David William Miller (born 19 August 1942,

Watford Watford () is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, 15 miles northwest of Central London, on the River Colne. Initially a small market town, the Grand Junction Canal encouraged the construction of paper-making mills, print works, a ...

) is an English

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

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, Poppe ...

. 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 (county), West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded i ...

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...

, UK. where he is Reader in Philosophy. He has been Honorary Treasurer of the

British Society for the Philosophy of Science The British Society for the Philosophy of Science (BSPS) is a philosophy, philosophical learned society, society based in the United Kingdom that aims to further the philosophy of science, and which manages the ''British Journal for the Philosophy o ...

. He was educated at

Woodbridge School Woodbridge School is an independent school in Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, founded in 1577, for the poor of Woodbridge. It was later supported by the Seckford Foundation. Woodbridge School has been co-educational since September 1974. Histor ...

and

Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time graduate students and 54 fellows. It is quite ...

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

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

. 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 cl ...

'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 clo ...

, 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 reasons. 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 abil ...

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 Croquet ( or ; french: croquet) is a sport that involves hitting wooden or plastic balls with a mallet through hoops (often called "wickets" in the United States) embedded in a grass playing court. Its international governing body is the Wor ...

'' 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 1942 births 20th-century British non-fiction writers 20th-century British philosophers 20th-century essayists 21st-century British non-fiction writers 21st-century British philosophers 21st-century 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 Philosophy writers Popper scholars Rationality theorists People educated at Woodbridge School {{UK-philosopher-stub

Books by David Miller

See also

References

External links