Paul Feyerabend (b.1924, d.1994), having studied science at theUniversity of Vienna, moved into philosophy for his doctoral thesis,made a name for himself both as an expositor and (later) as a critic ofKarl Popper's “critical rationalism”, and went on to becomeone of the twentieth century's most famous philosophers of science. Animaginative maverick, he became a critic of philosophy of scienceitself, particularly of “rationalist” attempts to lay downor discover rules of scientific method.
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.
The Philosophical Implications of the Second Scientific Revolution
Notes from my history of philosophy course lecture on Darwin, Maxwell, Einstein, and Bohr
Guest post: If you’re going to critique science, be scientific about it
Loren K. Mell Editor’s note: This post responds to a Feb. 13 article in The Atlantic, “The Scientific Literature Can’t Save Us Now,” written by Retraction Watch cofounders Adam Marcus and Ivan Oran…
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler was a German polymath who was an astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and music theorist. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws of planetary motion, and his books Astronomia nova, Harmonice Mundi, and Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae. The variety and impact of his work made Kepler one of the founders and fathers of modern astronomy, the scientific method, natural science, and modern science. He has been described as the "father of science fiction" for his novel Somnium.
In Medias Res: Peter Sloterdijk's Spherological Poetics of Being | JSTOR
In recent years, Peter Sloterdijk has become one of Germany's most influential thinkers. His diverse body of work includes a Heideggerian project to think…
Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters by Steven Pinker
In the twenty-first century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding—and at ...
Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit: Tools for Thinking Critically & Knowing Pseudoscience When You See It
Though he died too young, Carl Sagan left behind an impressively large body of work, including more than 600 scientific papers and more than 20 books.
Re-Engineering Wimsatt for Limited Beings
Science is the best way to produce facts about reality. The best, at least, that limited human beings have devised so far. Yet, not even scientists quite seem to understand how scientific knowledge is generated. This is not only a philosophical but also a practical problem, as our misunderstandings affect the quality of our research and limit the directions it can take. In light of this, it may be good if we reflected a bit more on how we do science — to become better researchers through philosophy. Here, I provide an accessible introduction to a philosophical approach that achieves precisely this: William Wimsatt’s multi-perspectival realism. It disabuses us of widespread but misleading myths and idealizations about science, such as the idea that everything in the world can be reduced to a fundamental level, or that we can approach a “view from nowhere” — complete and objectively detached knowledge of the world. Wismatt proposes an alternative view based on his thorough studies of actual research practice. It cuts deeply into the layered yet messy structure of reality, and the improvised but potent tools we have available, as limited and evolved beings, to explore it. Wimsatt reframes science as an irregular yet adaptive process rather than a cumulative repository of unalterable facts. His philosophy provides a workable and grounded middle way between radical skepticism and naïve belief in the objective truth of science. It explains how knowledge is conceptually constructed by humans, but still connects us to reality in a trustworthy way. We need such a new view of science, not only to improve our research practices and outcomes but, more generally, to gain a more realistic understanding of ourselves, the world, and our place and role within it.
Übermensch
In his final years, already heavily plagued by mental decline, Nietzsche began to believe that he was in fact Polish, not German, and was quoted as saying, "I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood".[20][21] In defiance of nationalist doctrines, he claimed that he and Germany were great only because of "Polish blood in their veins",[22] and that he would "[have] all anti-semites shot." Nietzsche died long before Hitler's reign, and it was partly Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche who manipulated her brother's words to accommodate the worldview of herself and her husband, Bernhard Förster, a prominent German nationalist and antisemite.[23] Förster founded the Deutscher Volksverein (German People's League) in 1881 with Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg.[24]
Alfred Korzybski
Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski was a Polish-American philosopher and independent scholar who developed a field called general semantics, which he viewed as both distinct from, and more encompassing than, the field of semantics. He argued that human knowledge of the world is limited both by the human nervous system and the languages humans have developed, and thus no one can have direct access to reality, given that the most we can know is that which is filtered through the brain's responses to reality. His best known dictum is "The map is not the territory". Many of his ideas were presented in his book Science and Sanity (1933).
Alfred Korzybski
Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski was a Polish-American philosopher and independent scholar who developed a field called general semantics, which he viewed as both distinct from, and more encompassing than, the field of semantics. He argued that human knowledge of the world is limited both by the human nervous system and the languages humans have developed, and thus no one can have direct access to reality, given that the most we can know is that which is filtered through the brain's responses to reality. His best known dictum is "The map is not the territory". Many of his ideas were presented in his book Science and Sanity (1933).
Where Should Science Go Next
Where Should Science Go Next? Prashant Garg, April 2026 Every researcher has to choose what to work on next. Science has formal procedures for judging answers, but no comparable procedure for comparing questions. Einstein said in 1918 at Max Planck's sixtieth birthday: "There is no logical path t...
Les ScienceGuardians, fantômes de l’intégrité — TheMetaNews
Un groupe d’activistes anonymes s’emploie depuis près d’un an à suivre, voire à menacer juridiquement, les détectives de l’intégrité scientifique. Chroniques d’une guerre invisible.
Friedrich Engels: Einleitung "Bürgerkrieg in Frankreich" (1891)
Einleitung zu Karl Marx' 'Der Bürgerkrieg in Frankreich' (Ausgabe 1891)
I read through this, and it's remarkably autocratic, almost Soviet-style vision for science in the United States.
OSTP Director Releases Landmark Report and Recommendations for Renewing American Scientific Discovery
www.whitehouse.gov