Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Crazy title

This paper must have the weirdest/most pretentious title I have come across :
"On the Problem of Breathing, Eating, & Drinking Poison: An introduction to problem solving, nobility of purpose under adverse circumstances, and the search for truth with Sir Karl Popper on Prince Edward Island"

Funk, Matt
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:14483&r=cbe

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

On the subject of Popper, I have been meaning to suggest him for the next meeting of the book-club, in particular, his book entitled: 'The Logic of Scientific Discovery'.

If people are interested, I can organise getting access to the book. It's 280 pages long excluding appendices, but we could also make do without section 9, which is 40 pages on quantum theory.

We should find the rest of the material very interesting from a quantitative social science perspective. According to Sir Peter Medawar from the New Scientist, this is `one of the most important documents of the twentieth century.'

Liam Delaney said...

good suggestion Martin - If you dont mind I want to have one on Hyman Minsky first as I think the midst of a financial crisis is a good time to read him.

Anonymous said...

Doing Minsky first is fine Liam - I remember you mentioning him at the Animal Spirits meeting. It sounds like a very interesting book.

Kevin Denny said...

For what its worth, Hyman Minsky came to UCD for a talk when I was an undergrad. It was just after John Lennon was killed who he referred to in his talk.
I don't know much about epistemology but..when I used to read these things as a child, well in my 20s, I had the impression that while economists seemed to regard Popper as the final word on such matters, this was not a view shared by philosophers. And I don't just mean that bowsie Wittgenstein who threatened him with a poker.
If nothing else, 'though, he will justly be remembered for his invention of the Party Popper.

Liam Delaney said...

Lakatos, Kuhn, Feyerabend and so on are the main greats that are usually referenced as the alternatives. Feyerabend would certainly be something that I would certainly spend a night on. The Structure of Scientific Revolution by Kuhn is an absolute must for a later club.