Popper, Misc

Book review of Jeremy Shearmur and Geoffrey Stokes (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Popper. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. x + 394 pp. Hardback ISBN 978-0-521-85645-4. GBP 84.99.

Karl Popper is famous for having proposed that science advances by a process of conjecture and refutation. He is also famous for defending the open society against what he saw as its arch enemies – Plato and Marx. Popper’s contributions to thought are of profound importance, but they are not the last word on the subject. They need to be improved. My concern in this book is to spell out what is of greatest importance in Popper’s work, what its failings (...) are, how it needs to be improved to overcome these failings, and what implications emerge as a result. The book consists of a collection of essays which dramatically develop Karl Popper’s views about natural and social science, and how we should go about trying to solve social problems. Criticism of Popper’s falsificationist philosophy of natural science leads to a conception of science that I call aim-oriented empiricism. This makes explicit metaphysical theses concerning the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe that are an implicit part of scientific knowledge – implicit in the way science excludes all theories that are not explanatory, even those that are more successful empirically than accepted theories. Aim-oriented empiricism has major implications, not just for the academic discipline of philosophy of science, but for science itself. Popper generalized his philosophy of science of falsificationism to arrive at a new conception of rationality – critical rationalism – the key methodological idea of Popper’s profound critical exploration of political and social issues in his The Open Society and Its Enemies, and The Poverty of Historicism. This path of Popper, from scientific method to rationality and social and political issues is followed here, but the starting point is aim-oriented empiricism rather than falsificationism. Aim-oriented empiricism is generalized to form a conception of rationality I call aim-oriented rationalism. This has far-reaching implications for political and social issues, for the nature of social inquiry and the humanities, and indeed for academic inquiry as a whole. The strategies for tackling social problems that arise from aim-oriented rationalism improve on Popper’s recommended strategies of piecemeal social engineering and critical rationalism, associated with Popper’s conception of the open society. This book thus sets out to develop Popper’s philosophy in new and fruitful directions. The theme of the book, in short, is to discover what can be learned from scientific progress about how to achieve social progress towards a better world. (shrink)

This book is largely unpublished material from Popper’s literary remains regarding his The Open Society and Its Enemies that conveys some interesting stories about its publication and initial reception, throws light on its message, and complements it somewhat. It also contains much that Popper hardly discussed elsewhere.

How should educational research be contracted? And is there anything wrong with the way that public funding of educational research is currently administered? We endeavour to answer these questions by appeal to the work of two of the most prominent philosophers of science of the twentieth century, namely Popper and Kuhn. Although their normative views of science are radically different, we show that they would nonetheless agree on a number of key rules concerning the extent to which scientific practice should (...) be influenced ‘from the outside’. We then show that these rules are often broken in the way that research is publicly funded in the UK. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to determine several points of reference regarding the way in which Karl Popper built up his philosophical discourse. I locate two specific ways in which Popper interpreted and used ideas belonging to other philosophers. Thus I distinguish in Popper between a projective hermeneutics and an ideological hermeneutics . In so doing I also highlight the considerable asymmetry between a representationalist hermeneutics, and a projective and, respectively, an ideological one. Whereas in the first case the (...) interpreter wishes to unveil a truth about the philosophical text, in the other two he is rather expressing a desire to talk about himself, his own beliefs and convic¬tions, or about the beliefs of his community of reference. (shrink)

This book is a collection of essays on the philosophy of Karl Popper written by some outstanding contributors from all the world around. Most of them are Popperians, some were Sir Karl’s students in his famous seminar at the London School of Economics and his research assistants. All have written books or papers on Popper’s philosophy and are notable professors at their universities. So, from a well-acquainted view of Poppers philosophy the book deals with present day philosophical problems and offers (...) interesting interpretations. The first part is devoted to political philosophy and the second to philosophy of science. The volume is of interest for all those concerned not only in Popper’s philosophy but also in some the main scientific and political problems of today. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that aim-oriented empiricism (AOE), a conception of natural science that I have defended at some length elsewhere[1], is a kind of synthesis of the views of Popper, Kuhn and Lakatos, but is also an improvement over the views of all three. Whereas Popper's falsificationism protects metaphysical assumptions implicitly made by science from criticism, AOE exposes all such assumptions to sustained criticism, and furthermore focuses criticism on those assumptions most likely to need revision if science is (...) to make progress. Even though AOE is, in this way, more Popperian than Popper, it is also, in some respects, more like the views of Kuhn and Lakatos than falsificationism is. AOE is able, however, to solve problems which Kuhn's and Lakatos's views cannot solve. [Back to Top]. (shrink)

The Enlightenment, Popper and Einstein Abstract Nicholas Maxwell Email: nicholas.maxwell@ucl.ac.uk In this paper I discuss four versions of the basic idea of the French Enlightenment of the 18th century, namely: To learn from scientific progress how to achieve social progress towards an enlightened world. These four versions are: 1. The Traditional Enlightenment Programme. 2. The Popperian Version of the Enlightenment Programme. 3. The Improved Popperian Enlightenment Programme. 4. The New Enlightenment Programme. The Traditional Enlightenment Programme is the version of the (...) idea upheld by the philosophes of the French Enlightenment. It was developed throughout the 19th century and put into practice in the early 20th century with the creation of departments of social science in universities all over the world. It is however damagingly defective. The Popperian Version of the Enlightenment Programme is an improvement, but still defective. As we go down the list, from 1 and 2 to 3 and 4, each Programme improves on its predecessor, until with The New Enlightenment, which can in some respects be associated with Einstein, we arrive at a version of the idea which can genuinely help humanity make social progress towards an enlightened world. (shrink)

A brief intellectual biography of Sir Karl Popper.

One of the most original thinkers of the century, Karl Popper has inspired generations of philosophers, historians, and politicians. This collection of papers, specially written for this volume, offers fresh philosophical examination of key themes in Popper's philosophy, including philosophy of knowledge, science and political philosophy. Drawing from some of Popper's most important works, contributors address his solution to the problem of induction, his views on conventionalism and criticism in an open society, and his unique position in 20th century philosophy. (...) They also examine the current relevance of Popper to understanding liberal democracy, his critique of tribalism and his relationship with analytic philosophy in general - and with Wittgenstein in particular - as well as drawing on the studies of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein to assess Popper's conception of science. (shrink)

This essay argues that Popper's work, seen from the vantage point of increasing historical distance, can be viewed as the first attempt to understand the grand narrative as the adjustment of metaphysics to the modern world. When viewed from such a distance enduring questions regarding holism, identity, essentialism, and truth can once again be thrown into relief, together with the pressing issues of the paradox of freedom and sovereignty.

Karl Popper is one of the greatest and most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. Originally published in German in 2000, Herbert Keuth's book is a systematic exposition of Popper's philosophy covering the philosophy of science (Part 1); social philosophy (Part 2); and metaphysics (Part 3). More comprehensive than any current introduction to Popper, it is suitable for courses in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of social science.

Fundamental to Sir Karl Poppers oeuvre was the insight that humans err - and that we can learn from our mistakes. Critique is therefore valuable in all human endeavours. Although this stance is most famously seen in Poppers claim that to be scientific a theory or hypothesis has to be falsifiable. Popper adopted a critical approach extensively in his work towards whatever crossed his path. Yet he never developed or suggested a general method of criticism. In this paper we present (...) and explain a method of criticism consistent with Poppers approach and applicable to every rationally accessible part of human life including management theory and practice.Managers of course already know the importance of learning from mistakes. But what we propose here in our Model of Rational Criticism places the emphasis on learning before we actually make the mistakes by seeking to eradicate errors of reasoning, thus reducing the chance of costly errors in implementation. Weconclude by exploring some of the implications of our model for managers. (shrink)

What would Karl Popper have made of today’s management and organisation theories? He would surely have approved of the openness of debate in some quarters, but the ease with which many managers accept the generalisations of some academics, gurus and consultants might well have troubled him. Popperhimself argued that processes of induction alone were unlikely to lead to developments in knowledge and considered processes of justification to be more important. He claimed that it was not through verifying theories from experiment (...) that knowledge actually developed but through the invention of bold and innovative theories that experimenters then tried to falsify. If new theories did not agree with the results of experiment, then they were considered false. If they passed testing then they were considered unfalsified and worthy of further testing rather than true. Objective knowledge was to be obtained through ensuringcritical debate and learning, rather than adhering to some objective scientific method.In this paper, Popper’s notion of falsificationism is explored through stressing the importance of the predictive content and testability of theories. A number of theories from the fields of management and organisation theory are examined and it is argued that many of them suffer from one of three defects: fromover-reliance upon untestable elements with psychological origins; from being phrased in language so vague that they gloss over phenomena; or from making predictions that are so cautious and all-encompassing as to be practically useless. As a result, they are likely to be unfalsifiable in Popper’s terms and their epistemological status is called into question. While acknowledging that the unpredictability of social systems poses problems for an approach stressing predictability, I conclude by arguing that organisation theory and management knowledge might well benefit from the openness and critical nature of Popper’s approach. (shrink)

A review of Steven Fuller's excellent book. Steve Fuller, professor of sociology at the University of Warwick, argues that, unfortunately for science, Kuhn won this debate. In the wake of Kuhn, science has come to be justified more by its paradigmatic pedigree than by its progressive aspirations. In other words, science is judged by whatever has come to be the dominant scientific community.

Karl Popper is the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. No other philosopher of the period has produced a body of work that is as significant. What is best in Popper's output is contained in his first four published books. These tackle fundamental problems with ferocious, exemplary integrity, clarity, simplicity and originality. They have widespread, fruitful implications, for science, for philosophy, for the social sciences, for education, for art, for politics and political philosophy. This article provides a critical survey of (...) Popper’s work. (shrink)

Karl Popper hat eine Erkenntnis- und Wissenschaftstheorie, eine Philosophie der Naturwissenschaften, eine Sozialphilosophie, eine Philosophie des Geistes und sogar Beiträge zur Ästhetik geliefert. Lediglich eine Ethik fehlt, was bei Popper, der sich immer als Philosoph der Aufklärung bezeichnete, doch etwas erstaunt. Ich werde versuchen, Elemente einer solchen Ethik zu rekonstruieren. Karl Poppers Beiträge zur Ethik sind relativ wenig bekannt. Dies dürfte vor allem daran liegen, dass sich keine seiner Arbeiten ausschließlich mit Ethik beschäftigt. Stattdessen findet man Bemerkungen zu diesem Thema (...) verstreut in ganz verschiedenen Werken, vor allem in der Offenen Gesellschaft. Da Popper keine systematische Darstellung seiner Ansichten zur Ethik geliefert hat, soll dieser Artikel dazu beitragen, diese Lücke zu schließen. (shrink)

Karl Popper is a philosopher of knowledge and politics, rationality and freedom. His ideas have won acceptance and provoked controversy among an academic as well as a more general audience. This book aims to broaden our understanding of Popper's philosophy. It is one of the few studies to present his work as an evolving "system of ideas", and to take account of the full range of his writings. The book discusses Popper's early philosophy of politics, science and social science, as (...) well as his later philosophy, which offers an evolutionary account of human nature and the growth of knowledge. Contrary to many earlier interpretations, Stokes argues that we should look to Popper's political values to understand the unity of his work and the evolution of his theory of knowledge and general philosophy. The chapters in this book examine Popper's arguments, and offer critical analysis of the achievements and shortcomings of his philosophy. In particular, Stokes considers the problems of rationality, politics and ethics in the context of debates between the Frankfurt School of critical theory and critical rationalism. The book will be of interest to second-year undergraduates and above in the fields of philosophy and critical theory. (shrink)