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Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science
14 (June) 2023
1
Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science, 2023 (14): 1-11
ISSN 2526-2270
Belo Horizonte – MG / Brazil
© The Author 2023 – This is an open-access journal
Obituary
Joseph Agassi (May 7, 1927 – January 22, 2023)
Stefano Gattei 1 – https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6654-2377
Received: June 21, 2023. Reviewed: June 21, 2023. Accepted: June 22, 2023.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24117/2526-2270.2023.i14.13
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The problem of rationality concerns the choice of one’s
principles, of one’s values, of one’s lifestyle.
Joseph Agassi
Joseph Agassi was one of the most inspiring, challenging, and insightful philosophers of our
time. A philosophical “all-rounder”, as Ian Jarvie and Nathaniel Laor aptly described him
employing a cricket metaphor, not only did he contribute to every major field in philosophy
– philosophy of the exact sciences, metaphysics, philosophy of the social sciences,
philosophy of technology, philosophy of education, moral philosophy, ethics, aesthetics,
psychology and psychiatry, not to mention history and historiography of science – but just as
an all-rounder in cricket can play superbly in all positions, so did Agassi superbly play all
available roles: scholar, publicist, speaker, discussant, and teacher, always engaging peers
and encouraging students to widen their cultural horizons and uphold their intellectual
independence. He was also a relentless critic of Israeli politics, identifying its core problem in
the state’s patent conflation of ethnic-cum-religious identity with modern civic nationality, a
distinction he recognized as a minimum requirement for democracy proper.
Joseph Agassi was born and raised in Jerusalem, where he received a strict religious
upbringing. Aged 15, he left religion, but the Jewish-style love of learning remained with him.
Later, he adopted a Talmudic approach, never concealing controversies, and contributed to
the investigation of Talmud itself, pointing out that in the Talmud factual questions may be
legal questions as well, and knowledge is not only a matter of nature but a matter of
conventions, thereby challenging the traditional distinction between legal questions and
factual ones. From 1946 to 1951, he studied physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, at
the Department founded and led by the Italian physicist Giulio Racah, a former pupil of Enrico
Fermi’s in Rome. He received his master’s degree in physics in 1951. It was during his studies
that he met with his future wife, Judith (1924–2018), the daughter of Margarete Buber-
Neumann (1901–1989) and the granddaughter of Martin Buber (1878–1965). They married in
1949 and had two children, Tirzah (1950–2008) and Aaron (b. 1958).
Together they moved to London, where both got their PhD at the London School of
Economics and Political Science. Agassi wrote his doctoral dissertation (The Function of
1 Stefano Gattei is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Research at the
University of Trento, Italy. Address: Via Verdi, 26 – 38122 Trento, Italy.
E-mail: stefano.gattei@unitn.it
Obituary: Joseph Agassi
Stefano Gattei
Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science
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Interpretation in Physics) under the guidance of Karl Popper, and submitted it in 1956. Its aim
was to be a case study of Michael Faraday, but it was much more than that: it was a study of
the Scientific Revolution as a movement of researchers, mostly amateurs, who were led by
the philosophy of the Enlightenment Movement, and fashioned modern science within the
context of stimulating institutions. Materials from this dissertation were later published in
three separate works: Towards an Historiography of Science (1963), Faraday as a Natural
Philosopher (1971) and The Very Idea of Modern Science (2013).
Agassi was Popper’s research assistant from 1953 to 1956, and accompanied him during
his 1956-1957 visit to the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford
University, after which he was appointed Lecturer in Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
at LSE (1957–1960). In 1960, choosing to pursue an independent intellectual path, he gave up
his position at LSE to become Lecturer and then Reader and Head of Department of
Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong, where he remained until 1963. He then moved to
the University of Illinois (1963–1965), and to Boston University (1965–1983). Since then, he
held dual appointments as Professor of Philosophy at York University, Toronto (1982–1997,
and thereafter as Professor Emeritus) and Tel Aviv University (1971–1996, and thereafter as
Professor Emeritus). He lectured at several universities around the globe, especially in Europe
and North America, and in 2019 he was appointed Honorary Professor at the University of
Chieti-Pescara, Italy.
Agassi was a member of the World Academy of Sciences, the American Academy for
the Advancement of Science, and the Royal Society of Canada. He was offered a Rockefeller
fellowship in 1959, which he eventually declined, and received an Alexander von Humboldt
Senior Fellowship in 1978–1979 and 1986–1987. One of the most prolific authors of the
twentieth century, he published some six hundred articles and reviews in the learned press
and many more in the popular press, as well as over forty monographs and collections of
essays (both in English and Hebrew, some of which were translated into other languages).2
He was the editor of the first two issues of The Philosophical Forum (1968), editor or co-editor
of more than ten volumes – including six volumes of works of Ernest Gellner, with Ian C. Jarvie
– and translator of Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery into Hebrew (2017).
Above all, perhaps, he was admired by his students, whom he always tirelessly
stimulated to pursue their own intellectual development and flourish as human beings. In his
honor, pupils, friends and colleagues published Critical Rationalism, Metaphysics and Science
and Critical Rationalism, the Social Sciences and the Humanities (both edited by Ian C. Jarvie
and Nathaniel Laor, 1995); I limiti della razionalità (edited by Martina Del Castello and Michael
Segre, 2013); Encouraging Openness (edited by Nimrod Bar-Am and Stefano Gattei, 2017); and
two special issues of Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 52:6, 2022, and 53:1, 2023 (edited by
Nimrod Bar-Am and Jeremy Shearmur), based on a Symposium held in November 2021.
Both for my own limits and the extraordinary scope and variety of Agassi’s production,
I am unable to offer a proper account of it, let alone to do it justice. Yet, however sketchy, no
proper portrait may omit the following works of his.
In Towards an Historiography of Science (1963), Agassi discusses two criteria for
historical assessment, both stemming from the uncritical acceptance of two philosophies of
science: the inductivist philosophy of science, according to which scientific theories emerge
from facts, and the conventionalist philosophy of science, according to which scientific
theories are mathematical pigeonholes for classifying facts. Both are unsatisfactory, Agassi
claims, although the latter improves on the former: inductivists keep the path of science
clean by sweeping errors under the carpet, whereas conventionalists, while allowing for
errors, consider criticism as condemnation. By contrast, Agassi points out, trying to see the
world through the eyes of our predecessors would let us better appreciate our heritage:
knowledge of the struggles that led to our present conditions would help us avoid taking
2 For a list up to December 2021, see https://www.tau.ac.il/~agass/pub.html.
Obituary: Joseph Agassi
Stefano Gattei
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14 (June) 2023
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such conditions for granted, and understand them more thoroughly. The only way to do so,
he suggests, is by appealing to Popper’s ‘situational logic’, which allows for the
reconstruction of problem situations of past thinkers by appealing to theories that are open
to criticism, and treats most of human greatest intellectual achievements as errors to be
proud of, and human greatest discoveries of facts as the refutations of such great errors.
Metaphysics permeates science at almost every stage of its development – untestable ideas,
that is, which not only determine what the most pressing problems are, but also what kinds
of answers to those problems we shall consider as satisfactory or acceptable, and as
improvements of earlier answers. In so doing, metaphysical systems function as unifiers and
generators of research agendas. This will constitute a consistent line of inquiry in Agassi’s
large philosophical and historical production, throughout some seventy years of relentless
work.
Combining ideas of Edwin A. Burtt and Alexandre Koyré, in The Continuing Revolution:
A History of Physics from the Greeks to Einstein (1968), written as a three-week discussion with
Agassi’s son Aaron, Agassi presents the development of science as an endless dialogue,
centering around the posing of problems and debate over their possible solutions.
In Faraday as a Natural Philosopher (1971), the second published outcome of his
dissertation, Agassi considers and compares two portraits of Faraday: the private, personal,
or psychological, and the public, or scientific. The resulting integrated portrait expands on
the idea that science is an exciting and specialized form of metaphysical exploration, in which
champions such as Faraday need be considered as humans whose spiritual, metaphysical and
psychological aspects are to be integrated with their intellectual achievements.
While teaching at Boston University, Agassi published his first major collection of
essays, Science in Flux, the first of his several contributions to the prestigious ‘Boston Studies
in the Philosophy of Science’ series (1975). Beautifully dedicated to Popper “in gratitude, with
admiration and dissent” (a dedication Popper did not appreciate), the collection presents
science not as based on experience, as the more or less refined traditional picture would have
it, but rather as consisting of explanatory hypotheses which attempt to conform to a general
picture of the world, and in which the competing general theories of the world (that is,
metaphysics) generate competing research programmes. The collected essays – including
some of Agassi’s classics, such as “The Nature of Scientific Problems and Their Roots in
Metaphysics” (1964), “The Confusion Between Physics and Metaphysics in the Standard
Histories of Science” (1964), “The Confusion Between Science and Technology in the
Standard Philosophies of Science” (1966), “Sensationalism” (1966), “On Novelty” (1968),
“Science in Flux: Footnotes to Popper” (1968), “Unity and Diversity in Science” (1969) , and
“When Should We Ignore Evidence in Favour of a Hypothesis?” (1973) – offer a dynamic view
that highlights the various ways in which the conflicts between science and metaphysics,
between the scientific and the technological attitude towards positive evidence, within
constraining social frameworks, enhance scientific progress.
His second collection in the ‘Boston Studies’ series, Science and Society: Studies in the
Sociology of Science (1981; the volume is dedicated to the memory of Michael Polanyi, who is
also the main target of Agassi’s criticism), including over thirty major philosophical and
historical papers, some of which previously unpublished, provides a general picture of the
place of science in society, a description of the practice of scientific research, a critique of
that practice, and a new view of rationality. Agassi identifies Popper, Polanyi, Evans-Pritchard
and Merton as the founding fathers of the sociology of science, and sets as agenda the
problem of the order of priority between toleration, criticism, and scientific progress.
“Science”, Agassi points out in the postscript to the Preface, “will do better and be more
humane if the (inner and outer) democratic controls of the commonwealth of learning
improve, become more effective, and apply to wider ideas”.
Agassi’s pioneering Technology: Philosophical and Social Aspects (1985) is a passionate
search for better democratic means to control technology while fostering society’s ability to
Obituary: Joseph Agassi
Stefano Gattei
Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science
14 (June) 2023
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cope with the very shortcomings of technology itself. Calling attention to the various
components of technology, its difference from science, and its sociological settings, Agassi
expresses concerns for the dangers posed by the inadequacy of present philosophies of
technology. As in many of his later writings, Agassi’s stress is on the role of education: we
need broad-based education for both technology and democratic control, he argues.
Poverty, pollution, population explosion and the proliferation of nuclear weapons are urgent
threats to the future of mankind, and drastic democratic reforms are called for.
Towards a Rational Philosophical Anthropology (1977) – undoubtedly one of Agassi’s
major works, despite its almost absolute neglect – evolved out of three lectures delivered at
the Van Leer Jerusalem Foundation in May 1971, and one lecture delivered at the Boston
Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science in October 1972. It explains and criticizes five
distinct anthropologies: man as machine, man as animal, man as rational, man as social, and
man in the image of God. It attacks the prevalent all-or-nothing attitude in philosophy and
argues for an anthropology that does not depend on the Greek polarization of all that is good
with all that is evil, not condemning mankind for its inherent imperfections. Only if we
dispose of the Greek dichotomy, the author suggests, will the road be cleared for a more
moderate rational picture of man as only partly rational, hopefully more at peace with
himself, his partial rationality and his partial democracy.
Let me conclude by referring to two collections of essays. The first, Rationality: The
Critical View (1987), is another happy outcome of the long and fruitful collaboration of Agassi
and Jarvie. It all started with a joint paper, “The Problem of the Rationality of Magic”, first
published in The British Journal of Sociology in 1967: the phenomenon of magic (including
sorcery and witchcraft) poses a variety of interesting problems, some of them sociological.
Among these, the most difficult appears to be: Why do people we deem to be rational
perform magical acts, such as, for instance, cast spells, enact rites, and so on? A person may
be deemed rational if he acts rationally, or if he holds rational beliefs, or both. The rationality
that consists in acting rationally is what Jarvie and Agassi call the ‘weak’ sense of rationality;
whereas the rationality that consists in acting on the basis of rationally held beliefs they call
the ‘strong’ sense of rationality. Their thesis is that magic is rational in the weak sense, but
not in the strong sense (unlike science, which is rational in the strong sense): this is their
proposal to demarcate magic from science. At the end, Jarvie and Agassi suggest the
sociological problem of the rationality of magic should be posed differently. We should ask:
Can people with inefficient magical beliefs be critical of them, under what conditions, and to
what extent? Or, to put it differently: the problem is not, How on earth can some people
believe in magic?, but, rather, Can they come to accept criticisms of magic? How would they
do that? In what circumstances? Here lies, Jarvie and Agassi argue, the really important
sociological problem posed by magic. Upon its publication, the paper provoked a
considerable amount of controversy, and generated, directly or indirectly, a large literature
both within philosophy and the social sciences. A subsequent paper, “Magic and Rationality
Again”, with the authors’ second thoughts and replies to critics, appeared in the same journal
in 1973. There followed attempts to extend the model of rationality to other areas, with two
more joint papers, “The Rationality of Dogmatism” (1979) and “The Rationality of
Irrationalism” (1980). These were all usefully reprinted in Part III of Rationality: The Critical
View, a volume that illustrates the fruitful proliferation of thoughts on the problem of
rationality as it stemmed from Popper’s ideas, and relates back to them. The volume, which
was later complemented by “Rationality: Philosophical and Social Aspects” (1992), also
includes one of Agassi's more cited papers, “Methodological Individualism” (1960).
The second collection I wish to mention here is The Gentle Art of Philosophical Polemics
(1988), a selection of Agassi’s most sparking and piercing reviews and critical comments,
illustrating the author’s unconventional critical attitude towards the works of his peers, as
well as his indications on how to properly conduct philosophical discussions. The volume
presents Agassi’s criticism of conventional thinking in philosophy of science and
Obituary: Joseph Agassi
Stefano Gattei
Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science
14 (June) 2023
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epistemology, including Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions and contemporary analytic
philosophy, his reappraisals of thinkers such as Bacon, Mach, Duhem, Wittgenstein and
Carnap, not to mention devastating assessments of Grünbaum’s account of psychoanalysis,
Lakatos’s methodology of scientific research programmes and Feyerabend’s epistemological
nihilism – as well as of Popper’s own evolutionary epistemology, as presented in Objective
Knowledge (1972).
Much more should be mentioned, which I cannot but list here, only to offer a better
idea of the sheer complexity, richness and wide-ranging character of Agassi’s output:
— Works in the philosophy of medicine: Paranoia: A Study in Diagnosis (1976) and
Psychiatry as Medicine (1983), both in collaboration with Yehuda Fried, as well as
Diagnosis: Philosophical and Medical Perspectives (1990), with Nathaniel Laor,
advancing the proposal to restore the traditional association between medicine and
education.
— The Siblinghood of Humanity: An Introduction to Philosophy (1990), a little-known
and hard-to-find extraordinary book, in which Agassi introduces students to
philosophy as debate about the nature of rationaliy. This may be coupled with The
History of Modern Philosophy from Bacon to Kant (1600-1800): An Introduction (1993,
in Hebrew).
— Works in the history of science, such as Radiation Theory and the Quantum
Revolution (1993), a treasure trove of original ideas on the dawn of quantum
physics, also discussing problems inherent in methodology, metaphysics and
philosophy of science (and, at times, the psychology of scientists); and The Very Idea
of Modern Science: Francis Bacon and Robert Boyle (2013, dedicated to the memory
of Alexandre Koyré and I. Bernard Cohen): this was the first part of Agassi’s
dissertation to be written, and the last to be published. Combining micro and macro
approaches, the book is an important study of the Scientific Revolution as a
movement of amateur science: it describes the ideology of the scientific societies
as the philosophy of the Enlightenment Movement, and shows how the scientific
organization of science gave way to professional science in stages. Key papers
include “On Explaining the Trial of Galileo” (1971), “Who Discovered Boyle’s Law?”
(1977), and “The Place of Metaphysics in the Historiography of Science” (1996).
History of science is also the focus of Science and Its History (2008; dedicated to
Robert S. Cohen), which – together with Science and Culture (2003, dedicated to life-
long friend Mario Bunge: in 1982, Agassi co-edited with Robert S. Cohen a volume
of essays in honor of Bunge’s sixtieth birthday, Scientific Philosophy Today) and the
aforementioned Science in Flux and Science and Society (all published in the ‘Boston
Studies’ series) – forms what Agassi saw as a sort of tetralogy on the various facets
of the scientific enterprise.
— Works on aesthetics and art: A Critical Rationalist Aesthetics, with Ian C. Jarvie
(2008), and Malevich: The Lost Paintings, with David Harel (2018).
— Works in political philosophy, such as Liberal Nationalism for Israel: Towards an Israeli
National Identity (1999; the book was first published in Hebrew in 1984), challenging
the most fundamental dogmas of Israel: nationalism and religious identity. Failure
to make the distinction between religion and nationality, Agassi argues, leads to
discrimination against the non-Jewish citizens of Israel, thus preventing peace. In
this ground-breaking book, Agassi supports the vision of Hillel Kook (1915–2001),
according to which Israel should be state of the Israeli nation, which includes non-
Obituary: Joseph Agassi
Stefano Gattei
Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science
14 (June) 2023
6
Jewish citizens and excludes Jews who are not Israeli citizens, giving it a
philosophical home. Also, he articulates it into the demand of Jews unilaterally to
give up the Zionist myth, offering a moral and political blueprint that also applies
beyond the boundaries of Israel, one that must precede any political attempts to
resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. In a follow-up paper, “Israel: A State Governed by
Rule-of-Law or Rule-by-Arrangement?” (2000, in Hebrew; translated into English in
2003), Agassi openly denounces the actual discrimination against non-Jews citizens
by Israeli civil servants, a discrimination that is forbidden by law but in fact allowed,
if not expected of Israeli civil servants, who might otherwise lose their jobs. Such
covert discrimination, Agassi suggests, prevents progress to a modern liberal state,
and has dangerous consequences: as Spinoza taught, hate ends up destroying
those who hate.
— Papers explicitly addressed to students, such as “Dissertation without Tears”
(1999), in which he recommends writing having an imagined reader in mind and
trying to serve him. Most importantly, he recommends always starting with a
question (“what’s the problem?”, he often asked), one that has many possible
answers, which should then be clearly stated and critically discussed. And works on
education, such as Letters to My Sister Concerning Contemporary Philosophy (1976,
20002, in Hebrew); the collection The Hazard Called Education: Essays, Reviews and
Dialogues on Education from Forty-Five Years, edited by Ronald Swartz and Sheldon
Richmond (2014); and Academic Agonies and How to Avoid Them: Advice to Young
People on Their Way to Academic Careers, edited by James H. Collier (2020). Agassi
admired the model of studying in the tradition of Yeshiva (the traditional Jewish
school focused on the study of Rabbinic literature) and recommended the
democratization of education.
— Studies on the argumentative, dialogical character of philosophy, Socrates-style:
Philosophy from a Skeptical Perspective (2008) and Beg to Differ: The Logic of
Disputes and Argumentation (2016), both in collaboration with Abraham Meidan.
— Insightful critical assessments of some of the more influential contemporary
philosophers and their key works: Popper and His Popular Critics: Thomas Kuhn, Paul
Feyerabend and Imre Lakatos (2014), and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical
Investigations: An Attempt at a Critical Rationalist Appraisal (2018), as well as Vol. 4
of Paul Feyerabend’s collected philosophical papers, Physics and Philosophy (2016,
edited with Stefano Gattei).
— Two little gems, such as The Philosophy of Practical Affairs: An Introduction (2022), a
book that recovers and further develops some of the themes of The Siblinghood of
Humanity (1990), and the posthumous Games to Play and Games not to Play:
Strategic Decisions via Extensions of Game Theory, with Uri Weiss (2023).
— Last, but by no means least, A Philosopher’s Apprentice: In Karl Popper’s Workshop
(1993 and 20082), Agassi’s personal account of his intellectual formation in 1950s
London, struggling with the imposing figure of his mentor, colleague, and later rival
Karl Popper. As their painful break, due to Agassi’s search for intellectual
independence, was never completely healed, the volume offers precious
psychological insight into Popper’s attitude towards his pupils and peers, especially
in the 1960s and 1970s, and captures like no other the personal, academic and
political elements of one of the most philosophically important milieu in the history
of the twentieth century.
Obituary: Joseph Agassi
Stefano Gattei
Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science
14 (June) 2023
7
Trait d’union of all these works is the discussion of the problem of rationality in all
shapes and forms. Agassi’s philosophy was a continuous and relentless attempt to elaborate
on Popper’s idea that the gist of the scientific spirit is openness to criticism. Developing this
idea in fields which Popper himself either directly redefined, merely touched upon, or
altogether disregarded, Agassi has always encouraged his readers to doubt even their most
cherished insights, and engage in honest, frank critical dialogue. It is not easy, it is not without
effort. On the contrary: it is extremely demanding, often exhausting – yet, nothing else is
more exciting and rewarding, both from the intellectual and the personal point of view.
We do not have to try to make people critically minded, we have no right to force
anybody to offer or accept criticism, or to learn to participate effectively in a critical
discussion: it is their right to refuse to do so. All educators can do (and have to do) is try to
help them become critically minded if and when they request that. Throughout his intense
life, and through a tightly knit philosophical output that spans over seven decades, Agassi
followed in Popper’s footsteps to develop his master’s philosophy in new directions, driven
both by the hope that rational debate will lead to improvement, and the conviction that
criticism is an expression of respect, and entails responsibility. Such responsibility can be
encouraged, but not forced.
The problem of rationality is perhaps the most important of philosophical problems
and, in a sense, the core of philosophy itself. It concerns the choice of one’s principles and
values, says Popper; it concerns the choice of one’s lifestyle, says Agassi. Rationality is a part
of our way of life, and that goes alike for the rationalist and the irrationalist. The solution to
the problem of rationality is the very starting point of every philosophical approach, the very
choice of one’s lifestyle. Agassi’s own approach to philosophy, as beautifully presented in his
autobiography, is his solution to the problem of rationality: his whole life is the very
embodiment of his understanding of rationality and his solution to its fundamental problem.
Joseph Agassi (left) with Ian Jarvie (right) and Stefano Gattei (middle)
in the gardens of the Buonconsiglio Castle, Trento, Italy
May 10, 2022
Obituary: Joseph Agassi
Stefano Gattei
Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science
14 (June) 2023
8
This was also the very core of Agassi’s swan song, the lectures he gave at the University
of Trento, Italy, on May 10-11, 2022, together with his long-time friend and collaborator Ian
Jarvie (who passed away shortly after Agassi, on May 16, 2023), and former pupil John
Wettersten.
At the end of this note, I cannot help but remember Joske – as his friends usually
addressed him – during those last, beautiful few days we had in Trento. I like to conclude as
I did when I gave him the floor, by quoting the closing sentence of “In Search of Rationality–
A Personal Report” (1982), his contribution to a Festschrift volume for Popper:
I may be moving in the world with the wrong map, but I am eager to improve it if and
when I can, and I seek friends who can criticize me. For this, I am grateful to [Joseph
Agassi].
References
Works by Joseph Agassi
Agassi, J. 1956. The function of interpretation in physics. PhD dissertation, University of
London.
Agassi, J. 1960. Methodological individualism. The British journal of sociology, 11 (3), pp. 244-
270.
Agassi, J. 1963. Towards an historiography of science. History and theory, Beiheft 2; facsimile
reprint, Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1967.
Agassi, J. 1964a. The confusion between physics and metaphysics in the standard histories of
science. In: GUERLAC H. (ed.). Ithaca, 26 VIII 1962– 2 IX 1962: proceedings of the tenth
international congress of the history of science of science. Hermann: Paris, pp. 231-238
and 249-250; reprinted in Agassi 1975, pp. 270-281.
Agassi, J. 1964b. The nature of scientific problems and their roots in metaphysics. In: BUNGE,
M. (ed.). The critical approach to science and philosophy: in honor of Karl R. Popper.
London: The Free Press of Glencoe, pp. 189-211; reprinted in Agassi 1975, pp. 208-239.
Agassi, J. 1966a. Sensationalism. Mind 75 (297), pp. 1-24; reprinted in Agassi 1975, pp. 92-119.
Agassi, J. 1966b. The confusion between science and technology in the standard philosophies
of science. Technology and culture, 7 (3), pp. 348-366; reprinted in Agassi 1975, pp. 282-
305.
Agassi, J. 1968a. Science in Flux: Footnotes to Popper. In: COHEN, R. S. and WARTOFSKY, M.
W. (eds.). Boston studies in the philosophy of science: proceedings of the Boston
Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science 1964/1966, in memory of Norwood Russell
Hanson. Dordrecht: D. Reidel and New York: Humanities Press, pp. 293-323; reprinted
in Agassi 1975, pp. 9-39.
Agassi, J. 1968b. The continuing revolution: a history of physics from the Greeks to Einstein.
New York: McGraw-Hill.
Agassi, J. 1968c. The novelty of Popper’s philosophy of science. International philosophical
quarterly, 8 (3), pp. 442-463; reprinted as On novelty, in Agassi 1975, pp. 51-73.
Agassi, J. 1969. Unity and diversity in science. In: COHEN, R. S. and WARTOFSKY, M. W. (eds.).
Boston studies in the philosophy of science: proceedings of the Boston Colloquium for the
Philosophy of Science 1966/1968. Dordrecht: D. Reidel and New York: Humanities Press,
pp. 463-522; reprinted in Agassi 1975, pp. 404-468.
Agassi, J. 1971a. Faraday as a natural philosopher. Chicago-London: The University of Chicago
Press.
Agassi, J. 1971b. On explaining the trial of Galileo. Organon, 8: 137-166; reprinted in Agassi 1981,
pp. 321-351.
Obituary: Joseph Agassi
Stefano Gattei
Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science
14 (June) 2023
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Agassi, J. 1973. When should we ignore evidence in favour of a hypothesis? Ratio, 15 (2), pp.
183-205; reprinted in Agassi 1975, pp. 127-151.
Agassi, J. 1975. Science in flux (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 28). Dordrecht-
Boston: D. Reidel.
Agassi, J. 1976. Letters to my sister concerning contemporary philosophy [in Hebrew]. Omer:
Sarah Batz, 1976; second edition, Tel Aviv: Yedioth Aharonoth Books and Chemed
Books, 2000.
Agassi, J. 1977a. Towards a rational philosophical anthropology. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Agassi, J. 1977b. Who discovered Boyle’s law? Studies in history and philosophy of science, 8
(3): 189-250; reprinted in Agassi 2008, pp. 388-443.
Agassi, J. 1981. Science and society: studies in the sociology of science (Boston Studies in the
Philosophy of Science, 65). Dordrecht-Boston-London: D. Reidel.
Agassi, J. 1982. In search of rationality–A personal report. In LEVINSON P. (ed.). In pursuit of
truth: essays in honor of Karl Popper’s 80th birthday, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities
Press, pp. 237-248.
Agassi, J. 1984. Between faith and nationality: towards an Israeli national identity. Tel Aviv:
Papirus; second edition, 1993; third edition, 2019. English translation, Liberal
nationalism for Israel: towards an Israeli national identity. Jerusalem- New York: Gefen,
1999.
Agassi, J. 1985. Technology: philosophical and social aspects. Dordrecht-Boston-London.
Agassi, J. 1988. The gentle art of philosophical polemics: selected reviews and comments. La
Salle, IL: Open Court.
Agassi, J. 1990. The siblinghood of humanity: an introduction to philosophy. Delmar, NY:
Caravan Books.
Agassi, J. 1992. Rationality: philosophical and social aspects. Minerva, 30, pp. 366-390;
reprinted as Rationality: philosophical, social, and historical aspects, in Agassi 2008, pp.
266-284.
Agassi, J. 1993a. A philosopher’s apprentice: in Karl Popper’s workshop. Amsterdam: Rodopi;
second edition, 2008.
Agassi, J. 1993b. Radiation theory and the quantum revolution. Basel-Boston-Berlin:
Birkhäuser.
Agassi, J. 1993c. The history of modern philosophy from Bacon to Kant (1600-1800): an
introduction [in Hebrew]. Tel Aviv: Ramot.
Agassi, J. 1996. The place of metaphysics in the historiography of science. Foundations of
physics, 26 (4): 483-499; reprinted in Agassi 2008, pp. 254-265.
Agassi, J. 1999. Dissertation without Tears. In: ZECHA G. (ed.). Critical rationalism and
educational discourse. Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi, pp. 59-89.
Agassi, J. 2000. Israel: A state governed by rule-of-law or rule-of-arrangement? [in Hebrew].
In: DAVID J. E. (ed.), The state of Israel: between judaism and democracy. Jerusalem: The
Israel Democracy Institute, 2000, pp. 211-233; English translation, 2003.
Agassi, J. 2003. Science and culture (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 231).
Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Agassi, J. 2008. Science and its history. A reassessment of the historiography of science (Boston
Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 253). Cham, CH: Springer.
Agassi, J. 2013. The very idea of modern science: Francis Bacon and Robert Boyle (Boston
Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, 298). Dordrecht: Springer.
Agassi, J. 2014a. Popper and his popular critics: Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend and Imre
Lakatos. Cham, CH: Springer.
Agassi, J. 2014b. The hazard called education: essays, reviews, and dialogues on education from
forty-five years, edited by R. Swartz and S. Richmond. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Agassi, J. 2018. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: an attempt at a critical
rationalist appraisal. Cham, CH: Springer.
Obituary: Joseph Agassi
Stefano Gattei
Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science
14 (June) 2023
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Agassi, J. 2020. Academic agonies and how to avoid them: advice to young people on their way
to academic careers, edited by J. H. Collier. Blacksburg, VA: Social Epistemology Review
and Reply Collective.
Agassi, J. 2022. The philosophy of practical affairs: an introduction. Lanham, MD: Lexington
Books.
Works by Joseph Agassi in collaboration with others
Agassi, J. and Cohen, R. S. 1982. Scientific philosophy today: essays in honor of Mario Bunge.
Dordrecht-Boston-London: D. Reidel.
Agassi, J. and Jarvie, I. C. 1973. Magic and rationality again, The British journal of sociology, 24
(2): 236-245; reprinted in Agassi and Jarvie (eds.) 1987, pp. 385-394.
Agassi, J. and Jarvie, I. C. 1979. The rationality of dogmatism. In: GERAETS T. F. (ed.).
Rationality to-day, Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, pp. 353-362; reprinted in Agassi
and Jarvie (eds.) 1987, pp. 431-443.
Agassi, J. and Jarvie, I. 1980. The rationality of irrationalism. Metaphilosophy, 11 (2): 127-133;
reprinted in Agassi and Jarvie (eds.) 1987, pp. 445-451.
Agassi, J. and Jarvie, I. C. 2008. A critical rationalist aesthetics. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Agassi, J. and Meidan A. 2008. Philosophy from a skeptical perspective. Cambridge etc.:
Cambridge University Press.
Agassi, J. and Meidan, A. 2016. Beg to differ: the logic of disputes and argumentation, Cham,
CH: Springer.
Feyerabend, P. K. 2016. Physics and philosophy: philosophical papers, Vol. 4, edited by S. Gattei
and J. Agassi, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Fried, Y. and Agassi, J. 1976. Paranoia: a study in diagnosis. Dordrecht-Boston: D. Reidel.
Fried, Y. and Agassi, J. 1983. Psychiatry as medicine: contemporary psychotherapies. The
Hague- Boston-Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff.
Harel D. and Agassi, J. 2018. Malevich: the lost paintings, edited by Ruth Heymann. Tel Aviv:
Reichman Hamburger Publications.
Jarvie, I. C. and Agassi, J. 1967. The problem of the rationality of magic. The British journal of
sociology, 18: 55-74; reprinted in Agassi and Jarvie (eds.) 1987, pp. 363-383.
Laor, N. and Agassi, J. 1990. Diagnosis: philosophical and medical perspectives. Dordrecht-
Boston-London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Weiss, U. and Agassi, J. 2023. Games to play and games not to play: strategic decisions via
extensions of game theory. Cham: Springer.
Works edited by Joseph Agassi and Ian C. Jarvie
Agassi, J. and Jarvie, I. C. (eds.) 1987. Rationality: the critical view, Dordrecht-Boston-
Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff.
Gellner, E. 1973. Cause and meaning in the social sciences, edited by I. C. Jarvie and J. Agassi.
London-Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Gellner, E. 1974a. Contemporary thought and politics, edited by I. C. Jarvie and J. Agassi.
London-Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Gellner, E. 1974b. The devil in modern philosophy, edited by I. C. Jarvie and J. Agassi. London-
Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Gellner, E. 1979. Spectacles and predicaments: essays on social theory, edited by I. C. Jarvie and
J. Agassi. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press.
Gellner, E. 1985. Relativism and the social sciences, edited by I. C. Jarvie and J. Agassi.
Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press.
Gellner, E. 1987. Culture, identity and politics, edited by I. C. Jarvie and J. Agassi. Cambridge
etc.: Cambridge University Press.
Obituary: Joseph Agassi
Stefano Gattei
Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science
14 (June) 2023
11
Works on Joseph Agassi
Bar-Am, N. and Gattei, S. (eds.) 2017. Encouraging openness: essays for Joseph Agassi on the
occasion of his 90th birthday (Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science,
325). Cham, CH: Springer.
Bar-Am, N. and Shearmur, J. (eds.) 2022. Joseph Agassi’s contributions to philosophy, Part I,
special issue of Philosophy of the social sciences, 52 (6).
Bar-Am, N. and Shearmur, J. (eds.) 2023. Joseph Agassi’s contributions to philosophy, Part II,
special issue of Philosophy of the social sciences, 53 (1).
Del Castello, M. and Segre, M. (eds.) 2013. I limiti della razionalità: scritti in onore di Joseph
Agassi. Lanciano, IT: Carabba.
Jarvie, I. C. and Laor N. (eds.). 1995. Critical rationalism, metaphysics and science: Essays for
Joseph Agassi, Volume I (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 161). Dordrecht-
Boston-London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Jarvie, I. C. and Laor N. (eds.). 1995. Critical rationalism, the social sciences and the humanities:
Essays for Joseph Agassi, Volume II (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 162).
Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer Academic Publisher.
