By Karl Popper

On the age of 8, Karl Popper was once wondering the assumption of infinity and by way of fifteen was once commencing to take a willing curiosity in his father's well-stocked library of books.

Unended Quest recounts those moments and so forth within the lifetime of probably the most influential thinkers of the 20th century, supplying an imperative account of the tips that stimulated him such a lot.

As an creation to Popper's philosophy, Unended Quest additionally shines. Popper lucidly explains the relevant principles in his paintings, making this e-book excellent for somebody coming to Popper's existence and paintings for the 1st time.

Show description

Read or Download Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography (2nd Edition) PDF

Best philosophy books

Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Plato and the Trial of Socrates

This guidebook introduces and examines Plato's 3 dialogues that take care of the dying of Socrates: Euthphryo, Apology and Crito. those dialogues are extensively considered as the nearest exposition of Socrates' ideas.

Part of the Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks sequence.

Jean-François Lyotard (Routledge Critical Thinkers)

Jean-François Lyotard is among the so much celebrated proponents of what has turn into referred to as the 'postmodern'. greater than nearly the other modern theorist, he has explored the kin among wisdom, artwork, politics and historical past, in ways in which supply radical new probabilities for brooding about sleek tradition.

Paul Celan and Martin Heidegger: An Unresolved Conversation, 1951-1970

This paintings explores the stricken courting and unfinished highbrow discussion among Paul Celan, looked via many because the most vital ecu poet after 1945, and Martin Heidegger, possibly the main influential determine in twentieth-century philosophy. It facilities at the chronic ambivalence Celan, a Holocaust survivor, felt towards a philosopher who revered him and every now and then promoted his poetry.

Three Critics of the Enlightenment: Vico, Hamann, Herder (2nd Edition)

Isaiah Berlin was once deeply in demand in the course of his existence, yet his complete contribution was once probably underestimated due to his choice for the lengthy essay shape. The efforts of Henry Hardy to edit Berlin's paintings and reintroduce it to a large, keen readership have long gone a long way to therapy this. Now, Princeton is happy to come back to print, below one hide, Berlin's essays on those celebrated and beautiful highbrow pics: Vico, Hamann, and Herder.

Extra info for Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography (2nd Edition)

Example text

10. a second digression (6) Imprinting is an irreversible process of learning; that is, it is not subject to correction or revision. Of course I knew nothing in 1922 of Konrad Lorenz’s theories (though I had known him as a boy in Altenberg, where we had close friends in common). I shall here use the theory of imprinting merely as a means of explaining my own conjecture, which was similar yet different. My conjecture was not about animals (though I was influenced by C. Lloyd Morgan and even more by H.

Like Newton himself, he predicted new effects within (and also without) our solar system. And some of these predictions, when tested, had now proved successful. I was fortunate in being introduced to these ideas by a brilliant young student of mathematics, Max Elstein, a friend who died in 1922 at the age of twenty-one. He was not a positivist (as Einstein was in those days, and for years to come), and he therefore stressed the objective aspects of Einstein’s theory: the fieldtheoretical approach; the electrodynamics and mechanics and their new link; and the marvellous idea of a new cosmology—a finite but unbounded universe.

But what makes a theory interesting or significant— what we try to understand, if we wish to understand a theory— is something different. To put the idea first in a way which is merely intuitive, and perhaps a bit woolly, it is its logical relation to the prevailing problem situation which makes a theory interesting: its relation to preceding and competing theories: its power to solve existing problems, and to suggest new ones. In other words, the meaning or significance of a theory in this sense depends on very comprehensive contexts, although of course the significance of these contexts in their turn depends 23 24 unended quest on the various theories, problems, and problem situations of which they are composed.

Download PDF sample

Rated 4.66 of 5 – based on 10 votes