POPPER'S "THIRD WORLD".

POPPER, K.R. & J. HINTIKKA.

[Popper:] Epistemology Without Knowing a Subject & [Hintikka:] The Varieties of Information and Scientific Explanation.

Amsterdam, North-Holland Publishing Company, 1968. 8vo. Original yellow full cloth with the original dust-jacket. In "Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Sciences III". Library stamp to pasted down front free end-paper. Dust-jacket with some wear and minor nicks, otherwise a fine and clean copy. Popper's paper: Pp. 333-373. Hintikka's paper: Pp. 311-331. [Entire volume: XII, (2), 553, (1)].

First edition of Popper's important work on "the third world", a significant part of the "Popperian Cosmology".
The present work, together with Popper's "On the Theory of the Objective Mind", also published in 1968, constitutes an important contribution to what is known as Popperian cosmology, in which Popper divides the world into three parts. "Epistemology Without a Knowing Subject" explores the third world.

"The main topic of this lecture will be what I often call, for want of a better name, "the third world". To explain this expression I will point out that, without taking the word "world" or "universe" too seriously, we may distinguish the following three worlds or universes; first, the world of physical objects or of physical states; secondly, the world of states of consciousness, or of mental states [...]; and thirdly the world of objective contents of thought, especially of scientific and poetic thoughts and of works of art.
Thus what I call "the third world" has admittedly much in common with Plato's theory of forms or ideas, and therefore also with Hegel's objective spirit, though my theory differs radically, in some decisive respects. It has more in common still with Bolzano's theory of a universe of propositions in themselves and of truth in themselves, though it differs from Bolzano's also. My third world resembles most closely the universe of Frege's objective contents of thought." (Popper, Karl. Epistemology Without a Knowing Subject, pp. (333)).

"In "Epistemology Without a Knowing Subject" Popper offers a "biological" argument for doubting that minds and bodies exhaust all the entities inhabiting the human world. Not only is man a conscious animal, he is also a being whose communicative capacity has evolved to the point of being able to describe and criticize his encounters with the world" (Fuller, Steve. Social Epistemology, Indiana University Press, 1988, p. 51).

Karl Popper still exercises extensive influence on a variety of different thinkers, scholars and economists. The billionaire investor George Soros claims that his investment strategies are modeled upon Popper's understanding of the advancement of knowledge through the distinctly Hegelian idea of falsification.

Order-nr.: 43150