Encouraging Openness

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

   PDF

2. Reflections on Rationalism as a Tradition and a Choice

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Why Don’t Scientists Respect Philosophers?

      • Mario Bunge

      Pages 3-12

   3. Evaluative Selection in Multimerit Situations

      • Nicholas Rescher

      Pages 13-17

   4. Joseph Agassi from Metaphysics to Politics

      • Christopher R. Donohue

      Pages 19-26

   5. Horror Dogmatis

      • Zuzana Parusniková

      Pages 27-39

   6. Comprehensively Critical Metapolitics

      • Michael Chiariello

      Pages 41-52

   7. Feng Shui: An Overlooked Topic for Critical Rationalists

      • Michael R. Matthews

      Pages 53-67

3. The Sceptic Quest for a Sensible World

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 69-69

      PDF

   2. Verisimilitude: Why and How

      • Ilkka Niiniluoto

      Pages 71-79

   3. The Story of the German Translation of Tarski’s Book on Truth

      • Jan Woleński

      Pages 81-90

   4. Two Philosophical Contributions to Modern Physics

      • Jagdish Hattiangadi

      Pages 91-103

   5. Lessons from the Philosophy of Science to Data Mining and Vice Versa

      • Abraham Meidan

      Pages 105-111

   6. The Mystique of Computer Technology and the Waning of Critical Enquiry

      • Sheldon Richmond

      Pages 113-127

   7. Francis Bacon, Karl Popper, Michael Polanyi, and Modern Experimental Biology

      • Ute Deichmann

      Pages 129-142

   8. Ebola in West Africa: Biosocial and Biomedical Reflections

      • Daniel B. Cohen

      Pages 143-164

4. Making Sense of a Changing Past: History and Historiography

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 165-165

      PDF

   2. Jacob & Esau Today: The End of a Two Millennia Paradigm?

      • Malachi H. Hacohen

      Pages 167-190

   3. Charity, Logic, and Para-Clericalism: Rereading Agassi on Koestler on Galileo

      • Maurice A. Finocchiaro

      Pages 191-206

   4. What Is the Problem? Understanding the History of Ideas

      • William Berkson

      Pages 207-214

This volume features forty-two essays written in honor of Joseph Agassi. It explores the work and legacy of this influential philosopher, an exciting and challenging advocate of critical rationalism. Throughout six decades of stupendous intellectual activity, Agassi called attention to rationality as the very starting point of every notable philosophical way of life.


The essays present Agassi’s own views on critical rationalism. They also develop and expand upon his work in new and provocative ways. The authors include Agassi's most notable pupils, friends, and colleagues. Overall, their contributions challenge the received view on a variety of issues concerning science, religion, and education.


Readers will find well-reasoned arguments on such topics as the secular problem of evil, religion and critical thinking, liberal democratic educational communities, democracy and constitutionalism, and capitalism at a crossroad.
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To Joseph Agassi, philosophy is the practice of reason, where reason is understood as the relentless search for criticisms of the best available explanations that we have to the world around us. This book not only honors one of the most original philosophers of science today. It also offers readers insights into a school of thought that lies at the heart of philosophy.

• Critical Rationalism
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Economics
• History of Ideas
• Education and Religion
• Philosophy of Technology
• Philosophy of Social Science
• Logical Extremism
• Karl Popper
• educational communities
• Secular Problem of Evil

“I fully recommend this book to those interested in Agassi’s philosophy, in twentieth- century philosophy of science, or in historical, sociological, and political approaches to science studies. … I can confirm that the book nicely illustrates Agassi’s optimistic stance on philosophical reflection on the sciences, along with the tolerance and impartiality that characterizes Agassi’s academic writings and life.” (Cristian Soto, Metascience, Vol. 28 (3), November, 2019)

• Communication and Mass Media Department, Sapir College, Shaar Hanegev, Israel

  Nimrod Bar-Am

• California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA

  Stefano Gattei

Nimrod Bar-Am is a philosopher of science specializing in logic and communication. He is currently a senior lecturer at the communication department, Sapir College. He studies the history of scientific method in general and methodological challenges within the social sciences in particular. His most recent publication is In Search of a Simple Introduction to Communication (Springer 2016). He was Joseph Agassi's research assistant (1993-1998), and published a couple of peer-reviewed papers with him.


Stefano Gattei is a philosopher and historian of science, currently Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at the University of Edinburgh and Eleanor Searle Visiting Professor in History at the California Institute of Technology. He worked extensively on key issues and authors of contemporary philosophy of science, as well as on the history of early modern astronomy and cosmology. Most recently, he co-edited, with Joseph Agassi, the fourth volume ofPaul Feyerabend’s collected philosophical papers: Physics and Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015). His Early Biographies of Galileo is forthcoming with Princeton University Press; he is currently working on a book on Johannes Kepler and the role of engraved frontispieces and title-pages in the Scientific Revolution (under contract with Oxford University Press).

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