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    Skeptical Look at Karl Popper
    The following essay was published in Skeptical Inquirer (2001).

    by Martin Gardner
    "Sir Karl Popper / Perpetrated a whopper / When he boasted to the world that he and he alone / Had toppled Rudolf Carnap from his Vienna Circle throne." —a clerihew by Armand T. Ringer


    ir Karl Popper, who died in 1994, was widely regarded as England's greatest philosopher of science since Bertrand Russell. Indeed a philosopher of worldwide eminence. Today his followers among philosophers of science are a diminishing minority, convinced that Popper's vast reputation is enormously inflated. I agree. I believe that Popper's reputation was based mainly on this persistent but misguided efforts to restate common-sense views in a novel language that is rapidly becoming out of fashion. Consider Popper's best known claim: that science does not proceed by "induction"—that is, by finding confirming instances of a conjecture — but rather by falsifying bold, risky conjectures. Conformation, he argued, is slow and never certain. By contrast, a falsification can be sudden and definitive. Moreover, it lies at the heart of the scientific method.

    A familiar example of falsification concerns the assertion that all crows are black. Every find of another black crow obviously confirms the theory, but there is always the possibility that a non-black crow will turn up. If this happens, the conjecture is instantly discredited. The more often a conjecture passes efforts to falsify it, Popper maintained, the greater becomes its "corroboration," although corroboration is also uncertain and can never be quantified by degree of probability. Popper's critics insist that "corroboration" is a form of induction, and Popper has simply sneaked induction in through a back door by giving it a new name. David Hume's famous question was "How can induction be justified?" It can't be, said Popper, because there is no such thing as induction!


    There are many objections to this startling claim. One is that falsifications are much rarer in science than searches for confirming instances. Astronomers look for signs of water on Mars. They do not think they are making efforts to falsify the conjecture that Mars never had water.

    Falsifications can be as fuzzy and elusive as confirmations. Einstein's first cosmological model was a universe as static and unchanging as Aristotle's. Unfortunately, the gravity of suns would make such a universe unstable. It would collapse. To prevent this, Einstein, out of thin air, proposed the bold conjecture that the universe, on its pre-atomic level, harbored a mysterious, undetected repulsive force he called the "cosmological constant." When it was discovered that the universe is expanding, Einstein considered his conjecture falsified. Indeed, he called it "the greatest blunder of my life." Today, his conjecture is back in favor as a way of explaining why the universe seems to be expanding faster than it should. Astronomers are not trying to falsify it; they are looking for confirmations.

    Falsification may be based on faulty observation. A man who claims he saw a white crow could be mistaken or even lying. As long as observation of black crows continue, it can be taken in two ways; as confirmations of "all crows are black," or disconfirmations of "some crows are not black." Popper recognized — but dismissed as unimportant — that every falsification of a conjecture is simultaneously a confirmation of an opposite conjecture, and every conforming instance of a conjecture is a falsification of an opposite conjecture.

    Consider the current hypothesis that there is a quantum field called the Higgs field, with its quantized particle. If a giant atom smasher some day, perhaps soon, detects a Higgs, it will confirm the conjecture that the field exist. At the same time it will falsify the opinion of some top physicists, Oxford's Roger Penrose for one, that there is no Higgs field.

    To scientists and philosophers outside the Popperian fold, science operates mainly by induction (confirmation), and also and less often by disconfirmation (falsification). Its language is almost always one of induction. If Popper bet on a certain horse to win a race, and the horse won, you would not expect him to shout, "Great! My horse failed to lose!"

    Sir Karl Popper (1902-1994)

    Astronomers are now finding compelling evidence that smaller and smaller planets orbit distant suns. Surely this is inductive evidence that there may be Earth-sized planets out there. Why bother to say, as each new and smaller planet is discovered, that it tends to falsify the conjecture that there are no small planets beyond our solar system? Why scratch your left ear with your right hand? Astronomers are looking for small planets. They are not trying to refute a theory any more than physicists are trying to refute the conjecture that there is no Higgs field. Scientists seldom attempt to falsify. They are inductivists who seek positive conformations.

    At the moment the widest of all speculations in physics is superstring theory. It conjectures that all basic particles are different vibrations of extremely tiny loops of great tensile strength. No superstring has yet been observed, but the theory has great explanatory power. Gravity, for example, is implied as the simplest vibration of a superstring. Like prediction, explanation is an important aspect of induction. Relativity, for instance, not only made rafts of successful predictions but explained data previously unexplained. The same is true of quantum mechanics. In both fields researchers used classical induction procedures. Few physicists say they are looking for ways to falsify superstring theory. They are instead looking for confirmations. Ernest Nagel, Columbia University's famous philosopher of science, in his Teleology Revisited and Other Essays in the Philosophy and History of Science (1979), summed it up this way: "[Popper's] conception of the role of falsification . . . is an oversimplification that is close to being a caricature of scientific procedures."

    For Popper, what his chief rival Rudolf Carnap called a "degree of confirmation"—a logical relation between a conjecture and all relevant evidence—is a useless concept. Instead, as I said earlier, the more tests for falsification a theory passes, the more it gains in "corroboration." It's as if someone claimed that deduction doesn't exist, but of course statements can logically imply other statements. Let's invent a new term for deduction, such as "justified inference." It's not so much that Popper disagreed with Carnap and other inductivists as that he restated their views in a bizarre and cumbersome terminology.

    To Popper's credit he was, like Russell, and almost all philosophers, scientists, and ordinary people, a thoroughgoing realist in the sense that he believed the universe, with all its intricate and beautiful mathematical structures, was "out there," independent of our feeble minds, In no way can the laws of science be likened to traffic regulations or fashions in dress that very with time and place. Popper would have been appalled as Russell by the crazy views of today's social constructivists and postmodernists, most of them French or American professors of literature who know almost nothing about science.

    Scholars unacquainted with the history of philosophy often credit popper for being the first to point out that science, unlike math and logic, is never absolutely certain. It is always corrigible, subject to perpetual modification. This notion of what the American philosopher Charles Peirce called the "fallibilism" of science goes back to ancient Greek skeptics, and is taken for granted by almost all later thinkers.

    In Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics (1982) Popper defends at length his "propensity theory" of probability. A perfect die, when tossed, has the propensity to show each face with equal probability. Basic particles, when measured, have a propensity to acquire, with specific probabilities, such properties as position, momentum, spin and so on. Here again Popper is introducing a new term which says nothing different from what can be better said in conventional terminology.

    In my opinion Popper's most impressive work, certainly his best known, was his two-volume The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945). Its central theme, that open democratic societies are far superior to closed totalitarian regimes, especially Marxist ones, was hardly new, but Popper defends it with powerful arguments and awesome erudition. In later books he attacks what he calls "historicism," the belief that there are laws of historical change that enable one to predict humanity's future. The future is unpredictable, Popper argued, because we have free wills. Like William James, Popper was an indeterminist who saw history as a series of unforeseeable events. In later years he liked to distinguish between what he called three "worlds"—the external physical universe, the inner world of the mind, and the world of culture. Like Carnap and other members of the Vienna Circle, he had no use for God or an afterlife.

    Karl Raimund Popper was born in Vienna in 1902 where he was also educated. His parents were Jewish, his father a wealthy attorney, his mother a pianist. For twenty years he was a professor of logic and scientific method at the London School of Economics. In 1965 he was knighted by the Crown.

    I am convinced that Popper, a man of enormous egotism, was motivated by an intense jealousy of Carnap. It seems that every time Carnap expressed an opinion, Popper felt compelled to come forth with an opposing view, although it usually turned out to be the same as Carnap's but in different language. Carnap once said that the distance between him and Popper was not symmetrical. From Carnap to Popper it was small, but the other way around it appeared huge. Popper actually believed that the movement known as logical positivism, of which Carnap was leader, had expired because he, Popper, had single-handedly killed it!

    I have not read Popper's first and only biography, Karl Popper: The Formative Years (1902-1945), by Malachi Haim Hacohen (2000). Judging by the reviews it is an admirable work. David Papineau, a British philosopher, reviewed it for The New York Times Book Review (November 12, 2000). Here are his harsh words about Popper's character and work:

    By Hacohen's own account, Popper was a monster, a moral prig. He continually accused others of plagiarism, but rarely acknowledged his own intellectual debts. He expected others to make every sacrifice for him, but did little in return. In Hacohen's words, "He remained to the end a spoiled child who threw temper tantrums when he did not get his way." Hacohen is ready to excuse all this as the prerogative of genius. Those who think Popper a relatively minor figure are likely to take a different view.

    When Popper wrote "Logik der Forschung," he was barely thirty. Despite its flawed center, it was full of good ideas, from perhaps the most brilliant of the bright young philosophers associated with the Vienna Circle. But where the others continued to learn, develop and in time exert a lasting influence on the philosophical tradition, Popper knew better. He refused to revise his falsificationism, and so condemned himself to a lifetime in the service of a bad idea.

    Popper's great and tireless efforts to expunge the word induction from scientific and philosophical discourse has utterly failed. Except for a small but noisy group of British Popperians, induction is just too firmly embedded in the way philosophers of science and even ordinary people talk and think.

    Confirming instances underlie our beliefs that the Sun will rise tomorrow, that dropped objects will fall, that water will freeze and boil, and a million other events. It is hard to think of another philosophical battle so decisively lost.

    Readers interested in exploring Popper's eccentric views will find, in addition to his books and papers, most helpful the two-volume Philosophy of Karl Popper (1970), in the Library of Living Philosophers, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp. The book contains essays by others, along with Popper's replies and an autobiography. For vigorous criticism of Popper, see David Stove's Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists (the other three are Imre Lakatos, Thomas Kuhn, and Paul Feyerabend), and Stove's chapter on Popper in his posthumous Against the Idols of the Age (1999) edited by Roger Kimball. See Also Carnap's reply to Popper in The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap (1963), another volume in The Library of Living Philosophers. Of many books by Popperians, one of the best is Critical Rationalism (1994), a skillful defense of Popper by his top acolyte.


    ( Martin Gardner, "A Skeptical Look at Karl Popper," Skeptical Inquirer, 25(4):13-14, 72. )
    Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again.
    Karl Popper

    It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood.
    Karl Popper

    No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.
    Karl Popper

    Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
    Karl Popper

    Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification.
    Karl Popper

    Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.
    Karl Popper
    Last edited by silke; 08-03-2014 at 07:37 AM.
    Well I am back. How's everyone? Don't have as much time now, but glad to see some of the old gang are still here.

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    lol he looks like Mr. Monk
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    Quote Originally Posted by Joy
    lol he looks like Mr. Monk
    Who is that?
    Well I am back. How's everyone? Don't have as much time now, but glad to see some of the old gang are still here.

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    He is ENFJ
    Well I am back. How's everyone? Don't have as much time now, but glad to see some of the old gang are still here.

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    alpha NT?
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    I've always thought about him as ENTj.
    Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit

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    He never actually did much, besides some contributions to the scientific method. ENTJs are very dynamic in my experience.
    Well I am back. How's everyone? Don't have as much time now, but glad to see some of the old gang are still here.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dioklecian
    He never actually did much, besides some contributions to the scientific method. ENTJs are very dynamic in my experience.
    He never did much, duh, what do you mean?

    Actually, after remember who his disciples were, and what kind of philosophy they carried along, I must agree with you. Lakatos, Feyerabend, and the like, all seem to be Alpha NTs to me.
    Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit

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    But Popper must have been an Objectivist, otherwise the Reinin dichotomies don't make sense. And what is said in that article about Popper's falsificationism idea is clearly misleading.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Phaedrus
    But Popper must have been an Objectivist, otherwise the Reinin dichotomies don't make sense. And what is said in that article about Popper's falsificationism idea is clearly misleading.
    Everything has to fit into your little system, phaddy?
    Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit

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    Quote Originally Posted by FDG
    Quote Originally Posted by Phaedrus
    But Popper must have been an Objectivist, otherwise the Reinin dichotomies don't make sense. And what is said in that article about Popper's falsificationism idea is clearly misleading.
    Everything has to fit into your little system, phaddy?
    Yes.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Phaedrus
    Quote Originally Posted by FDG
    Quote Originally Posted by Phaedrus
    But Popper must have been an Objectivist, otherwise the Reinin dichotomies don't make sense. And what is said in that article about Popper's falsificationism idea is clearly misleading.
    Everything has to fit into your little system, phaddy?
    Yes.
    Reality isn't necessarily symmetrical and orderly.
    Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit

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    Quote Originally Posted by FDG
    Reality isn't necessarily symmetrical and orderly.
    That's no reason for us not trying to make our theories about reality orderly and symmetrical.

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    To me he looks more ILI than anything, but I can sort of see ILE as well.

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    Quote Originally Posted by FDG
    Quote Originally Posted by Phaedrus
    But Popper must have been an Objectivist, otherwise the Reinin dichotomies don't make sense. And what is said in that article about Popper's falsificationism idea is clearly misleading.
    Everything has to fit into your little system, phaddy?
    Correct, the Reinin dichotomies generally do not make sense. They are a theoretical possibility that arises when you start playing around with Model A. A few socionists swear by them, many swear by a few of them, and some just swear at them.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rick
    Correct, the Reinin dichotomies generally do not make sense. They are a theoretical possibility that arises when you start playing around with Model A. A few socionists swear by them, many swear by a few of them, and some just swear at them.
    Please show me one clear example where the Reinin dichotomies don't make sense. If the example involves one or more of the types INTp, INTj, ENTj, and ENTp, you make it easier for me to make a judgement on whether I agree or not.

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    Instead, why don't you explain why exactly the Reinin dichotomies are a logical outgrowth of socionic theory.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rick
    Instead, why don't you explain why exactly the Reinin dichotomies are a logical outgrowth of socionic theory.
    I always understood Reinin dichotomies as stemming from empirical observations (accurate or inaccurate), not from model A socionic theory.
    , LIE, ENTj logical subtype, 8w9 sx/sp
    Quote Originally Posted by implied
    gah you're like the shittiest ENTj ever!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Expat
    Quote Originally Posted by Rick
    Instead, why don't you explain why exactly the Reinin dichotomies are a logical outgrowth of socionic theory.
    I always understood Reinin dichotomies as stemming from empirical observations (accurate or inaccurate), not from model A socionic theory.
    Smilingeyes is more qualified to tell whether the Reinin dichotomies are a logical outgrowth of socionic theory or not. But I definitely agree with Expat here. The Reinin dichotomies (at least those that I have tried to investigate) seem to fit my empirical observations very well. They definitely seem to make a lot of sense. If you think that Popper is an ILI, that only corroborates that thesis.

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    I can see a strong Te in Popper, therefor he could be ESTj or ENTj. I think ENTj is more likely.
    "Wenn der Deutsche in einen Satz taucht, dann hat man ihn die längste Zeit gesehen, bis er auf der anderen Seite des Ozeans wieder auftaucht mit seinem Verb im Mund." - Mark Twain

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gronau
    I can see a strong Te in Popper, therefor he could be ESTj or ENTj. I think ENTj is more likely.
    Whatever Popper's true type is, he is probably one of the clearest example of an Objectivist one can think of. His generally optimistic outlook on life might indicate ENTj, and in that respect he was similar to Bertrand Russell, who also is a very clear example of an Objectivist.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Phaedrus
    Quote Originally Posted by FDG
    Quote Originally Posted by Phaedrus
    But Popper must have been an Objectivist, otherwise the Reinin dichotomies don't make sense. And what is said in that article about Popper's falsificationism idea is clearly misleading.
    Everything has to fit into your little system, phaddy?
    Yes.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Joy
    Quote Originally Posted by Phaedrus
    Quote Originally Posted by FDG
    Quote Originally Posted by Phaedrus
    But Popper must have been an Objectivist, otherwise the Reinin dichotomies don't make sense. And what is said in that article about Popper's falsificationism idea is clearly misleading.
    Everything has to fit into your little system, phaddy?
    Yes.
    When will you guys learn that there is a huge difference between my "system" (which is not really a system) and the INTj's tendency to think in systems and logical models? What I try to do is to make my empirical observations of patterns fit into a theory. I try to make generalizations. None of that is . It is a combination of and . If you can't see that my approach is clearly , very similar to Expat's, to take one example of a person whose type none of you seem to question, then you have some homework to do.

    Ask the real INTjs on this forum, for example tcaudillg or UDP II, whether they feel that my "little system" is a good example of or not. My guess is that they will have a hard time identifying it as a system.

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    I started a thread in the general section which is an answer to this post. It's not as much about whether you're Te or Ti as it is about differentiating what Te and Ti are (again lol).
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    Good, Joy! I welcome that. I will rest my case for a while and wait to see what people will respond.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Phaedrus
    Good, Joy! I welcome that. I will rest my case for a while and wait to see what people will respond.
    You know what. You are the biggest attention whore around here
    Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit

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    Quote Originally Posted by FDG
    Quote Originally Posted by Phaedrus
    Good, Joy! I welcome that. I will rest my case for a while and wait to see what people will respond.
    You know what. You are the biggest attention whore around here
    And people like you keep misunderstanding both what I say and my motives for saying it.

    This has very little to do with me. If you would just understand my arguments, the functions, the whole socionic theory better, I wouldn't have to keep on trying to convince you over and over again. We could go on discussing more important things on a higher level of mutual understanding. But that never seem to happen. You insist on believing that I am mistaken, that I don't understand what I am talking about, and that can be irritating as hell when you know that there are only two logically possible alternatives: either I am right about what I say about the types (at least when I say that I am an INTp according to the criteria used by all serious socionists), or the theory of Socionics falls apart under the weight of its inherent contradictions. In a way that is a kind of "life insurance" for me. None of you can prove that I am an INTj without destroying the very basis for that "proof". If you succeed you will cut off the part of the tree you are sitting on.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Phaedrus
    Quote Originally Posted by FDG
    Quote Originally Posted by Phaedrus
    Good, Joy! I welcome that. I will rest my case for a while and wait to see what people will respond.
    You know what. You are the biggest attention whore around here
    And people like you keep misunderstanding both what I say and my motives for saying it.

    This has very little to do with me. If you would just understand my arguments, the functions, the whole socionic theory better
    You are the one that should do this, not us. Simple as that. You have just as much right to tell me so as I have to tell you to, simply because what I do see in you is, from my perfect understanding of socionics (as perfect as yours, at least, since we cannot judge), is INTj as a type, and our relationship is clearly one of supervision.
    Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit

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    Quote Originally Posted by FDG
    You have just as much right to tell me so as I have to tell you to, simply because what I do see in you is, from my perfect understanding of socionics (as perfect as yours, at least, since we cannot judge), is INTj as a type, and our relationship is clearly one of supervision.
    Can we at least agree on this then: every time you criticize my understanding of Socionics and the types, you are also criticizing Expat's and Smilingeyes' understanding of them? Can we make that clear, so that everyone realizes what is at stake here? You believe that Expat has a confused and incorrect understanding of the types, and you think that many of the things Smilingeyes says are false -- that is correct, isn't it?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Phaedrus
    Quote Originally Posted by FDG
    You have just as much right to tell me so as I have to tell you to, simply because what I do see in you is, from my perfect understanding of socionics (as perfect as yours, at least, since we cannot judge), is INTj as a type, and our relationship is clearly one of supervision.
    Can we at least agree on this then: every time you criticize my understanding of Socionics and the types, you are also criticizing Expat's and Smilingeyes' understanding of them?
    No, because I am not, obviously. Obviously also, you don't see it, but the mere fact that I criticize you, and not them, points towards my argument and not yours: indeed, if they argued the same positions as you do, I would have no qualms in cricicizing. I don't know where you are taking your implications from, but clearly they are not based in reality, and therefore completely dismissable.
    Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit

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    I don't know where you are taking your implications from, but clearly they are not based in reality, and therefore completely dismissable.
    This, by the way, is a criticism. A type would respond by saying, "what do you suggest I do?" and starting a constructive discussion on the nature of objective observation and what FDG considers to be "reality-based" views.

    Of course, conflicts (especially ideological ones that don't come from deep down inside) can occur between any types, even duals.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Expat
    Quote Originally Posted by Rick
    Instead, why don't you explain why exactly the Reinin dichotomies are a logical outgrowth of socionic theory.
    I always understood Reinin dichotomies as stemming from empirical observations (accurate or inaccurate), not from model A socionic theory.
    I'm not exactly sure of the history, but I always thought it came from Reinin (a mathematician) noting that there were 15 ways of dividing the socion into two symmetric groups ("orthogonal division" is the word, if I'm not mistaken). Then, they tried seeing if there were anything in common between types in these groups. Of course, four of the dichotomies covered the original four socionic poles. So I'm inclined to believe it came from theory first, not from observation. I can check up on that one of these days.

    I personally tend to delve into the more obvious things and mine them for all they're worth rather than to spread out into more and more obscure areas in search of intellectually stimulating logical tidbits of dubious practical value.

    I have, of course, studied the original text on the Reinin traits. Descriptions of some of the dichotomies are so laughably vague as to be worthless. Of course, others have perfected them a bit since then. Originally, Augusta noted the questioner/declarer dichotomy, static/dynamic, and positivist/negativist and described them reasonably well. Also, the ones that break the quadras into two groups are easy to see, because you know their just talking about the presence or absence of common information elements in the four prominent quadra elements. The rest are, well... obscure, in my opinion.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rick
    I don't know where you are taking your implications from, but clearly they are not based in reality, and therefore completely dismissable.
    This, by the way, is a criticism. A type would respond by saying, "what do you suggest I do?" and starting a constructive discussion on the nature of objective observation and what FDG considers to be "reality-based" views.

    Of course, conflicts (especially ideological ones that don't come from deep down inside) can occur between any types, even duals.
    This is how it is: Expat and I obviously want to put the same groups of real life people in the same "boxes". Almost every time he says something about his own understanding of the types I am inclined to agree. We have a similar understanding of the temperaments, the relevant differences between rational and irrational types etc. Our focuses may be different, but in most cases we agree on the typings of people (from my perspective). It seems to be the same with Smilingeyes. He might be the only one who has clearly stated (and argued for it) that he thinks that I am an INTp. We have slightly different views on the possibility of type changes, but overall we seem to agree in our typings of people (again seen from my perspective).

    Unless I am lying about how I think, about my type relations, about my temperament, about my attitudes, etc., etc., there is no way I can be an INTj according to the criteria for differentiating between socionic types used by Dmitri Lytov, Sergei Ganin, Rick DeLong, and a lot of other prominent socionists. The assumption that I am an INTj only makes sense if one is certain that FDG's and others interpretation of which functions I use when I write posts on this forum is correct, and that according to that interpretation I must be an INTj. But as soon as you define me as an INTj, a lot of things said about the socionic types and their behaviours becomes false. To insist that I am Ti dominant is equivalent to saying that MBTT gives us a much more correct picture of the types. Everything Socionics says about the types makes more sense than MBTT if I am an INTp. My case is now so firmly grounded and corroborated by a lot of empirical observations that seem to fit very well with what Lytov, Ganin, Expat, Smilingeyes, and even Rick, say about the types, that it is simply impossible for me to trust Socionics anymore if I am not an INTp in that model.

    We can say that I am dominant. Then I would have the same dominant function according to both MBTT and Socionics, assuming that they refer to the same kind of thinking when they use the label "introverted thinking". But in that case I will have to conclude that MBTT is a better theory, because the type descriptions of INTPs are much, much better than the socionic type descriptions of INTjs as descriptions of how I am as a person.

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    My interepretation is exactly the same as Smilingeyes and Expat's, but nonetheless this does not make you an INTp to my eyes by any means because our conclusions based on the same interpretation differ. Now, you'll probably utter some bogus on how this is actually impossible if we all follow the same logical pattern.

    You still do not understand that the world does not revolve around you, and that if your autism prevents you from seeing the obvious, this doesn't mean that socionics is to discard or rather, you can discard it for yourself (as long as you do not accept being INTj), but this does not prove its complete fallaciousness since it would be one (apparent) failure out of many.
    Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit

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    This dicsussion has gone off topic I think.
    Well I am back. How's everyone? Don't have as much time now, but glad to see some of the old gang are still here.

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    After reading a lot of "The Logic of Scientific Discovery", I'm fairly sure that Popper was an ENTj. His hyperactive Te (citing examples in every other sentence, etc. I talked about this before.) was too much for me.

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    Quote Originally Posted by thehotelambush
    After reading a lot of "The Logic of Scientific Discovery", I'm fairly sure that Popper was an ENTj. His hyperactive Te (citing examples in every other sentence, etc. I talked about this before.) was too much for me.
    ENTj he probably was. I completely agree with that typing. Popper's style of writing and arguing is very easy for me to follow. It is lucid an clear in a way that is similar to Bertrand Russell's. And they both come across as somewhat naive and not deep and exact enough in some of their philosophical views. For example, Popper doesn't understand that his dualistic view on the mind-body problem cannot possibly be true.

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    Russel's longer books are completely unreadable. His cluttered style of writing reminds me of John Maynard Keynes.
    Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit

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    I can't take pooper seriously because singu used to fellate him.

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