Scientific Irrationalism: Origins of a Postmodern Cult Book

David Stove's book is irreverent which may not be a bad thing, but irreverence does not in itself lead us closer to the truth. I have long had an aversion to linguistic analysis when its goal seems to be to produce an increase in skepticism rather than a decrease in error. Even the original chapter titles, "Neutralising success words", "Sabotaging logical expressions" belong more to a popular book on straight and crooked thinking than a serious effort to analyse the substance of the arguments of Popper,and his opponents Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend.

It is a big call for David Stove to purport, in particular, that Karl Popper is an irrationalist and that he saw no progress in science. It even borders on the ridiculous to brush off Popper's intense interest in probability arguments. Popper did turn his back on conventional empiricism, for Popper we have to know something before we can learn anything. David Miller makes the point that "Hume's problem does not even arise for guesses" which sums up Popper's response to logical issues in induction. The conjectural component of Popper's approach cannot be underrated.

Good scientific theories explain more phenomena, they predict more precisely, they articulate with other scientific theories and they stand up to tests. David Stove is going further in trying also to justify them with arguments that critical rationalists have found wanting.