The Emergence and Evolution of Three Worlds

Karl Popper’s three worlds theory (3Wt) is a metaphysical theory that purports to provide an ordering of all entities in reality. This ordering is realized by the physical, mental and abstract status that entities possess. This status characterises the entities in world 1, world 2 en world 3, respectively. The ‘triadistic’ metaphysics of Popper forms an alternative for monistic and dualistic theories which can be found throughout the history of philosophy. The original three worlds theory of Popper has been revised and further elaborated by Veening. In order to solve the problems confronted by Popper’s theory, Veening developed his own theory (3WtR). Besides the differences between Popper’s original theory (3Wt) and the revised version of Veening (3Wt-R) there are also many similarities between both theories. Both theories suggest the following questions: Is the three worlds theory compatible with substance monism/-materialism? What is the relation between the three worlds? (Popper writes regularly about the emergence of the three worlds, but it is not clear what he exactly means by this in his work.) What is the relation between the history of the three worlds and evolutionary theories? These points motivated the investigation, conducted in this dissertation, of the emergence and evolution of worlds 1,2 and 3, as well as a second revision of the three worlds theory (3Wt-R2) that is presented here. In this revision symmetrybreakings and the reconstructions of symmetry-breakings play a crucial role.