At the age of eight, Karl Popper was puzzling over the idea of infinity and by fifteen was beginning to take a keen interest in his father's well-stocked library of books. Unended Quest recounts these moments and many others in the life of one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, providing an indispensable account of the ideas that influenced him most. As an introduction to Popper's philosophy, Unended Quest also shines. Popper lucidly explains the central ideas in his work, making this book ideal for anyone coming to Popper's life and work for the first time.

This book is devoted to the work of Robert A. Dahl, who passed away in 2014. Dahl was one of the most important American political scientists and normative democratic theorists of the post-war era, and he was also an influential teacher who mentored some of the most significant academics of the next two generations of American political science. As an incredibly productive scholar he had a career that spanned more than half a century, his first book was published in 1950 his last was in 2007 at the age of 92. As a political scientist, he was respected even by those who were critical of his works. This theoretical significance and profound influence is reflected in the collection of chapters in this volume, which reads like a ‘who’s who’ of the contemporary US political science scene. His co-author Bruce Stinebrickner documents the evolution of his and Dahl’s seminal text, Modern Political Analysis and how it became the standard introduction to American political science for nearly fifty years. Katharine MacKinnon’s chapter is of significance for its insights upon Dahl and also represents a succinct statement of a feminist reading and critique of contemporary political science. Steven Lukes contributes a highly concise statement of the difference between one-dimensional and three-dimensional power. This work will be a standard reference work for any researchers or those interested in the work of Robert Dahl, among both established academics and students. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Political Power.

First ed. published in 1974 as vol. 2 of The Philosophy of Karl Popper, Open Court, La Salle, Ill. Includes index. Bibliography: p. [240]-247. Omniscience and fallibility -- Childhood memories -- Early influences -- The First World War -- An early philosophic problem: infinity -- My first philosophical failure: the problem of essentialism -- A long digression concerning essentialism: what still divides me from most contemporary philosophers -- A crucial year: Marxism; science and pseudoscience -- Early studies -- A second digression: dogmatic and critical thinking; learning without induction -- Music -- Speculations about the rise of polyphonic music: psychology of discovery or logic of discovery? -- Two kinds of music -- Progressivism in art, especially in music -- Last years at the university -- Theory of knowledge: Logik der Forschung -- Who killed logical positivism? -- Realism and quantum theory -- Objectivity and physics -- Truth; probability; corroboration -- The approaching war; the Jewish problem -- Emigration: England and New Zealand -- Early work in New Zealand -- The open society and The poverty of historicism --Other work in New Zealand -- England: at the London School of Economics and Political Science -- Early work in England -- First visit to the United States. Meeting Einstein -- Problems and theories -- Debates with Schr©·odInger -- Objectivity and criticism -- Induction; deduction; objective truth -- Metaphysical research programmes -- Fighting subjectivism in physics: quantum mechanics and propensity -- Boltzmann and the arrow of time -- The subjectivist theory of entropy -- Darwinism as a metaphysical research programme -- World 3 or the third world -- The body-mind problem and world 3 -- The place of values in a world of facts.

'Never before has there been so many and such dreadful weapons in so many irresponsible hands.' - Karl Popper, from the Preface All Life is Problem Solving is a stimulating and provocative selection of Popper's writings on his main preoccupations during the last twenty-five years of his life. This collection illuminates Popper's process of working out key formulations in his theory of science, and indicates his view of the state of the world at the end of the Cold War and after the collapse of communism.

The Political Thought of Karl Popper offers a controversial treatment of Popper's ideas about politics, informed by Shearmur's personal knowledge of Popper together with research on unpublished material in the Popper archive at the Hoover Institute. While sympathetic to Popper's overall approach, Shearmur offers criticism of some of his ideas and suggests that political conclusions should be drawn from Popper's ideas which differ from Popper's own views. Shearmur introduces Popper's political ideas by way of a discussion of their development, which draws upon archive material. He then offers a critical survey of some of the themes from his Open Society and Poverty of Historicism, and discusses the political significance of some of his later philosophical ideas. Wider themes within Popper's philosophy are drawn on to offer striking critical re-interpretations of his ethical ideas and social theory. The book concludes with a discussion which suggests that Popper's views should have been closer to classical liberalism than they in fact were.