Three Views Concerning Human Knowledge

PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE IN VENUE This week we'll turn our attention to *Three Views Concerning Human Knowledge*; an essay by Karl Popper in which he explores three competing understandings of what science tells us about the world: essentialism, instrumentalism, and his own realist view. Are scientific theories descriptions of reality, merely useful tools for making predictions, or attempts to discover the underlying nature of things? Popper argues that science aims at objective truth, even though our theories remain provisional and open to criticism. This session we'll discuss sections 1 through 3 inclusive (that's *The Science of Galileo and Its Most Recent Betrayal, The Issue at Stake,* and *The First View: Ultimate Explanation by Essences*). The essay can be found in the book Conjectures and Refutations. Please read the material before attending. If this is your first time attending we meet in The Hansom in St Pancras International, look for people with copies of Conjectures and Refutations.