I find this news particularly distressing, as Philip was one of the least dogmatic "critical rationalists." As one of the few in this group who was respectful of me and my views, I periodically communicated with him about ideas he might find interesting.
Philip believed he had detected a change in Popper's view of the social sciences around 1964—a view Mark disputed—for which I suggested Hayek's "The Theory of Complex Phenomena," a paper that was included in The Critical Approach to Science and Philosophy: In Honor of Karl R. Popper, as the source. I even suggested we might co-author a paper on that, but Philip suggested he was a poor co-author, and it never came to anything.
More recently, based on my rereading of Popper's Medawar Lecture and examining Barry Smith's criticism of the action axiom, I had suggested that Philip read my article on mises.org about the apparent agreement between Popper and Mises on the action axiom—Popper's expression of it being more generalized—and received a positive response. Finally, I suggested on my blog that Popper, in the Medawar Lecture, had in fact expressed views that could only be seen as aprioristic, and Philip responded, "I think you are right."
I was thinking of asking Philip to work with me on a response to Reinhard Neck's session on Jeremy's last online conference, a session that Professor Neck had already given in Vienna at the "Adverse Allies" workshop; but that is clearly not going to happen.
R.I.P. Philip—I'll miss you!
