John Wettersten
Biographic Data
| ID | 291932 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John Wettersten |
| GIVEN NAMES | John |
| FAMILY NAME | Wettersten |
| SIGNATURE | WETTERSTEN J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Mannheim |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 31 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 37 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1974 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Blocking Progress to Save Economic Imperialism
Popper’s philosophy of science and economic imperialism are “correctly” formulated. Popper’s philosophy contrasts with the author’s interpretation. The reliance on situational analysis is dubious; one needs to break with it. Three tasks are bringing Popper’s theory in conformity with scientific research and practices of social scientists and explaining how Popper could have endorsed a theory of how institutions function. The description of proble…
One Step Forward From Agassi’s Inquiries on Logic
Critical rationalists cannot reconcile their falibilism with the demand of logic for universality. Popper tried, but failed, to achieve universality in logic without proof. Attempts to find a limited approach to logic as ‘logics of’ have failed to find a coherent critical rationalist alternative. Critical rationalists take Tarski’s logic to be the best of logic today. But Tarski renders logic as close to justification, and thereby universality, a…
How to Integrate Economic, Social, and Political Theory
The Würzburg School today
Research in cognitive psychology has been by and large dominated by attempts to explain how psychological processes can be explained as products of biological ones; these processes are presumed to be causal. These theories fail to account for and be integrated with theories of non-causal mental activities. In order to bridge this gap a new theory of mental processes is needed. Karl Popper and John Eccles’s three world theory offers a promising pa…
How Do Institutions Steer Events?
Theories of explanation in the social sciences vacillate between holism and individualism. Wettersten contends that this has been a consequence of theories of rationality which assume that rationality requires coherent theories to be shown to be true. Rejecting these traditional assumptions about rationality Wettersten claims that the traditional explanations of rationality have placed unrealistic demands on both individuals and institutions. Ana…
From Selz to Gigerenzer
Two sharply separated traditions in the philosophy of science and in thought psychology began with Otto Selz’s psychology. The first tradition began with Karl Popper; it has been developed by many others. The developers of the second tradition have included Julius Bahle, Adriaan de Groot, Herbert Simon, and Gerd Gigerenzer. The first tradition has ignored empirical studies of thought processes. The second tradition is widely based on Simon’s indu…
The Roles that Otto Selz and Karl Popper Played in 20th-Century Psychology and Philosophy of Science
The early research of Karl Popper both in psychology and in philosophy of science is described; its basis for his later breakthroughs in the philosophy of science is explained. His debt to Otto Selz’s thought psychology is thereby detailed. Otto Selz’s philosophy of science is then explained, and its conflict with Popper’s early as well as his later views is portrayed. These studies of the conflicting views of Popper’s early views and Selz’s phil…
Critical rationalists much too narrow contribution to Der Positivismusstreit
The very dubious results of Der Positivismusstreit are explained as consequences of a methodological breakdown between two schools. But this debate is nevertheless relevant for today's discussions due to its historical role in setting today's framework. The methodological breakdown between the schools is overcome to a partial degree by presuming some overlap in methods. The misunderstandings of the past are set in today's context, where critical …
Reply to Tuomela’s Reply to My Reply
Beyond Methodological Individualism
Standard versions of the sociology of rational practice assume justificationist theories of rationality: all rational beliefs are justified and rational individuals do not believe any non-justified statements. This theory appears to some to offer the possiblity of finding "deeper" insights into social behavior: some actions presented by actors as "rational" can, in fact, be explained as non-justified and, therefore, as mere consequences of presti…
Reply to Tuomela
Raimo Tuomola has complained that my critical review of his The Philosophy of Sociality is superficial, that I have not presented, even that I have misrepresented his work, and that I have neglected its virtues, which others have praised. I reject his complaint about the content of my review as unwarranted in an open society, as he demands that I take his work on his own terms. I defend my view of the place of his work in the analytic tradition, …
Popper's Theory of the Closed Society Conflicts with His Theory of Research
Popper's theory of the attraction of closed societies conflicts with his theory of research: the former sees rational thought as contrary to man's nature, whereas the latter sees it as an innate psychological process. This conflict arose because Popper developed a theory of the movement from the closed society—Heimat—to civilized society, which sees civilized society as a burden, before he adapted Selz's view of directed thought processes as prob…
Philosophical Anthropology Can Help Social Scientists Learn from Empirical Tests
Popper's theory of demarcation has set the standard of falsifiability for all sciences. But not all falsifiable theories are part of science and some tests of scientific theories are better than others. Popper's theory has led to the banning of metaphysical and/or philosophical anthropological theories from science. But Joseph Agassi has supplemented Popper's theory to explain how such theories are useful as research programs within science. This…
Essay Review of The Republic of Science
I. C. Jarvie interprets Popper's philosophy of science as a theory of the institution of science, explains how the social aspect of his theory developed, and suggests that an updated version of Popper's social theory should be used to study both scientific and nonscientific societies today. Although (1) Jarvie's description of the emergence of Popper's theory suffers because he takes no account Popper's research conducted before Logik der Forschu…
New Insights on Young Popper
New Insights on Young Popper John R. Wettersten Seven essays that Popper wrote from 1925 to 1932–33 show Popper's transition from a fresh student of pedagogy into a serious philosopher of science ten years later. His first essay was published in 1925, and in 1934–35 he presented a revolutionary philosophy. These essays led first to Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie (written between 1930 and 1933 but first published in 1979) and culmi…
Searching for the Holy in the Ascent of Imre Lakatos
Bernard Lavor and John Kadvany argue that Lakatos’s Hegelian approach to the philosophy of mathematics and science enabled him to overcome all competing philosophies. His use of the approach Hegel developed in his Phenomenology enabled him to show how mathematics and science develop, how they are open-ended, and that they are not subject to rules, even though their rationality may be understood after the fact. Hegel showed Lakatos how to falsify …
Problems and Meaning Today
Philosophers have tried to explain how science finds the truth by using new developments in logic to study scientific language and inference. R. G. Collingwood argued that only a logic of problems could take context into account. He was ignored, but the need to reconcile secure meanings with changes in context and meanings was seen by Karl Popper, W. v. O. Quine, and Mario Bunge. Jagdish Hattiangadi uses problems to reconcile the need for securit…
New Problems after Popper
How Can We Increase the Fruitfulness of Popper’s Methodological Individualism
Presentation du huitieme volume de l'ouvrage de M. Schmid intitule «Rationalite et formation de la theorie», consacre a «La philosophie de K. R. Popper et au rationalisme critique» (1996). Se proposant d'augmenter l'efficacite de l'individualisme methodologique de Popper pour les sciences sociales, l'A. defend quatre theses: 1) que celui-ci ne doit pas etre interprete de maniere reductionniste; 2) la conception de la rationalite des actions indiv…
Ernest Gellner
After Popper
Preliminary Report on Efforts of Psychologism to Gain Influence in Proper Epistemological, Methodological and Psychological Societies
Styles of Rationality
This article discusses the following: (i) The acceptability of diverse styles of rationality suggests replacing concern for uniqueness with that for coordination, (ii) Popper's lowering of the standard of rationality increases its scope insufficiently, (iii) Bartley's making the standard comprehensive increases its scope excessively, (iv) the pluralist view of rationality as partial (i.e., of Jarvie and Agassi) is better, but its ranking of all r…
William Whewell
The question whether attempts to vindicate induction should be abandoned in favor of (other) problems of rationality is pressing and difficult. How may we decide rationally when standards for rationality are at issue? It may be useful to first know how we have decided in the past. Whewell's philosophy of science and the reaction to it are discussed. Whewell's contemporaries mistakenly thought that only an inductivist research program could produc…
Rethinking Whewell
The nineteenth-century appraisal of Whewell's philosophy as confused, eclectic, and metaphysical is still dominant today. Yet he keeps reappearing on the agenda of the historians and philosophers of science. Why? Whewell continues to be a puzzle. Historians evade the puzzle by deeming him to have had no serious philosophy but some interesting ideas and/or to have been socially important. Menachim Fisch's recent study offers promise of a new appra…
New Insights on Young Popper
New Insights on Young Popper John R. Wettersten Seven essays that Popper wrote from 1925 to 1932–33 show Popper's transition from a fresh student of pedagogy into a serious philosopher of science ten years later. His first essay was published in 1925, and in 1934–35 he presented a revolutionary philosophy. These essays led first to Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie (written between 1930 and 1933 but first published in 1979) and culmi…
Beyond Methodological Individualism
Standard versions of the sociology of rational practice assume justificationist theories of rationality: all rational beliefs are justified and rational individuals do not believe any non-justified statements. This theory appears to some to offer the possiblity of finding "deeper" insights into social behavior: some actions presented by actors as "rational" can, in fact, be explained as non-justified and, therefore, as mere consequences of presti…
Reply to Tuomela
Raimo Tuomola has complained that my critical review of his The Philosophy of Sociality is superficial, that I have not presented, even that I have misrepresented his work, and that I have neglected its virtues, which others have praised. I reject his complaint about the content of my review as unwarranted in an open society, as he demands that I take his work on his own terms. I defend my view of the place of his work in the analytic tradition, …
William Whewell
The question whether attempts to vindicate induction should be abandoned in favor of (other) problems of rationality is pressing and difficult. How may we decide rationally when standards for rationality are at issue? It may be useful to first know how we have decided in the past. Whewell's philosophy of science and the reaction to it are discussed. Whewell's contemporaries mistakenly thought that only an inductivist research program could produc…
The Road through Würzburg, Vienna and Göttingen
Philosophical Anthropology Can Help Social Scientists Learn from Empirical Tests
Popper's theory of demarcation has set the standard of falsifiability for all sciences. But not all falsifiable theories are part of science and some tests of scientific theories are better than others. Popper's theory has led to the banning of metaphysical and/or philosophical anthropological theories from science. But Joseph Agassi has supplemented Popper's theory to explain how such theories are useful as research programs within science. This…
Styles of Rationality
This article discusses the following: (i) The acceptability of diverse styles of rationality suggests replacing concern for uniqueness with that for coordination, (ii) Popper's lowering of the standard of rationality increases its scope insufficiently, (iii) Bartley's making the standard comprehensive increases its scope excessively, (iv) the pluralist view of rationality as partial (i.e., of Jarvie and Agassi) is better, but its ranking of all r…
The Sociology of Scientific Establishments Today
Analyse du role de la methodologie dans l'apprehension des problemes sociologiques et plus generalement dans le perfectionnement de la sociologie de la science. Principe du developpement necessaire d'une relation reciproque entre methodologie et sociologie de la science pour le benefice de chacune. Approche de la division qui existe entre les methodologistes et les sociologistes et etude des notions d'independance et d'integration de la sociologi…
On conservative and adventurous styles of scientific research
Methods in Psychology; A Critical Case Study of Pavlov
Popper's Theory of the Closed Society Conflicts with His Theory of Research
Popper's theory of the attraction of closed societies conflicts with his theory of research: the former sees rational thought as contrary to man's nature, whereas the latter sees it as an innate psychological process. This conflict arose because Popper developed a theory of the movement from the closed society—Heimat—to civilized society, which sees civilized society as a burden, before he adapted Selz's view of directed thought processes as prob…
Problems and Meaning Today
Philosophers have tried to explain how science finds the truth by using new developments in logic to study scientific language and inference. R. G. Collingwood argued that only a logic of problems could take context into account. He was ignored, but the need to reconcile secure meanings with changes in context and meanings was seen by Karl Popper, W. v. O. Quine, and Mario Bunge. Jagdish Hattiangadi uses problems to reconcile the need for securit…
Rethinking Whewell
The nineteenth-century appraisal of Whewell's philosophy as confused, eclectic, and metaphysical is still dominant today. Yet he keeps reappearing on the agenda of the historians and philosophers of science. Why? Whewell continues to be a puzzle. Historians evade the puzzle by deeming him to have had no serious philosophy but some interesting ideas and/or to have been socially important. Menachim Fisch's recent study offers promise of a new appra…
The Sociology of Knowledge vs. The Sociology of Science
Towards a Rational Anthropology
Methods in Psychology; A Critical Case Study of Pavlov
Good's compromise
The historigraphy of scientific psychology
Response to Littman
Tasks Without Purpose
On two non-justificationist moves
Towards a Rational Anthropology
The Sociology of Knowledge vs. The Sociology of Science
The Road through Würzburg, Vienna and Göttingen
On conservative and adventurous styles of scientific research
The Roots of Critical Rationalism
Rethinking Whewell
The nineteenth-century appraisal of Whewell's philosophy as confused, eclectic, and metaphysical is still dominant today. Yet he keeps reappearing on the agenda of the historians and philosophers of science. Why? Whewell continues to be a puzzle. Historians evade the puzzle by deeming him to have had no serious philosophy but some interesting ideas and/or to have been socially important. Menachim Fisch's recent study offers promise of a new appra…
The Sociology of Scientific Establishments Today
Analyse du role de la methodologie dans l'apprehension des problemes sociologiques et plus generalement dans le perfectionnement de la sociologie de la science. Principe du developpement necessaire d'une relation reciproque entre methodologie et sociologie de la science pour le benefice de chacune. Approche de la division qui existe entre les methodologistes et les sociologistes et etude des notions d'independance et d'integration de la sociologi…
William Whewell
The question whether attempts to vindicate induction should be abandoned in favor of (other) problems of rationality is pressing and difficult. How may we decide rationally when standards for rationality are at issue? It may be useful to first know how we have decided in the past. Whewell's philosophy of science and the reaction to it are discussed. Whewell's contemporaries mistakenly thought that only an inductivist research program could produc…
Preliminary Report on Efforts of Psychologism to Gain Influence in Proper Epistemological, Methodological and Psychological Societies
Styles of Rationality
This article discusses the following: (i) The acceptability of diverse styles of rationality suggests replacing concern for uniqueness with that for coordination, (ii) Popper's lowering of the standard of rationality increases its scope insufficiently, (iii) Bartley's making the standard comprehensive increases its scope excessively, (iv) the pluralist view of rationality as partial (i.e., of Jarvie and Agassi) is better, but its ranking of all r…
Ernest Gellner
After Popper
New Problems after Popper
How Can We Increase the Fruitfulness of Popper’s Methodological Individualism
Presentation du huitieme volume de l'ouvrage de M. Schmid intitule «Rationalite et formation de la theorie», consacre a «La philosophie de K. R. Popper et au rationalisme critique» (1996). Se proposant d'augmenter l'efficacite de l'individualisme methodologique de Popper pour les sciences sociales, l'A. defend quatre theses: 1) que celui-ci ne doit pas etre interprete de maniere reductionniste; 2) la conception de la rationalite des actions indiv…
Problems and Meaning Today
Philosophers have tried to explain how science finds the truth by using new developments in logic to study scientific language and inference. R. G. Collingwood argued that only a logic of problems could take context into account. He was ignored, but the need to reconcile secure meanings with changes in context and meanings was seen by Karl Popper, W. v. O. Quine, and Mario Bunge. Jagdish Hattiangadi uses problems to reconcile the need for securit…
Searching for the Holy in the Ascent of Imre Lakatos
Bernard Lavor and John Kadvany argue that Lakatos’s Hegelian approach to the philosophy of mathematics and science enabled him to overcome all competing philosophies. His use of the approach Hegel developed in his Phenomenology enabled him to show how mathematics and science develop, how they are open-ended, and that they are not subject to rules, even though their rationality may be understood after the fact. Hegel showed Lakatos how to falsify …
New Insights on Young Popper
New Insights on Young Popper John R. Wettersten Seven essays that Popper wrote from 1925 to 1932–33 show Popper's transition from a fresh student of pedagogy into a serious philosopher of science ten years later. His first essay was published in 1925, and in 1934–35 he presented a revolutionary philosophy. These essays led first to Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie (written between 1930 and 1933 but first published in 1979) and culmi…
Essay Review of The Republic of Science
I. C. Jarvie interprets Popper's philosophy of science as a theory of the institution of science, explains how the social aspect of his theory developed, and suggests that an updated version of Popper's social theory should be used to study both scientific and nonscientific societies today. Although (1) Jarvie's description of the emergence of Popper's theory suffers because he takes no account Popper's research conducted before Logik der Forschu…
Popper's Theory of the Closed Society Conflicts with His Theory of Research
Popper's theory of the attraction of closed societies conflicts with his theory of research: the former sees rational thought as contrary to man's nature, whereas the latter sees it as an innate psychological process. This conflict arose because Popper developed a theory of the movement from the closed society—Heimat—to civilized society, which sees civilized society as a burden, before he adapted Selz's view of directed thought processes as prob…
Epistemology (31 works) · Philosophy (31 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Computer Science (14 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (10 works) · Philosophy of science (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Rationality (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Psychology (8 works)