POPPER, Karl R. The Logic of Scientific Discovery.

POPPER, Karl R. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchinson. 1959.

8vo. Publisher’s grey cloth with gilt red lettering-piece to spine, top-edge stained red, pale green endpapers, publisher’s dust-jacket printed in red with printed price of 50s to front flap; pp. 479, [1]; spine of jacket sunned, slight discolouration and spotting to rear cover; slight spotting to fore-edge of textblock; otherwise near fine.

First edition in English, first printing of Popper’s self-translation of his 1934 Logik der Forschung, one of the most important works of logic of the twentieth century, containing previously unpublished new material and one hundred and fifty pages of new appendices.

Popper’s central argument is that science should progress along a methodology of falsification as, while no experiment can ever prove a theory definitively, it can easily disprove one. He also argues that the only true knowledge is scientific, empirical truth. Popper’s belief that human knowledge is fallible would later extend beyond science and into the political realm. The principles expounded in this book led him to criticise many, including Marxists, for continuing to follow an empirical theory that had failed in practice (The Poverty of Historicism, 1944).

This edition is dedicated to Popper’s wife, Josefine Anna Henninger, a crucial supporter of his work who was ‘responsible for the revival of this book’ (p. 5). The final appendix, included here for the first time, ‘reproduces a letter from Albert Einstein commenting upon Heisenberg’s interpretation of quantum theory and expanding the imaginary experiment of Einstein, Podolski, and Rosen’ (jacket), the letter reproduced in both transcription and facsimile.

SKU: 2123761