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Articles

A Shopper’s Guide to the Philosophy of Science

By Phil Kime, our man with the trolley next to the cheese counter.

It occurred to me, while returning from a shopping expedition, that this particular pastime was intricate, traditional and important enough to support a frighteningly accurate analogy of basic themes in the Philosophy of Science. What better way to introduce people to the problems than through a familiar and necessary activity?

There are lots of types of shoppers. First you have your Popper shopper. This creature carefully details his empirical needs and notes them in order of importance in an activity technically known as ‘making a shopping list’. From this list, he decides (deductively of course) exactly what items are necessary to fulfill his requirements as he scans the shelves.

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