Alan Musgrave

Who is Alan Musgrave?

Alan Musgrave is an English born New Zealand philosopher. Musgrave was educated at the London School of Economics with a BA Honours Philosophy and Economics 1961. Sir Karl Popper supervised Musgrave's PhD which was completed in 1969. Musgrave worked as Popper's Research Assistant initially then as a Lecturer. Musgrave was appointed to the Chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of Otago in 1970, and was head of department from 1970 to 2005. He was 30 years old at his appointment. Along with Imre Lakatos, a friend and colleague, they edited Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. It is the best-selling of the 4 volumes that record the Popper/Kuhn confrontation at the 1965 London Conference that Lakatos and Musgrave organised. In 1992 Musgrave published Common Sense, Science and Scepticism; an entry level book on epistemology. In 1999 Musgrave published Essays on Realism and Rationalism; a collection of his scholarly papers. In 2006 Musgrave was honoured with a Festschrift: Rationality and Reality: Conversations with Alan Musgrave, edited by Colin Cheyne & John Worrall. In 2009, Musgrave published Secular Sermons: Essays on Science and Philosophy; an entry level book on science, religion and mathematics.