Logique

1959 · réf. 508 — Large Octavo. Publisher's cloth & dustwrapper. First edition first printing of one of the most significant works on the philosophy of science. The Logic of Scientific Discovery was originally published in Germany in 1934 and Popper rewrote and republished it in English in 1959 with the New York edition preceding this much rarer UK edition. A fine copy in an unclipped slightly worn and faded very good dust wrapper. Small inscription on the front pastedown of David Keyt 1930-2025 Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Washington University Seattle. The book is mostly unopened and looks mostly unread. A very nice copy. Popper argues that science should adopt a methodology based on falsifiability because no number of experiments can ever prove a theory but a reproducible experiment or observation can refute one. According to Popper: "non-reproducible single occurrences are of no significance to science. Thus a few stray basic statements contradicting a theory will hardly induce us to reject it as falsified. We shall take it as falsified only if we discover a reproducible effect which refutes the theory". Popper argues that science should adopt a methodology based on "an asymmetry verifiability and falsifiability; an asymmetry which results from the logical form of universal statements. For these are never derivable from singular statements but can be contradicted by singular statements". Hutchinson hardcover