianism was to put against it literary and poetic insights and my own sense that it was no system that could call it for respect which delighted in being fathomless.

It’s curious now that the Vienna school which was so embraced for so long in the twentieth century as setting the course of the century itself – Marx, Freud, Schoenberg, others and not least (though not often mentioned) Hitler – has become increasingly discredited. At one time that city and that group appeared to irradiate all that was new and modern and necessary and inevitable about a future life. Now they seem at the best flawed and at the worst downright dangerous.

There was much talk about Popper himself after the programme. It turns out that he was – this was the consensus – an extremely unpleasant man, making enemies wherever he turned. One of the contributors called him “a nasty little man”. Another of the contributors said that Popper would not let a chair at LSE be named after him if this particular contributor was to hold it, because of a quarrel he had had with someone close to said contributor! When he was in New Zealand he fell out so badly with his fellow professor, a man called Sutherland, that Sutherland resorted to reporting him to the authorities as a German spy. It appears that Popper went along as charged and attempted to discuss Plato with them for some time. He was hurriedly released.

Most importantly, given that he insisted on the essential nature of criticism and in fact the Open Society is a society that is in a perpetual state of self-criticism, he himself reacted violently against any criticism whatsoever, it seems. Even if fond disciples attempted to tweak his ideas ever so little and clearly improve them just a tad, he would never speak to them again. One of the contributors said “he fell out with everybody”.

That need be no surprise. One of the sure things is that some heroes and heroines have feet of clay. The wonderful poet you meet whose work is intoxicating, whose tongue is coated in spite. I think I’ll stop there.

Safe to say that Popper was extraordinarily invigorating. He was deeply angry with the Bader Meinhof gang in the 1960s and said we do not tolerate the intolerant. His would have been a very useful voice in Britain now.

Best wishes

Melvyn Bragg

Thegn 12:32, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More about Melvyn Bragg's show and comments

The BBC radio programme described can be expected to remain available online in RealPlayer audio at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20070208.shtml Until February 15th 2007 it's also an MP3 under certain terms and conditions. The other contributors are named on the page as: John Worrall, Professor of Philosophy of Science at the London School of Economics; Anthony O'Hear, Weston Professor of Philosophy at Buckingham University; Nancy Cartwright, Professor of Philosophy at the LSE and the University of California.

The newsletter seems to be available only by subscribing a personal e-mail address in advance at no charge, as I did, and may not be suitable source material - indeed I presume it's copyrighted. Stern warnings here are noted. If it was available online from the BBC or Melvyn's personal site, that would be satisfactory. Hosting it yourself... I don't know.

Lord Bragg is coy about which contributor said what about Sir Karl's personal qualities and it's unfortunate that this ends up as "In the words of Melvyn Bragg", although "In the words of Professor John Worrall" - for example - would be more professionally embarrassing. It's implied that at least one of the contributors has suffered directly already due to Popper's animosity, but I believe they didn't expect that to be repeated. But if Popper really was such a difficult person to know then surely there will be other sources. We could see how he got on in New Zealand in coffee bars, for instance.

Robert Carnegie rja.carnegie@excite.com 62.188.137.61 11:49, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Are Bragg's comments about Popper "petty and tendentious"?

We seem to be at an impasse over whether any of Bragg's comments should be included. I have no axe to grind, and know next to nothing about Popper, but I believe they help illuminate his life. At the moment the section on Popper's Life details many of the awards he received, but it says little of the human being. Did he ever marry, or have children? The section says nothing about this. Bragg's comments shed some light on Popper's nature, which might help to explain Popper's marital status, which may or may not have a bearing on Popper's philosophical career. I don't think it's right to describe Bragg's comments as "petty". Thegn 19:56, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

At the very least, you'd better cite your sources. Otherwise, it's completely meaningless and unverifiable OR.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 09:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The source is Melvyn Bragg, written immediately after the programme which has given Popper more coverage in the British media than he's had for years. The comment is replete with meaning, whether or not it's true(!), and... dare I say it?... falsifiable. Thegn 05:50, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I removed the offensive quote from the article without reading the talk page because it contained no source citation, a clear violation of policy. Now I see that a source has been posted here, but unless it can be verified, it is not usable. Also, there is a long "Excelelnt review" of The Self and Its Brain posted above, but it states it is copyrighted, so it must be removed. Because anything posted on Wikipedia can be freely copied according to our GNU license, it is not acceptable to merely obtain permission to post here. --Blainster 07:59, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed categories per Wikipedia:Categorization of people

I meant this guideline and not BLP obviously. SO many darn policies and guidelines. The article describes Popper as an agnostic who "was born in Vienna (then in Austria-Hungary) in 1902 to middle-class parents of Jewish origins, who had both converted to Christianity." Should these categories really apply here. Anyways, I look forward to be enlightened as always :) --Tom 02:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I reverted SLimVirgin's edit since there was no explaination. Slim, giving an explaination for your edits would go a long way to helping the project and other editors, it seems. Thanks, --Tom 11:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Are there reliable, verifiable sources that call or "consider" Popper to be Jewish? It seems that this is original research to say that he is of Jewish "decent" and then label him a Jew. I guess I need to go read the article Who is a Jew? again. It seems that unclear cases should not be catagorized this way. Anyways, thanks, --Tom 20:14, 13 March 2007 (UTC) ps the article says that his parents converted?? But the letter that was used as a source makes it sound as though he converted? This is too confusing. Oh well, I am sure to be enlightened.

To end this once and for all. Firstly, Newport has already supplied a reliable source that explicitly calls him Jewish, namely his official obituary from the British Academy [1]: "The book was brought to Einstein’s attention through musical connections. Popper’s friend Rudolf Serkin played with the Busch Chamber Orchestra and had recently married Adolf and Frieda Busch’s daughter. Frieda knew Einstein, now in Princeton, through his violin-playing. In April 1935 she sent him a copy of Logik der Forschung, explaining that the author was a Jew living in Vienna and hence had no prospects". Secondly, being Jewish had a profound effect on his life because he had to flee the Nazis. Thirdly, Judaism can be an ethnic as well as a religious description, and undoubtedly he was 100% Jewish by descent.--Runcorn 21:05, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The letter goes on to say "Not that Popper regarded himself as Jewish. Both his parents were of Jewish descent, but had converted to Lutheranism, wanting to be assimilated." what we need are reliable sources, not a letter from a girl friend. Why is this a problem? --Tom 22:06, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The letter says no such thing; what is quoted is not from the letter. Why is a clear statement from someone who knew Popper well not a reliable source? If you want another reference, see Encyclopaedia Judaica, art. "Philosophy", where Popper is one of a long list of philosophers mentioned while describing the Jewish contribution to philosophy. Obviously, he is mentioned because he was a Jewish philosopher.--Runcorn 23:19, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, the letter didn't say that, that was the auther's interjection it looks like. Anyways, user:JackO'Lantern, the voice of reason might chime in now. Also, I am not trying to be a dick about this. Cheers, --Tom 23:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

If I may suggest, we have here the ethnicity vs. religion question. By ethnicity he was Jewish, by religion he was not. Since we have the statement that he did not wish to be considered Jewish (presumably referring to his religion), I see no reason not to defer to that wish. Because the categories are subcategories for both ethnicity and religion, I think they should not be used here. --Blainster 01:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Blainster for the imput. I am actually still trying to figure out .... The article says his parents converted? Was this before he was born? Was this a case where the family said they were Lutheran, but they knew they were really Jewish and did out of self preservation? Did Popper himself actually "convert"? If so, he was Jewish before he converted? Forget the stupid Wiki categories, this has now really got me interested in the man's story. My grandfather had to hide the fact he was a Jew so he could attend West Point since the accademy didn't allows Jews to attend for some time. Anyways, thanks --Tom 01:57, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

The story seems to be that his parents, both Jewish, converted to Lutheranism before he was born. When he was born, presumably he was baptized into the Lutheran religion as well as the other Lutheran practices, such as they may be. So no, Popper did not technically "convert" out of Judaism or into another religion. Ethnically speaking, he was Jewish, and, under traditional Orthodox Judaism (i.e. Who is a Jew?) he would be considered Jewish because his mother, maternal grandmother, etc. were, regardless of his mother's conversion. As for the Jewish category, btw, it is in both the "ethnicity" and "religion" categories, but that's because Jewishness can be both, not either/or. For example, you wouldn't exclude converts to Judaism, who are not ethnically Jewish. Mad Jack 02:14, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Very well explained MadJack. As an aside, if one's grandfather was Jewish, ie his mother was Jewish, would his son or grandson be ethnicly Jewish? I was told tonight that I am 25% Jewish, whatever the hell that means. I was actually raised as a Quaker but consider myself first and foremost an American :). Thanks, --Tom 02:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Well Jewish ethnicity (Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Mizrahi, etc.) is passed down like any other ethnicity, "genetically speaking", so if someone's paternal grandfather was Jewish and paternal grandmother was Italian, it would be logical to describe their background as 25% Italian, 25% Ashkenazi Jewish, 50% etc. Orthodox Judaism (as well as Conservative Judaism), however, does not recognize any other ethnic background but that of the one passed down through the maternal line, so if someone's maternal grandmother, or maternal grandmother's mother, and so on, was Jewish, that person would be considered fully Jewish as well (for example, Kate Hudson's maternal grandmother was Jewish, so Hudson is considered Jewish, as would be all of her children, and all of her female children's children, and so on, regardless of the males; luckily, Hudson considers herself Jewish as well). However, it's not all about ethnic maternal descent, because, if a non-Jewish woman converted to Orthodox Judaism, all of her children (born after her conversion) would be considered Jewish, and all of her female children's children, and so on (for example, Isla Fisher is a convert to Orthodox Judaism, so, unless she renounces that conversion, Fisher and her children have the same "Jewish status" as Kate Hudson). Those cases are rare, but they do happen. Mad Jack 04:21, 14 March 2007 (UTC)