Description (podcaster-provided):
Interviewing academics, professionals and other experts, The Popperian Podcast is a monthly podcast where Jed Lea-Henry looks into the philosophy and life of Karl Popper.
Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Karl Popper’s philosophy • critical rationalism, falsificationism, demarcation problem • pancritical rationalism and W.W. Bartley • Popper’s debates with Kuhn, Feyerabend, Wittgenstein • open society, tolerance, liberalism • science: evolution, quantum foundations, medicine
This podcast is a monthly interview and discussion series centered on the philosophy and life of Karl Popper. Across its episodes it returns repeatedly to Popper’s critical rationalism: the idea that knowledge grows through conjectures, criticism, and error-correction rather than through appeals to authority or final justification. A recurring focus is Popper’s account of scientific method, especially falsifiability, fallibilism, and the demarcation problem of distinguishing science from pseudoscience. Discussions often probe the limits of Popper’s anti-inductivism and explore whether inductive reasoning reappears elsewhere in scientific practice.
The show also places Popper in dialogue with major figures in twentieth-century philosophy of science and beyond, including Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, and the Vienna Circle. Several conversations examine how philosophical disputes shaped public understandings of science, and how historical episodes—both intellectual and political—illuminate tensions between rational inquiry and ideological commitment.
A prominent theme is William W.W. Bartley’s attempt to revise Popper’s critical rationalism into “pancritical rationalism,” along with debates about whether Popper’s view leaves room for fideism or irrationalism. Parts of the podcast take a close, text-driven approach to Bartley’s work, including detailed engagement with appendices, objections, and alleged paradoxes surrounding the criticizability of rationalism itself.
The podcast frequently extends Popperian ideas into broader domains: constitutional democracy and public choice; education for science and democratic citizenship; free speech, tolerance, and the institutional conditions for productive disagreement; and questions about the “open society,” totalitarian temptations, and political culture in different contexts. It also connects Popper’s outlook to specific scientific topics—such as evolutionary theory and the foundations of quantum mechanics—highlighting how Popper’s assessments changed over time and where later scholarship judges him insightful or mistaken.
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Episodes:
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#52 – W.W. Bartley and his Critics
2025-Sep-14
39 minutes
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#51 – The Retreat to Commitment by W.W. Bartley, Appendix 5 and 6
2025-Aug-10
31 minutes
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#50 – The Retreat to Commitment by W.W. Bartley, Appendix 4 – Part 3
2025-Jul-13
29 minutes
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#49 – The Retreat to Commitment by W.W. Bartley, Appendix 4 – Part 2
2025-Jul-06
29 minutes
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#48 – The Retreat to Commitment by W.W. Bartley, Appendix 4 – Part 1
2025-Jun-29
25 minutes
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#47 – The Retreat to Commitment by W.W. Bartley, Appendix 3
2025-May-20
19 minutes
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#46 – The Retreat to Commitment by W.W. Bartley, Appendix 2. Part 2
2025-Apr-20
39 minutes
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#45 – 'The Retreat to Commitment by W.W. Bartley, Appendix 2. Part 1'
2025-Apr-10
28 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #44 – 'The Retreat to Commitment by W.W. Bartley, Appendix 1'
2025-Mar-25
34 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #43 – 'The Retreat to Commitment by W.W. Bartley, Chapter 8'
2025-Feb-10
23 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #42 – 'The Retreat to Commitment by W.W. Bartley, Chapters 6 and 7'
2025-Jan-11
22 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #41 – 'The Retreat to Commitment by W.W. Bartley – Pancritical Rationalism, Ch 5, Part 2'
2024-Dec-19
29 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #40 – 'The Retreat to Commitment by W.W. Bartley – Pancritical Rationalism, Ch 5, Part 1'
2024-Dec-12
15 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #39 – 'The Retreat to Commitment by W.W. Bartley - Chapters 3 and 4'
2024-Dec-05
28 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #38 – 'The Retreat to Commitment by W.W. Bartley - Chapters 1 and 2'
2024-Nov-30
19 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #37 – Jagdish Hattiangadi – 'Francis Bacon's Skeptical Recipes for New Knowledge'
2024-Jul-27
87 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #36 – James Kierstead – 'Education for Science and Democracy'
2024-Jun-24
73 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #35 – David Edmonds – 'Murder in the Vienna Circle'
2024-May-29
59 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #34 – Elliott Sober and Mehmet Elgin – 'Karl Popper's Changing Assessment of Evolutionary Theory'
2024-May-06
73 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #33 – Flavio Del Santo – 'Karl Popper and the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics'
2024-Apr-28
75 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #32 – Seamus O'Mahony – 'Freud and Psychoanalysis - The Story of Science, Pseudoscience and Sex'
2023-Dec-14
81 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #31 – Dmytro Sepetyi – 'The Popper-Bartley Debate'
2023-Oct-27
68 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #30 – Jamie Shaw– 'Paul Feyerabend, Anything Goes'
2023-Sep-17
83 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #29 – Rafe Champion – 'Jacques Barzun'
2023-Aug-27
76 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #28 – Nicholas Maxwell – 'Our Fundamental Problem'
2023-Jul-30
124 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #27 – Jagdish Hattiangadi – 'The Structure of Problems'
2023-Jun-11
86 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #26 – Michael Munger – 'The Calculus of Consent'
2023-May-07
77 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #25 – Donald Gillies – 'The Philosophy of Medical Discovery'
2023-Mar-26
89 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #24 – Nimrod Bar-Am – 'The Life and Philosophy of Joseph Agassi'
2023-Feb-12
85 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #23 – Paul Levinson – 'W.W. Bartley and Pancritical Rationalism'
2022-Dec-04
100 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #22 – Elyse Hargreaves – 'The Open Society and Its Enemies, and Happiness'
2022-Nov-13
84 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #21 – James Kierstead – 'The Paradox of Tolerance'
2022-Sep-30
64 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #20 – Susan Blackmore – 'Memes - Rational, Irrational, Anti-Rational'
2022-Aug-14
66 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #19 – Joseph Agassi – 'Rules of the Game'
2022-Jul-31
105 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #18 – Joseph Agassi – 'Karl Popper's Hopeful Monsters'
2022-Jun-29
88 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #17 – Rafe Champion – 'Karl Popper's Social Turn'
2022-May-06
89 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #16 – Michael Ignatieff – 'Finding Consolation in Truth'
2022-Feb-06
63 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #15 – Jagdish Hattiangadi – 'Defending Baconian Induction'
2022-Jan-24
97 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #14 – Anthony O'Hear – 'Whiffs of Induction'
2021-Dec-20
96 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #13 – Ken Gemes – 'Karl Popper vs. Friedrich Nietzsche'
2021-Oct-25
99 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #12 – Jonathan Rauch – 'The Constitution of Knowledge'
2021-Sep-01
85 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #11 – David Edmonds – 'Wittgenstein's Poker'
2021-Jul-28
65 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #10 – Richard Landes – 'Deutsch's Theory of the Pattern - The Widespread Compulsion to Legitimise Hurting Jews'
2021-Jun-25
83 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #9 – Jeremy Shearmur – 'Karl Popper, Friedrich Hayek and the Future of Liberalism'
2021-Jun-14
106 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #8 – James Kierstead – 'New Zealand and the Authoritarianism of Plato'
2021-May-31
76 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #7 – Oseni Taiwo Afisi – 'Karl Popper and Africa'
2021-May-24
88 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #6 – Steve Fuller – 'Karl Popper vs. Thomas Kuhn'
2021-Apr-11
94 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #5 – Maarten Boudry – 'Diagnosing Pseudoscience - Why the Demarcation Problem Matters'
2021-Mar-31
103 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #4 – Robin Attfield – 'Pre-echoes of Popper - Xenophanes and Parmenides'
2021-Feb-21
71 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #3 – Nicholas Maxwell – 'More Popperian than Popper'
2021-Jan-27
113 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #2 – Matteo Collodel – 'Karl Popper vs. Paul Feyerabend'
2021-Jan-05
96 minutes
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The Popperian Podcast #1 – David Deutsch – 'Karl Popper and the Beginning of Infinity'
2020-Nov-29
91 minutes
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