Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Karl Popper’s philosophy and biography • critical rationalism, falsification, induction, demarcation/pseudoscience • W.W. Bartley and pancritical rationalism debates • Popper vs Kuhn/Feyerabend • open society, tolerance, liberalism, free speech • applications to science, medicine, evolution, quantum theory
This podcast is a monthly interview and discussion series focused on the philosophy and life of Karl Popper, drawing heavily on debates in 20th-century philosophy of science and political philosophy. Across the episodes, the host speaks with academics and other experts about Popper’s critical rationalism, especially the idea that knowledge grows through conjectures and criticism rather than justification or authority. Recurring attention is given to falsifiability and the demarcation problem—how (and whether) to distinguish science from pseudoscience—along with related questions about induction, fallibilism, and the role of metaphysical assumptions within scientific practice.
A substantial portion of the content traces Popper’s intellectual relationships and disputes with major figures such as Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, the Vienna Circle, and later Popperians, using these rivalries to explore competing pictures of scientific method, progress, and rationality. The podcast also spends significant time on William W. Bartley’s attempt to extend Popper’s project through pancritical rationalism, including detailed, close-reading style engagement with Bartley’s arguments and the criticisms they attracted.
Beyond methodology, this podcast connects Popperian themes to social and political questions: liberalism and the “open society,” free speech, the paradox of tolerance, institutional designs that support truth-seeking, and tensions between individual rights and collective traditions in different cultural contexts. Listeners can also expect excursions into adjacent topics—evolutionary theory, quantum foundations, psychoanalysis, and histories of key philosophical movements—used to illuminate Popper’s influence and the ongoing relevance of critical inquiry.
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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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