"Who exactly was Karl Popper?", I Hear You Ask.

Guardian Saturday Review ^ | 4/27/02 | Roger James

[scouse]

This is the first time I have ever heard of Mr Popper. I will find out more for my own edification.

[CatoRenasci]

Popper is fairly tough sledding, but worth the effort. I recommend you start with The Poverty of Historicism and then move on to The Open Society and its Enemies. If you're interested in his scientific method work, the place to start is The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Thirty years ago, when I was a graduate student in intellectual history and politcal philsophy, everyone but the Wittgenstinans read Popper, at least those books. Now, I don't think he's much read. Last winter, a charming little book called Wittgenstein's Poker was published , concerning the (among philsophers) famous controversy surrounding one of Popper and Wittgenstein's few encounters. They cordially destested each other, both personally and philosophically.

[scouse]

Your help is much appreciated; Thank you.

[headsonpikes]

"Popper is fairly tough sledding." LOL!! Even though he uses regular words, unlike the neologisms cherished by the post-modern 'thinkers'.

His use of footnotes in 'Open Society' boggled even moi; who like yourself was a philosophy student. ;^)

My faculty were primarily 'Wittgensteinians', but Popperian 'falsifiability' was the only universally agreed-upon idea within the department, IIRC.

[CatoRenasci]

Sigh! And I used to think I was stupid because I just couldn't, for the life of me, get excited about Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations! The Tractatus Logico-Philisophicus was intriguing, but in that sort of aren't we sophomores clever?? way. Although I read the French and German Enlightenment philosophers as well as the English, and am very much taken with Nietzsche (at least as much for the quality of his German prose as for his philosophical insight), I really find myself bogged in the classical liberal English philsophical tradtion. Logical positivism leaves me cold, as does Marxism and the whole 1930's German/Marxist/Nazi witches brew. I read it, I can talk about it (more or less) intelligently (like to an orals committee), but I just don't believe it.

[0scill8r]

I don't know what you guys are talking about. Maybe it's my lack of formal philosophical training, but I have always found Popper's stuff to be extremely readable. I would recommend Open Society and its Enemies I and II to just about anyone who can read at the eight grade level.

As far as being labelled "right wing", he is more appropriately labelled a "classical liberal" and is most frequently mis-labelled by those who don't understand the difference between classical liberalism and what passes for liberalism now.

[Cincinatus]

Popper was the bete noir of the Logical Positivists. His concept of "falsification" of hypotheses is extremely important in modern science, in that it permits one to distinguish real science from pseudoscience (e.g., SETI).

A good introduction to his beliefs is the book Popper Selections, which provides readings from his most important works, with explanatory notes and lucid commentary. A good, non-technical explanation of science before and after Popper (and his role in understanding how it works) is contained in the very enjoyable Paradigms Lost by John Casti -- an excellent book on the nature of science and some current major scientific problems.

[CatoRenasci]

The article quoted suggested that Popper was neither 'right wing' nor really a classical liberal, and I would agree with that assessment. The 'right wing' in the European context of Popper's life was not classical liberal, rather it was authoritarian, and often ultramontagne Catholic and extremely hostile to classical liberal ideas. Classical liberalism was a doctrine of the moderate, non-socialist left in the continental European context -- think the Frei Demokraten in Germany, mostly an academic economist's worldview. Popper's willingness to engage in piecemeal social engineering (as opposed to what he called 'wholistic' social engineering of the socialists, Marxists and fascists of various stripes) is really more Burkean than classical liberal, almost a 'Tory Democracy' approach, with shades of Bismarck. What he seemed not to appreciate is that this too, failed.

I disagree that one should start with The Open Society and its Enemies, rather the shorter, more approachable book is The Poverty of Historicism. That book can be profitably read in a week of evenings an hour or two at a stretch.

As to Popper's difficulty, I must also disagree. While it's easy enough to read and understand as a flow of argument, really getting into it, thinking seriously whether he has accurately characterized others' views and made his cases, is not so easy. We spent two quarters on the book in a seminar with Burleigh Wilkins, who wrote an interesting essay on on Popper's philosophy of history: Has History Any Meaning ( 1974).

[headsonpikes]

Sorry to disagree. I thought his 'Investigations', as well as the Blue and Brown books was brilliant. 'Tractatus' was his Positivist phase, I suppose.

My profs were 'Oxbridgian' linguistic philosophers to a man. We endured no contemporary European excrescences. ;^)

Esp. no Heidegger or other 'German Existentialists'.

[scouse]

Must apologize for late reply, I just came back online. I did a Google search and found quite a few sites re Popper. I have added them to my favorites to visit when I have a little more time. Thanks for your assistance in my education.

[Billthedrill]

It wasn't actually Popper who did in the Logical Positivists, it was Kurt Godel. Popper's technique of falsifiability fits in quite nicely with the mathematical division of the Logical Positivists (Russell, Whitehead, etc) but not so with their linguistic successors(Wittgenstein through maybe Quine), which the article might have made a bit clearer.

For me Popper's critique of Marx was a slam-dunk, but the real (no pun intended) eye-popper in The Open Society and Its Enemies was his critique of Plato. I had to do some serious rethinking after reading that part. Popper's role as a populizer makes many people dismiss his work as "philosophy Lite," which to my mind is a bit unfair - even a heavyweight like Russell did a good deal of that.

[CatoRenasci]

Well, de gustibus non disputandam, I suppose. With Wittgenstein, one seems either to love his work or wonder what the fuss is all about. I'm not big on the Oxbridge linguisticians, either. Ultimately, if philosphy is not intelligible to the bright and interested layman, it's not worth doing, IMHO. I even prefer Russell to Wittgenstein!

[CatoRenasci]

I think you're right that Popper's critique of Plato was more significant than his critique of Marx. (I ususally view critiques of Marx as rather like taking candy from a baby, shooting fish in a barrel or arguing with fundamentalists -- easy, but trivial, something no gentleman would do because it lacks honor). I cannot read Plato to this day without considering the totalitarian lurking within the Dialogues and the Republic.

[scouse]

As I stated when I posted this article, that I am a Philosophus fatuus when it comes to this stuff. In fact I even referred to the gentleman as "Mr Popper". I have since discovered that he was knighted by QEII and thus became Sir Karl.

[Taliesan]

Last winter, a charming little book called Wittgenstein's Poker was published

Just read it...interesting background, but when we got to the actual battle in question a bit anticlimactic.

[Taliesan]

I haven't read Wittgenstein -- in Wittgenstein's Poker they depict him as nothing less than a god. Grad students were in awe.

[headsonpikes]

Popper's analysis of Plato will probably be taught 500 years from now.

Unless the neo-Platonists(read: Totalitarians) win. :^(

Frankly, I think Popper is far more profound than that egotist Russell. My sources inform me Russell stole the key concepts in Principia Mathematica from G. Frege, without attribution.

In fact, Russell's only saving grace is having been Wittgenstein's sponsor in British academic circles. ;^)

I think W's dismissal of the 'Idealists' and other 'metaphysicians' doctrines as arising from a misunderstanding of language will be seen as his long-term contribution to philosophy.

That and the truth-functional calculus. ;^)

[MarkWar]

>I have always found Popper's stuff to be extremely readable. I would recommend Open Society and its Enemies I and II to just about anyone who can read at the eight grade level.

I was going to post this exact same comment.

This stuff is easier on the eyes (and mind) than a lot of contemporary stuff -- more pleasant than George Gilder, for instance.

And, FWIW, Popper is the only "serious" historian I've ever read who openly acknowledges that Constantine's "conversion" -- and its consequences -- very possibly contained more political content than spiritual.

Great stuff.

Mark W.

[diotima]

I like On Certainty the best. The Tractatus was good as well, although I never got into the Investigations. All the Wittgenstein people in my grad program studied the Investigations. I think On Certainty is his best work. Very Platonic.

As they say....The world is everything that is the case.....

[headsonpikes]

"Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent."