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Through most of history, science & technology have experienced only brief fusions; their full synthesis is a product of the European Renaissance. The reasons for this innovation remain a crucial question for historians. The impact of this fusion of science & technology on modern societies is explored. The present is discontinuous with the past both because quantitative increases have brought qualitatively new phases of development into being, & because technological & social problems are now worldwide in scope. The result has been a series of failures of technology & science, with worldwide impact. Recent scientific developments with technological/social consequences of world significance include nuclear weapons, cybernetics, information technology, agricultural technology, biological engineering, birth control, mass communication, medical technology, polymer studies, the social system through which science produces knowledge, & resource exploitation. Technical elites are assuming power based on specialized competence, & their elite position is a source of political, social, & ideological threats to human societies. 1 Photograph, 1 Illustration. W. H. Stoddard.

In September 2007, more than 100 philosophers came to Prague with the determination to approach Karl Popper's philosophy as a source of inspiration in many areas of our intellectual endeavor. This volume is a result of that effort. Topics cover Popper's views on rationality, scientific methodology, the evolution of knowledge and democracy, and since Popper's philosophy has always had a strong interdisciplinary influence, part of the volume discusses the impact of his ideas in such areas as education, economics, psychology, biology, or ethics. The concept of falsification, the problem of demarcation, the ban on induction, or the role of the empirical basis, along with the provocative parallels between historicism, holism and totalitarianism, have always caused controversies. The aim of this volume is not to smooth them but show them as a challenge. In this time when the traditional role of reason in the Western thought is being undermined, Popper's non-foundationist model of reason brings the Enlightenment message into a new perspective. Popper believed that the open society was vulnerable, due precisely to its tolerance of otherness. This is a matter of great urgency in the modern world, as cultures based on different values gain prominence. The processes related to the extending of the EU, or the increasing economic globalization also raise questions about openness and democracy. The volume's aim is to show the vitality of critical rationalism in addressing and responding to the problems of this time and this world.

Preface / Carol C. Gould -- Marxology / Robert S. Cohen -- Art -- Institutional Blessing: The Museum as Canon- Maker -- "Suddenly One Has The Right Eyes": Illusion and Iconoclasm in the Early Gombrich -- Danto, Dutton, and our Preunderstanding of Tribal Art and Artifacts -- In Defense of Musical Representation: Music, Representation and the Hybrid Arts -- Two Vignettes in the History of the Mensuration of Value -- Irony, Ltd., and the Future of Art -- A Genealogy of 'Aura': Walter Benjamin's Idea of Beauty -- Science -- Analysis and Synthesis According to Ibn al-Haytham -- Changes in the Concepts of Space and Time Brought about by Relativity -- Philosophy and Its History -- Hegel and the Doctrine of Expressivism -- Translating Feuerbach -- Is the Enlightenment Over? -- Realism -- An Anatomy of Wittgenstein's Picture Theory -- Rationality and Commitment -- The Theses on Feuerbach: A Road not Taken -- Donald Davidson's Philosophical Strategies -- Time and Conscious Experience -- Ten Philosophical Poems -- Politics and Praxis -- The Philosophy of Optimism and Pessimism -- Life is not a Poem? -- Levinas, Feminism, Holocaust, Ecocide -- Marx After Marxism -- The Good and the Rational -- The End of a Metaphor: The Base and the Superstructure -- The Marxian Vision of a (Better) Possible Future: End of a Grand Illusion? -- On the Communicative Dimension of Social Practice -- The Bread of Faithful Speech -- Unsafe at Any Depth: Geological Methods, Subjective Judgments, and Nuclear Waste Disposal -- Community and Difference: Reflections in the Wake of Rodney King -- Partisanship, Universalism, and the Dialectics of Moral Consciousness -- NAME INDEX.

III: An Indeterministic Theory of Time -- I. Philosophical Interpretations of Quantum Physics -- II. The Problem of Causality in an Indeterministic Science -- III. Relativity and the Atom -- IV. Laws of Nature and Time's Arrow -- V. The Symmetry of Time and the Branch Hypothesis -- IV: Universal Aspects of Time -- I. The Measurement of Time -- II. The Ontological Status of Time -- III. The Reality of Time -- IV. The Causal Nature of Time -- V. The Symmetry of Time -- VI. The Psychology of Time -- Conclusion -- Bibliography of Works Cited In Volumes One and Two -- Bibliography Of Writings Of Henry Mehlberg -- Index Of Names To Volumes One And Two.

This volume contains the English translation of Felix Kaufmann's main work Methodenlehre der Sozialwissenschaften, which develops a general theory of knowledge of the social sciences. It also presents a historical and theoretical background of his work.