David William Miller (19 August 1942 in

Watford Watford () is a town and non-metropolitan district with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Hertfordshire, England, northwest of Central London, on the banks of the River Colne, Hertfordshire, River Colne. Initially a smal ...

– 20 November 2024) was an English

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and prominent exponent of

critical rationalism Critical rationalism is an epistemological philosophy advanced by Karl Popper on the basis that, if a statement cannot be logically deduced (from what is known), it might nevertheless be possible to logically falsify it. Following Hume, Popper ...

. He taught in the Department of Philosophy at the

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded in 1965 as part of ...

Coventry Coventry ( or rarely ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands county, in England, on the River Sherbourne. Coventry had been a large settlement for centurie ...

, UK, where he was a Reader in Philosophy. He had been an Honorary Treasurer of the British Society for the Philosophy of Science. He was educated at Woodbridge School and

Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Peterhouse has around 300 undergraduate and 175 graduate stud ...

. In 1964 he began to study Logic and Scientific Method at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

. Soon afterwards he became one of

Karl Popper Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian–British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the ...

's research assistants. In a series of papers in the 1970s, Miller and others uncovered defects in Popper's formal definition of

verisimilitude In philosophy, verisimilitude (or truthlikeness) is the notion that some propositions are closer to being true than other propositions. The problem of verisimilitude is the problem of articulating what it takes for one false theory to be close ...

, previously a mostly ignored aspect of Popper's theory. A substantial literature developed in the two decades following, including papers by Miller, to assess the remediability of Popper's approach. Miller's '' Critical Rationalism: A Restatement and Defence'' is an attempt to expound, defend, and extend an approach to scientific knowledge identified with Popper. A central, "not quite original", thesis is that

rationality Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reason. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do, or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an ab ...

does not depend on good reasons. Rather, it is better off without them, especially as they are unobtainable and unusable.

Books by David Miller

* '' Croquet and How to Play It'' with Rupert Thorp, 1966 * '' Popper Selections'', 1985 * '' Critical Rationalism: A Restatement and Defence'', 1994 * '' Out of Error: Further Essays on Critical Rationalism'', 2006

References

External links

*
Probability, Knowledge and Verisimilitude
' section of Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on ''Karl Popper''
David Miller's Homepage at University of Warwick
1942 births 20th-century English philosophers 20th-century British essayists 21st-century British philosophers 21st-century British essayists Academics of the University of Warwick Alumni of the London School of Economics British logicians British male essayists Critical rationalists Living people Philosophers of logic Philosophers of science Philosophy academics Popper scholars People educated at Woodbridge School {{UK-philosopher-stub

Books by David Miller

See also

References

External links