The late Peter Munz contributed this essay to Liberty, Authority, Formality, ed. John Morrow & Jonathan Scott (Imprint Academic, 2008) and it is reprinted here by permission of the author's widow.
While the ethics and the sociology of The Open Society can stand up to criticism after 50 years, it is argued that Popper's thesis that closed societies are prompted and promoted by "historicism" cannot. Moreover, Popper's conceptions of "historicism" and of "developmental law" are based on a misunderstanding of our knowledge of history, the practice of historical writing, and the discipline of sociology. In conclusion there is an attempt to explain why, of all people Popper ever criticized for their historicism, (...) Darwin alone was singled out by him for exoneration. (shrink)
Transparencies (1) We used to stick them on window-panes Starting with butterflies. Later We found more momentous scenes Mandalas — ziggurats — Jesus. ...
Philosophers have not taken the evolution of human beings seriously enough. If they did, argues Peter Munz, many long-standing philosophical problems would be resolved. One of the philosophical consequences of biology is that all the knowledge produced in evolution is a priori established hypothetically by chance mutation and selective retention rather than by observation and intelligent induction. For organisms as embodied theories, selection is natural. For theories as disembodied organisms, it is artificial. Following Karl Popper, the growth of knowledge is (...) seen to be continuous from "the amoeba to Einstein." Philosophical Darwinism brings perspective to contemporary debates. It has far-reaching implications for cognitive science and artificial intelligence, and questions attempts from the field of biology to reduce mental events to neural processes. Most importantly, it provides a rational postmodern alternative to what the author views as the unreasonable postmodern theories of Kuhn, Lyotard, and Rorty. (shrink)
THE EVIDENCE OF THE SENSES: A REALISTIC THEORY OF PERCEPTION by David Kelley Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1986. 286 pp., $24.95.
