Welcome to the LSE Events Podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Get ready to hear from some of the most influential international figures in the social sciences.
Okay, good evening everybody and welcome to tonight's event.
The Sir Karl Popper Memorial Fund was established in 1994.
to commemorate one of the intellectual giants of LSE's history and indeed of 20th century philosophy.
And it does so by supporting student work in areas to which Popper contributed and providing occasional lectures such as the one tonight.
I wanted to take the opportunity to just recognize the extraordinary contribution made to the committee's work by David Miller, who was, I think, on the committee right from the inception of the fund and so served on it for over 30 years.
sadly passed away at the end of last year, but was one of the people who helped make today's event possible.
Karl Popper, a very well-known figure, was part of the Austrian generation that emigrated before the Second World War and worked his way here to the United Kingdom via New Zealand, joined the LSE in 1946 and was the founding member of the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method.
He's, of course, extremely well known himself for his work in philosophy of science and for his doctrine of falsificationism.
But he made several, he made important contributions to many areas, many areas of philosophy, including areas like philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and especially political philosophy.
His book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, has been extraordinarily influential.
Our speaker tonight, Peter Godfrey-Smith, is a philosopher that, if I'm permitted to say so, very much in the mold of Popper.
Currently professor of philosophy and history of science at the University of Sydney, his own intellectual contributions span many fields, including political philosophy and the philosophy of mind, but which are firmly anchored in science and in the philosophy of science.
He's the author of a number of exceptional books, including the 2010 Lakotosh Book Award winner, The Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, and more recently his...
Other Minds, The Octopus in the Evolution of Intelligent Life, which has been published in over 20 languages.
In The Open Society, Popper wrote, Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance.
Giving voice to what has come to be thought of as a paradoxical implication of promoting tolerance.
Understanding that puzzle and the various implications of it is as important today as it was when Popper first wrote about it.
We very much look forward to hearing Peter's views on it.