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 • pancritical rationalism and W.W. Bartley • science methodology debates • open society, liberalism, tolerance • Popper on evolution, quantum mechanics • pseudoscience, psychoanalysis, conspiracy claims
This podcast is a long-form, interview-driven series focused on the philosophy and intellectual legacy of Karl Popper, often using conversations with academics and other specialists to explore how Popper’s ideas connect to debates in philosophy of science, politics, and public life. A recurring concern is Popper’s critical rationalism and the related question of what distinguishes scientific inquiry from pseudoscience, with frequent attention to falsifiability, fallibilism, and how criticism functions in the growth of knowledge.
Across the episodes, listeners encounter sustained engagement with Popper’s major interlocutors and rival traditions, including logical positivism and the Vienna Circle, Thomas Kuhn’s view of scientific change, Paul Feyerabend’s epistemological anarchism, and challenges involving induction. Several discussions broaden Popperian themes into adjacent domains such as evolutionary theory, quantum foundations, medicine and medical discovery, and the role of metaphysical assumptions in scientific practice.
The podcast also emphasizes Popper’s political philosophy, especially themes from *The Open Society and Its Enemies*: the dangers of authoritarianism and totalitarian thinking, the “paradox of tolerance,” freedom of speech, and the institutional and social conditions under which objectivity and error-correction can occur. Some conversations apply these ideas to contemporary concerns such as disinformation, democratic norms, and the organization of knowledge in public institutions.
A substantial portion of the feed is devoted to detailed, multi-part treatment of William W.W. Bartley’s work—especially pancritical rationalism and disputes about whether Popper’s framework leaves room for “commitment,” irrationalism, or fideism—along with examination of criticisms and alleged paradoxes within those debates.
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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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