Karl Popper in China

Karl Popper (1902-1994) is widely considered as one of the mostinfluential philosophers of science and one of the most prolific thinkers in the 20th century. His work heavily influenced the development of philosophy of science in China, especially in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Many renown Chinese philosophers of science were first attracted to the field because of their reading of Popper. In 1987, there was a conference on Popper's philosophy at Wuhan University, sponsored by George Soros, Popper's former student. It featured talks by leading Popper scholars and philosophers of science (e.g. Ian Hacking and Alan Musgrave) and leading Chinese philosophers (e.g. Fan Dainian and Jiang Tianji) at the time. The proceedings of the conference were published as an edited volume by Routledge in 1992. Recently there was a revival of interest in the work of KarlPopper in China. This conference aims to examine the influence of Popper’s work on the development of philosophy of science in China and assess and explore his legacy on contemporary philosophy of science in China.