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 and life • critical rationalism, falsification, induction debates • W.W. Bartley and pancritical rationalism • open society, tolerance, liberalism • demarcation problem, pseudoscience • Popper’s views on evolution, quantum mechanics, historiography of science
This podcast is a monthly interview and discussion series focused on the philosophy and intellectual legacy of Karl Popper, often situating Popper’s ideas within broader debates in epistemology, philosophy of science, and political philosophy. Across the episodes, the host speaks with academics and other experts about core Popperian themes such as critical rationalism, falsifiability and the demarcation between science and pseudoscience, the problem of induction, and fallibilism as both a logical stance and a social practice embedded in institutions.
A major thread is Popper’s relationships and disputes with other major twentieth-century thinkers and traditions, including the Vienna Circle, Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, Friedrich Hayek, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as engagements with earlier figures like Francis Bacon and pre-Socratic philosophers. Several conversations examine how Popper assessed particular scientific domains—most notably evolutionary theory and the foundations of quantum mechanics—and how those assessments evolved.
The podcast also extends Popper’s epistemology into questions about liberal democracy and the “open society,” including free speech, tolerance, totalitarianism, and the institutional conditions for turning disagreement into knowledge. Some episodes connect these issues to contemporary concerns such as disinformation, conspiracy thinking, and the social credibility of science.
In addition to interviews, the feed includes a sustained, multi-part close reading of William W. Bartley’s *The Retreat to Commitment*, focusing on Bartley’s critique of Popper, the development of pancritical rationalism, and debates over whether comprehensive criticism can avoid paradox or hidden commitments.
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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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