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Since Plato's allegory of the cave, light and the role of sight have been accorded a unique position in Western thought. More recently, however, this status has come under significant criticism from continental and feminist thought.Throughout Textures of Light, the tension between vision and touch is carefully and clearly explored to present a challenging interpretation of how these often antagonistic concepts can be combined to develop a new theory of the visual within philosophy. ... Read more

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Kapitel: Heinz Kimmerle, Bernhard Waldenfels, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Luce Irigaray, Jan Tinbergen, Jacqueline Cramer, Emanuel Moresco, Oscar Van Dillen, Valerie Frissen, Bernhard Van Praag, Paco Peña, Louk Hulsman, Anton C. Zijderveld, Hein Van de Geyn, Klaas de Vries, Nicolaas Wilhelmus Posthumus, Henri Theil, Willem Tanke, Peter-Jan Wagemans, Robin de Raaff. Aus Wikipedia. Nicht dargestellt. Auszug: Oscar Ignatius Joannes van Dillen (born 25 June 1958, in 's-Hertogenbosch) is a Dutch composer, conductor, and instrumentalist. Van Dillen studied North-Indian classical music (sitar, tabla, vocal) with Jamaluddin Bhartiya at the Tritantri School in Amsterdam and bansuri with Gurbachan Singh Sachdev at the Bansuri School of Music in Berkeley, California from 1977 to 1980, as well as classical and jazz flute at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam between 1982 and 1984. Here, he also received composition lessons from Misha Mengelberg. After studies of medieval and Renaissance music with Paul Van Nevel in Leuven (Belgium), he studied classical composition with, among others, Dick Raaymakers and Gilius van Bergeijk at the Koninklijk Conservatory in The Hague in 1990/1991 and with Klaas de Vries, Peter-Jan Wagemans and René Uijlenhoet at the Rotterdam Conservatory from 1996 to 2002. He also studied composition with Manfred Trojahn at the Robert Schumann College in Düsseldorf in 2001, where he also received lessons in conducting from Lutz Herbig. Van Dillen teaches World music composition as well as music theory in the jazz, pop and world music department at the Conservatory of Rotterdam. He lives in the same city. He is a member of Componisten 96, a closely restricted association for the promotion of composing in the Netherlands. He was the first chairperson of the Dutch Wikimedia Foundation and among its founders. From December 2006 to July 2007 he was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation. He is a foundin...http://booksllc.net/?l=de ... Read more

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"One of the most important documents of the twentieth century."
--Sir Peter Medewar, New Scientist
"One cannot help feeling that, if it had been originally translated as soon as it had been published, philosophy in this country might have been saved some detours. Professor Popper's thesis has that quality of greatness that, once see, it appears simple and almost obvious."
--Times Literary Supplement ... Read more

Customer Reviews (22)

good brain exercise
Points to consider when reading this book:

First, it is a book about logic and not about science. It was written nearly 80 years ago in response to the questions raised when the mechanistic Newtonian universe was seemingly turned upside down by the introduction of quantum mechanics, and in particular this is a response to the propagation of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. The question it addresses is: of what does our scientific knowledge logically consist? Note the key word, "logically."

Popper basically makes two arguments. One is that there is no inductive logic leading to scientific hypotheses. Again, note the word "logic." This does not mean that in formulating hypotheses scientists do not reason backwards from experience. Of course they do. We all know the famous examples of Newton's apple and Einstein's clock tower. What Popper means to point out is that there are no formal logical rules that govern such reasoning. In other words, there is nothing inherent in the apple that must of necessity lead to the laws of gravity, and nothing inherent in the clock tower that must of necessity lead to the theory of relativity. So why call it inductive logic? Better, argues Popper, to call it "psychologism." In other words, we don't really know what was going on in Newton's or Einstein's mind, but we do know that it was not formal logic.

His second argument is that scientific hypotheses can not be proved to be logically true. Again, note the word "logically." Logically, all we can do is falsify them, and that the wider the field of falsification is, the better they can be "corroborated." (Assuming, of course, that they are in fact not falsified). And that it is this "corroboration" that is the closest we can get to proof. In other words, a hypothesis can never be proved, only disproved, and that in the strictly logical sense, a hypothesis can never make a prediction about a singular occurrence, (much as we can not say that a six will necessarily show up on our first six rolls of the dice). Again, this does not mean that in the real world we do not or can not make scientific predictions. Indeed, if we did not, we would have no computers, no satellites, no automobiles, not much of anything really. It's just that in an infinite world, with an infinite number of occurrences, there is no way to logically - there's that magic word again - prove that in at least one case the scientific theories we use to underpin such technology will not fail.

Of course, Popper is a much deeper thinker than I am, and his arguments more profound, but that's the essence of it the way I see it, and so I guess it's up to you as to whether you are willing to read several hundred pages of this type of thinking. I was. If nothing else, it's good exercise for the brain.

Note: I just wanted to add that if you find yourself getting lost as you plow through this text -- I did myself more times than I care to admit -- don't give up but keep plodding ahead. Eventually you'll come back to familiar ground. And if all else fails, Popper does a very nice job of summing everything up in the final chapters.

Obtuse and confusing
I've been hearing about Popper and his epistemology of science for a long time, so I finally decided to read his masterwork. I am sorry to say but this has been a great disappointment. I am a practicing scientist who has a great appreciation for philosophy and epistemology, and consider myself generally favorably inclined to these kinds of books and topics. I was also hoping to gain a deeper understanding of my own discipline and in general how are the kinds of ideas that we come up in science structured and developed. I reflect a lot on those issues, especially when I feel like I am stuck with research and start to wonder about the deeper meaning of science as a human enterprise. Ideally, I would also like to read a book that can provide me with some sort of actionable insights into how to come up with new theories or new ways of looking at the world. Unfortunately, this book has not satisfied me on any of those levels. I found it to be obtuse without being profound. Popper tends to introduce a lot of technical superstructure that would supposedly shed some light on the way that scientific discoveries work. From the very beginning it was very hard for me to see the motivation for this technical superstructure (most of which was modeled on formal logic and early axiomatic probability theories). I was hoping, however, that as I read along the motivation for those technical tools would eventually become clear. In my opinion, that never happened. I feel that Popper has an uncanny ability to complicate and confuse even the simplest of scientific concepts. In the end I walked away from this book not knowing even what it main points were. I am afraid that other scientists would probably have even less of an appreciation for this work. It might have some value to pure philosophers, but on that account I am not competent to make judgment.

As recommended by F. A. Hayek
It was this work that the great economist F. A. Hayek had his students, one-by-one, promise to him they would read in order to acquire the requisite apprehension of the philosophy of science.It was only this way he felt they would have the ability to grasp the philosophy of social sciences.

Popper has loftier conceptions of the limitations of philosophy than most other modern philosophers.He believes philosophy should provide the rationale and touchstone for science.In this respect he is a throwback to the classical philosophers. He avoids the Cartesian statement with its implication of solipsism and thereby is able to ask the question of fundamental importance to modern science:what constitutes the proof of a theory?

The principle of causality is excluded from the sphere of science by Popper.He puts in its place an exhortation that we continue to search for a logical and casual scheme for the universe.He allows it to be said of a scientific theory only that it has not been proven false - yet. There is no ultimate truth that we can obtain, only theories that are less likely to be false.

Popper's style is quite smooth and readable. The book includes a letter to Popper from Albert Einstein which is reproduced in Einstein's own handwriting.

One should read this book if only to formulate clearly his objection to it.

Great Book
A scientist's must read.Very informative and thought provoking.It is a bit of a difficult read, but definitely helps in analyzing and creating scientific papers and studies.

Puts Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" to shame!
This is an amazing book which has taught me how to think better and more creatively as a scientist. There is a reason Popper has been remembered for his seemingly counterintuitive ideas, e.g., his ideas of falsification and rejection of induction. He is challenging but well worth the read. Popper's book is light-years better than Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which, despite its hype, says nothing new. ... Read more

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Luce Irigaray presents international, intercultural, intergenerational dialogues around her work in this collection of essays on Irigaray's work by an intergenerational, international range of contributors. Each paper is followed by questions from Irigaray and then a response by the author of the paper. ... Read more