Logik der Forschung

Wien: Verlag von Julius Springer. 1935 [1934].

First edition. 8vo, 218x143mm. pp. vi, 248, [2]. A very good copy in the original wrappers, small chips to head and foot of spine, otherwise in excellent condition. Internally near fine, some unopened pages at the end of the book, two paragraphs (on pp37 and 67) have been marked in the margin with a red biro. Housed in a quarter morocco black solander box lettered in gilt. Loosely inserted is a slip signed by Karl Popper. This copy came from Popper's secretary.

Popper’s Logik der Forschung (translated in 1959 as The Logic of Scientific Discovery) was published in 1934 (although given a 1935 imprint) and is regarded as one of the twentieth-century’s most important contributions to scientific and philosophical method. Popper’s argument (broadly and briefly) is that science should proceed on the basis of what is not known (”the falsification principle”) rather than what is known - a deductive, not inductive process. This brief note is not (thankfully) the place for a discursive essay on the nature of Popperian applied methodology. For that you will need to read the book.