Stove argues that Popper and his successors in the philosophy of science, Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend, were irrationalists because they were deductivists. That is, they believed all logic is deductive, and thus denied that experimental evidence could make scientific theories logically more probable. The book was reprinted as Anything Goes (1998) and Scientific Irrationalism: Origins of a Postmodern Cult (1998).

Writing on the justification of certain inductive inferences, the author proposes that sometimes induction is justified and that arguments to prove otherwise are not cogent. In the first part he defends the argument of D.C. Williams' The Ground of Induction that induction is justified as a matter of logic by the proportional syllogism: "The vast majority of large samples match the population, therefore (probably) this sample matches the population"). In the second part he deals with such topics as deductive logic (...) (arguing that deductive logic is not formal), the theory of logical probability, and probability and truth. (shrink)

This is a book of philosophy, written by a philosopher and intended for anyone who knows enough philosophy to have been seriously injured, antagonised, mystified or intoxicated by it. Stove is passionately polemical, a philosophical counterpart to Tom Wolfe. Setting out to deflate a few philosophical reputations, he lambastes both the dead and the living. Yet he says things that need to be said, and that others often lack the courage to say.

This book aims to discuss probability and David Hume's inductive scepticism. For the sceptical view which he took of inductive inference, Hume only ever gave one argument. That argument is the sole subject-matter of this book. The book is divided into three parts. Part one presents some remarks on probability. Part two identifies Hume's argument for inductive scepticism. Finally, the third part evaluates Hume's argument for inductive scepticism. Hume's argument that induction must be either deductively valid or circular because based (...) on experience neglects the possibility that it is an argument of non-deductive logic (logical probability, in the sense of Keynes). (shrink)

I BELIEVE THAT the intellectual capacity of women is on the whole inferior to that of men. By "on the whole," I do not mean just "on the average"; though I do mean that much. My belief is, if you take any degree of intellectual capacity which is above the average for the human race, as a whole, then a possessor of that degree of intellectual capacity is a good deal more likely to be man than a woman.

‘There is no opinion so absurd but that some philosopher has held it.’ Cicero wrote this around 44 B.C., and even then he was only repeating a saying already current. The reputation of philosophers for holding absurd opinions is therefore very old. Equally undeniably, it is also a well-founded reputation.

Most educated people nowadays, I believe, think of themselves as Darwinians. If they do, however, it can only be from ignorance: from not knowing enough about what Darwinism says. For Darwinism says many things, especially about our species, which are too obviously false to be believed by any educated person; or at least by an educated person who retains any capacity at all for critical thought on the subject of Darwinism.

Argues that genes, as portrayed by Richard Dawkins and sociobiologists, are gods - hidden entities smarter than humans who design and manipulate humans for their own ends.

Reprint of Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists. In an afterword, James Franklin discusses reactions to Stove's work.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HUME, THE CAUSAL PRINCIPLE, AN'D KEMP SMITH When we say of a proposition that it is possible, we sometimes mean no more than that it is logically possible, that is, consistent with itself. A proposition can be possible in stronger senses than this, but not in any weaker one. For a sense of "p is possible" that did not entail "p is self-consistent, "would have to be a sense (...) of "p is possible" which was consistent with "p is self-inconsistent" And it is obvious that there can be no such sense as that. One of the stronger senses in which a proposition can be possible is this: consistent (with itself and in addition) with every observation-statement. (I mean by an observationstatement, a proposition which, if it were true, could in principle be discovered by experience to be true.) If a proposition? is contingent, (that is, neither necessarily true??t necessarily false), then its negation (its contradictory) not-p is contingent too; and since contingent, not necessarily false; and since not necessarily false, consistent with itself. So, given any contingent propositions, its falsity is among those propositions which are possible in the first and weak sense mentioned above. If a proposition? is not only contingent but unverifiable,(that is, not deducible from any observation- statement), then not-p is consistent both with itself and with every observation -statement. So, given any unverifiable contingent proposition, its falsity is among those propositions which are possible in the second and stronger sense mentioned above. Some stock examples. "Whatever is a raven is black" is contingent, and its falsity therefore possible in the first sense; so too is its contradictory "There are such things as non-black ravens" contingent, and its falsity possible in the first sense. But the latter proposition is not unverifiable, since there are observation-statements from which it is deducible. ("There are such things as green ravens", for example; or "A green raven was in captivity at Taronga Park Zoo in January 31st 1975".) The former proposition, on the other hand, is not only contingent but unverifiable; since there are no observation -statements from which it is deducible. Hence, "whatever is a raven is black" is a proposition the falsity of which is possible both in the first and in the second sense noticed above. A third and still stronger sense in which a proposition can be possible is the following:? is possible if and only if (p is consistent with itself,every observation-statement is consistent with p, and in addition)? is neither more nor less probable in relation to the conjunction of e and n, where e is any observation-statement and? any necessary truth, than it is in relation to? alone. The last condition may be expressed, symbolically, as "P(p/n.e) » P(p/n) for all necessarily true? and all observation-statements e"; or in Carnap' s phrase as, "every observation- statement is initially irrelevant to p." Some examples will quickly make the idea of initial irrelevance, and its opposite, more familiar; and hence will make the third sense of "p is possible" more familiar. Let? be any necessary truth and e any observation-statement. Now let? be, for- example,some necessarily false proposition; then, since P(p/n) « o = P(p/n.e), e is initially irrelevant to p. Or let? be necessarily true; then, since P(p/n) ¦ 1 = P(p/n.e), e is again initially irrelevant to p. Again, let? be "Whatever is a raven is black": then some observation- statements e are initially relevant to p. For if e is "This raven is black," for example, P(p/n.e)>P(p/n) ; or at any rate, that is what we think if we are not inductive sceptic?. Again, if? is "The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son", it is at least very plausible to say that every observational e is initially irrelevant to p; since there appears to be no observational e such that P(p/n.e)>P(p/n), or P(p/n.e). (shrink)

The idea of enlightenment entails liberty, equality, rationalism, secularism, and the connection between knowledge and human well being. In spite of the setbacks of revolutionary violence, political mass murder, and two world wars, the spread of enlightenment values has become the yardstick by which moral, political, and even scientific advances are measured. Indeed, most critiques of the enlightenment ideal point to failure in implementation rather than principle. By contrast, David Stove, in On Enlightenment, attacks the intellectual roots of enlightenment thought, (...) to define the limitations of its successes and the areas of its likely failures. Stove is not insensitive to the many valuable aspects of enlightenment thought. He champions the use of reason and rationality, and recognizes the falsity of religious claims as well as the importance of individual liberty. What he rejects is the enlightenment's uncritical optimism regarding social progress and its willingness to embrace revolutionary change. What evidence is there that the elimination of superstition will lead to happiness? Or that it is possible to accept Darwinism without Social Darwinism? Or that the enlightenment's liberal, rationalistic outlook will ever lead to the kind of social progress envisioned by its advocates. Despite their best intentions, social reformers who attempt to improve the world as a whole inevitably make things worse. He advocates a conservative "go slow" approach to change, pointing out that today's social structures are so large and complex that any widespread social reform will have innumerable unforeseen consequences. For example, the welfare state may diminish individual initiative, the use of pesticides may increase the food supply while polluting the water supply, the popularizing of university education may lead to a decline in academic standards. Since government has a virtual monopoly on large-scale change, it follows, in Stove's view, that its powers must be limited in order to prevent large-scale damage. Instead, he argues that reforms, when they are to be made at all, must be realistic, local, necessary and never coercive. Writing in the conservative tradition of Edmund Burke with the same passion for clarity and intellectual honesty as George Orwell, David Stove was one of the most precise, articulate, and insightful philosophers of his day. "Never just an academic, Stove was also a prominent, often crotchety, public intellectual of a conservative and, all too often, reactionary bent, many of whose views were extremist on any account, and his targets were many.... For Stove the important question about a belief is not whether it is extreme or mainstream, but whether it is true, or probable, or has sound evidentiary and/or rational credentials. In this he was surely right." -D. D. Todd, Philosophy in Review David Stove taught philosophy at the University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney. He is the author of Against the Idols of the Age and Scientific Irrationalism, both available from Transaction. Andrew Irvine is professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Roger Kimball is managing editor of the New Criterion. (shrink)

In this insightful, provocative essay, Stove builds a case for the claim that when benevolence is universal, disinterested and external, it regularly leads to ...