On the issue of Nick Maxwell's views, I quote from a post of his on this list:
<<I confess that I am convinced by Popper's criticisms of Plato and
Aristotle. As I have always sought to make clear, my starting point is
Popper, and then, reinterpreting Popper as a contribution to the
Enlightenment Programme (as I understand that Programme), the Enlightenment.
Then influences become somewhat more open and diffuse - something I do
discuss in "From Knowledge to Wisdom".>>
I must say that, as one or two on this list may already know, I find Popper
a complete muddle. Ever since the In Our Time programe on Popper came on, me
and another regular contributor to a discussionlist associated with an
academic philosophy message board have been demolishing him, while a Popper
disciple has been trying to put his case. We get no sense of the
fundamentality of basic principles with Popper; Mach's hypothesis, for
example, is out of the picture as a contribution to science, and the
compatibility with Popper's falsification criterion of Darwinian theory is
extremely difficult, if not impossible, to rationalise.
Tom
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