© Roger M Tagg 2011
Welcome to FROLIO – a new attempt to merge philosophy and the "semantic web" . This website is under continuing development.
Popper (later Sir Karl Popper, Professor at the London School of Economics) wrote this book as his 'war effort' while sitting out the second world war as a lecturer in Christchurch, New Zealand. He had been raised in Vienna in its early 20th century heyday. He had flirted with Marxism as a teenager, argued with the Logical Positivists and dabbled in modern music with Webern and Schoenberg. He realized that neither the Social Democrats nor the Communists were going to put up resistance to Hitler and the Nazis, believing that Fascism was the 'last throw' of Capitalism and, according to Marx's prophecies, would soon crumble. Having some Jewish blood, he was persuaded to emigrate from Austria in 1937.
| Chapter | Page | Highlight |
|---|---|---|
| Preface | xxxv | "Marxism is only an episode - one of the many mistakes we have made in the perennial and dangerous struggle for building a better and freer world." |
| to 2nd | xxxvi | "... our greatest troubles spring ... from our impatience to better the lot of our fellows." |
| edition | "... the greatest of all moral and spiritual revolutions of history (the Enlightenment) ... is the longing of ... men to free themselves and their minds from the tutelage of authority and prejudice." | |
| xxxvii | This requires "... unwillingness to sit back and leave the entire responsibility for ruling the world to human or superhuman authority ..." | |
| And, "... readiness to share the burden of responsibility for avoidable suffering ... and to work for its avoidance." | ||
| Intro- duction | xil-xliv | Popper (KRP) starts off with a rant against what he calls 'Historicism' - that is, the idea that there are 'laws' (like in Science) that determine how society must develop in the future, typically towards 'millennialist' ideal states. [RT: there seem to be a lot of different sorts of Historicism - see the Wikipedia page.] |
| xl | He laments the "... failure of the various social sciences and social philosophies to make sense of ... totalitarianism." | |
| xli | "... sweeping historical prophecies are entirely beyond the scope of scientific method [RT: that was Popper's special topic.]. The future depends on ourselves ..." [RT: Marx, and the Catholic church, might well agree.] This book "tries to show that this prophetic wisdom is harmful ..." | |
| xlii | Excuses for historicism might be: 1) it's flattering to the 'in crowd'; 2) it gives a dream to those dissatisfied with the status quo; 3) it absolves us from responsibility, because 'it's going to happen - or not happen - anyhow'. | |
| xliii | Some people follow "the doctrine that the social sciences, if they are to be any use at all, must be prophetic". | |
| xliv | There is some "... similarity between the Platonic theory of justice and the theory and practice of modern totalitarianism ...". | |
| [RT: a casual thought - is it just coincidence that the two main US political parties are called Republican (like Plato's Republic?) and Democrat (like the Athenian version Plato objected to)?] | ||
| 1 - Hist -oricism | 8 | A good and early example of historicism is that of 'God's chosen people' (the Israelites) in the bible; the idea that they are "the selected instrument of His Will". This derives from 'tribalism', and survives today as 'collectivism' and 'racism'. It provides 'certainty' as to where human history is all going. [RT: Similar things could be said about colonialism.] In Marxism, there is the 'chosen class'. |
| 2 - Her -aclitus | 11 | Homer's gods were capricious - no historical prophecy was implied. Hesiod regarded all history as degeneration from a 'golden age'. The best known proverb ascribed to Heraclitus is 'everything is in flux' (panta rhei), but he was also obsessed by 'fate' and 'mysteries'. [RT: The Wikipedia page about him says "To some degree then Heraclitus seems to be in the mystic's position of urging people to follow God's plan without much of an idea what that may be. In fact there is a note of despair".] |
| 18 | Historicism gets triggered especially in times of great change and insecurity. For Heraclitus it was revolts in Ephesus, for Jews it was the Babylonian captivity, for Hegel it was the American, French - and later, 1848 revolutions. [RT: It might have applied in the English civil war too.] | |
| 3 - | 20-1 | Plato thought all social change was degeneration (from some ideal former state), but it can be broken by the moral will of man. |
| Plato's Theory | 23 | Degeneration might be stopped by "arresting all political change". Extending this to 'things in general' leads to the Theory of Forms - the idea that there is a hierarchy of unchanging, ideal 'templates' behind everything we can observe - all we perceive is debased copies. |
| of Forms | 33-4 | "Methodological essentialism" is the idea that we can find the underlying 'essence' of perceivable things, "and describe them by means of definitions". |
| 34-5 | The opposite to the above is "methodological nominalism"; we look at something, including its use, behaviour and purpose first [RT: and then give it a name]. This is more akin to modern science than essentialism. | |
| 35 | The fact that social sciences tend to be addressed by essentialist methods might account for their relative backwardness. | |
| 36 | KRP talks about the "... totalitarian tendency of Plato's political philosophy ..." - of which more later. | |
| 4 - Change | 41 | Plato's doctrine of change (from The Laws): "Any change whatever, except the change of an evil thing, is the gravest of all the treacherous dangers that can befall a thing - whether it is now a change of reason, or of wind, or of the diet of the body, or of the character of the soul." |
| and Rest | KRP: "It leads to the law that the corruptibilty of all things in that world must increase." | |
| 42 | Plato's version of the origin of species is that all animals are corruptions of men, which were created by the gods); even women ("created from cowards and villains". | |
| 45-6 | Plato's life cycle of states goes: 1) Perfect; 2) Timarchy (rule of the noble); 3) oligarchy (rule of the rich families); 4) democracy ("liberty and lawlessness") and tyranny. His idea of 'perfect' is based on the constitutions of Sparta and Crete (the Dorians). | |
| 52-3 | Sparta forced families to be broken up, partly to train the sons as warriors only for the state, partly to avoid family rivalries. They emphasized the inferior nature of the ruled, especially the conquered pre-Dorian population; no mingling was allowed. They also didn't allow external trade (i.e. were isolationist). | |
| 56 | They also practiced infanticide (killing off poor quality children) for eugenic reasons. | |
| 5 - Nature | 63-5 | There is an essential distinction between natural laws and normative laws. Normative laws are ones evolved by humans and enforced by human agency. They are really 'conventions'. |
| and Con | 65 | The view called 'naive monism' is held by people who haven't appreciated this difference. They say that they are all 'laws'. |
| -vention | 'Naive conventionalism' admits to the two types, but says that they are all set by God or the gods. This breaks down when one tribe meets another that has different conventions, leading to 'critical dualism'. | |
| 67 | KRP emphasizes that 'decisions' can't be derived [RT: logically, at least] from 'facts'. | |
| 68-9 | So the critical dualism is equally between facts and decisions. [RT: But see his addenda where he thinks the dualism should be between facts and 'standards'.] The act of making a decision is a fact, but not the decision itself. | |
| 70 | Because normative laws are man made, it doesn't mean they are totally arbitrary. We can't say that one is always just as good as another. | |
| 71 | KRP says that he is attacking any religion that's based on "blind authority, on magic and tabooism", but not on one "built upon the idea of personal responsibility and freedom of conscience." | |
| Regarding changing normative laws, Jesus Christ said things like "Ye have heard it said by them of old time <some rule>, but I say unto you <some other rule>. | ||
| "If, however, you accept the Christian ethics ... only because of its claim to rest on divine authority, then you build on a weak basis; for it has been only too often claimed that inequality is willed by God, and that we must not be tolerant with unbelievers." | ||
| 72-3 | There can still be 'sociological laws', i.e. "observable regularities". | |
| 74-5 | KRP is against 'biological naturalism' - i.e. that we simply conform to our (supposed) nature. This "... does not lead to a more natural form of civilization, but to beastliness." [RT: One could also say 'law of the jungle', or 'dog eat dog'.] | |
| 77 | He also opposes 'ethical positivism', which he defines as "trying to reduce norms to facts". It leads to the rule "Whatever is, is good", and hence "Might is right". | |
| 77-8 | Another barrier to critical dualism is "based on our fear of admitting to ourselves that the responsibility for our critical decisions is entirely ours, and cannot be shifted to anybody else; neither to God, nor to nature, nor to society, nor to history". | |
| 81 | The method of any science, according to Plato, "will be in the investigation of the origin of things". [RT: I doubt if Popper agrees.] | |
| 81-2 | There is inevitably some interdependence between the individual and society - so there is likely to be some element of 'social contract' or 'conventionalism'. | |
| 89 | Plato talked about a mythical ('Nuptial') Number which determines the "true period of the human race", and is "the key to the master law of eugenics". It was not knowing this number that, he claimed, caused the 'Fall of Man'. | |
| 6 - Tot- alitarian Justice | 95-6 | Plato's ideal state has a) strict class division; b) the fate of the state = the fate of the ruling class; c) a ruling class monopoly on arms, education - but excluded from money-making; d) censorship of all intellectual activities, relying on unifying propaganda instead - and NO innovation; e) self-sufficiency, no external trade. |
| 96 | But some people say, if the purpose of this is to make everybody happy, and to have absolute justice, then it's OK. | |
| 98 | 'Republic' for Plato didn't have the modern connotations (e.g. elected president). It just meant 'the State'. | |
| 98-9 | A humanitarian view of justice might be: "a) an equal distribution of the burden of citizenship; b) equal treatment of the citizens before the law, provided ... c) the laws show neither favour nor disfavour towards individual citizens or groups or classes; d) impartiality of the courts of justice; and e) an equal share in the advantages" of membership of the State. But Plato simply meant "that which is in the interest of the best State". | |
| 99-100 | Plato: "The city is just ... if each of its three classes attends to its own work." But his ideas don't apply to individuals. | |
| 100 | KRP: "... it is not words but what we mean by them that matters." [RT: I'd say that whatever meaning(s) the readers or listeners take form our words is just as - if not more - important.] | |
| 103 | Plato's "attack on 'equalitarianism' was not an honest attack". He either overlooked - or deliberately omitted to discuss - the view that justice is equality before the law. [RT: KRP uses 'equalitarianism' rather than 'egalitarianism' throughout the book.] | |
| 105-9 | These pages contain a more detailed analysis of the contrast between humanitarian and Platonic justice. KRP points out that Plato used a long and 'diversionary' preface in The Republic to mask his dodgy ground. | |
| 110-2 | Plato confused two separate dimensions; 'Individualism versus Collectivism' is not the same as 'Egoism versus Altruism'. He didn't admit the possibility of Individual Altruism. [RT: Nor do a number of other philosophers, religious writers and people generally. It's like one of my Hot Cross Buns.] | |
| 112 | Aristotle, by contrast, said "justice is something that pertains to persons". Popper says that 'individual altruism' is basic to Christianity - and to Kant's philosophy. | |
| Plato said "eradicate from our life, everywhere and in every way, all that is private and individual". | ||
| 113 | Plato again: "The greatest principle of all is that nobody, whether male or female, should ever be without a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody be habituated to letting him do anything at all on his own initiative, neither out of zeal, nor even playfully ... he should get up, or move, or wash, or take his meals ... only if he has been told to do so. ... In a word, he should teach his soul, by long habit, never to dream of acting independently, and to become utterly incapable of it." [RT: I find it hard to take seriously anyone who says that should apply to adults. However, it does remind me a bit of my time between the ages of 8 and 12 at a boarding preparatory school in England.] | |
| 117 | Plato's view is that "the criterion of morality is the interest of the State". | |
| 121 | The humanitarian would ask the State for "the protection of that freedom which does not harm other citizens ... the State must limit the freedom of the citizens as equally as possible, and not beyond what is necessary for achieving an equal limitation of freedom. Popper calls this 'protectionism', and contrasts it with laissez-faire. | |
| 122 | Objectors to protectionism (e.g. Aristotle, Burke) wanted to make the State an object of worship. | |
| 123 | KRP: "The morality of States (if there is any such thing) tends to be considerably lower than that of the average citizen." | |
| 125 | One objection to protectionism (by Barker) says "the strength of the laws does not lie in the sanctions (against those who break them), but in the individual's readiness to obey them". | |
| 126 | KRP: "The fundamental idea of protectionism is to protect the weak from being bullied by the strong." | |
| 127-9 | Plato changed his views between the Gorgias and the Republic. In the former, he was favourable to protectionism. In the latter he attacked it by dishonestly identifying protectionism with egoism. | |
| 7 - The | 132 | "Who should rule" is not really the right question, as any ruler might turn out bad. A better question is "How can we so order political institutions that bad or incompetent rulers can be prevented from doing too much damage?" |
| Princi- | 134 | "I am inclined to think that rulers have rarely been above the average, either morally or intellectually, and often below it." |
| ple of | 134-5 | The majority might decide they want a tyrant. [RT: Hitler was elected, after all.] |
| Leader- | 135 | "All theories of democracy are paradoxical" - for similar reasons. |
| ship | 136-7 | The main need is to counter the possibilities of a move to tyranny that can only be removed by force. |
| 138 | An eternal problem is "selecting the future leaders". | |
| 139 | The problem of improving democratic institutions "is always a problem for persons rather than the institutions". | |
| 141 | Plato had the idea that education was only for training leaders; this was a lot different to Socrates' idea that it was for all of us, to a) allow us to realize how little we do really know; b) to escape from our prejudices; c) to learn how to make up our minds; d) to learn to show insight; e) to be ready to learn - and NOT simply to be 'trained' to become 'wise' or 'initiated'. | |
| 142 | Teachers need to show self-criticism themselves, and thus pass it on. | |
| 143 | State authority in education "is liable to produce dogmatic self-satisfaction and massive intellectual complacency, instead of critical dissatisfaction and eagerness for improvement". [RT: As with newspapers; some encourage thinking, but many just pander to the prejudices of the mass of their readers (probably because that's the way to make good profits.)] | |
| 144 | Plato's idea of a philosopher "is no longer the modest seeker, he is the proud possessor of truth. A trained dialectitian, he is capable of intellectual intuition, i.e. of seeing and communicating with the Eternal, the Heavenly Forms or Ideas. Placed high above all ordinary men ..." [RT: OK, OK, but Popper doesn't mention that we do need to learn good tools to help us think usefully.] | |
| 145 | Plato's system can't afford to leave everything to individual persons (risk of accidents or death), hence the need for education to be a State matter. | |
| Plato said that training of 'sages' should only start once members of the ruling class are past their prime, and have retired from soldiering. | ||
| 146 | They shouldn't start at all before the age of 30, because they need to be past the risk of insubordination. Higher philosophical studies shouldn't start before the age of 50. | |
| 147 | KRP: "The authoritarian will in general select those who obey, who believe, who respond to his influence. But in doing this, he is bound to select mediocrities. For he excludes those who revolt, who doubt, who dare to resist his influence." | |
| "This tendency [RT: I think he includes education in many eras and countries] transforms our educational system into a racecourse, and turns a course of studies into a hurdle race" (instead of encouraging love for learning itself. | ||
| 148 | Popper's optimism for mankind come from the young he sees who can still rise above such a systematization of education along Plato's lines. | |
| 149 | Plato's own choice of leaders was disastrous, e.g. Dio or Dion of Syracuse, Clearchus, This was probably a case of "All power corrupts" (Lord Acton). | |
| 8 - The Philos- | 150 | Plato: "It is the business of the rulers of the city, if it is anybody's, to tell lies, deceiving both its enemies and its own citizens for the benefit of the city ..." [RT: not bad for a philosopher-king?] |
| opher | 151 | A physician "has no right to attend to a man who cannot carry out his ordinary duties; for such a man is useless to himself and to the State". |
| King | 152-3 | Plato admitted that his "Myth of Blood and Soil" or "Myth of the Earthborn" (i.e. racism) was a lie. That presumably also applies to his "Myth of the Metals in Man" (i.e. Gold for the top class, Silver for the next, Iron for the hoi polloi). |
| 153 | Popper quotes James Adam (a 19th century Plato expert) who said that people needed to have faith above reason. [RT: He would have made a good spin doctor] | |
| 154 | Hobbes held the "view that the tenets of religion, although not true, are a most expedient and indispensable political device". | |
| 155 | The Athenian tyrant Critias (who was Plato's uncle) wrote a poem glorifying propaganda and lies. | |
| "Thus Plato demands, in the Laws, the severest punishment even for honest and honourable people if their opinions concerning the gods deviate from those held by the State." [RT: effectively, a forerunner of the Spanish Inquisition. And had Plato forgotten that this was what happened to his beloved teacher Socrates?] | ||
| 158 | Plato's idea of a philosopher (different from Socrates') was one who can see the divine world of Forms and Ideas, and the 'Idea of the Good', the highest in that hierarchy. But Popper says that the "Idea of the Good" is an "empty formalism" - Plato gives no details or examples. | |
| 161 | "Platonic wisdom is acquired largely for the sake of establishing a permanent political class rule. It can be described as political 'medicine', giving mystic powers to its possessors, the 'medicine men'." | |
| 162-3 | This also requires eugenic breeding of a master race, like with dogs or cattle. A lottery was suggested for who could breed with whom, but the balloting would be bogus and the results fixed, so that people would put down failure to get who they wanted as 'bad luck'. | |
| 163 | The 'Glauconic Edict' was that during war, all women (and men) must submit (for mating) to war heroes. | |
| 166 | The magical 'nuptial number' (see earlier) was Plato's own invention; the possible implication is that only Plato himself is qualified to be the Philosopher King. | |
| 9 - Aes- theticism | 170-1 | Plato's idea is "Utopian (social) engineering", whereas Popper prefers "piecemeal engineering". Utopianism implies that we must have the aim, goal or end point worked out first. |
| Perfect- | 173 | "... the fact that authoritarianism must discourage criticism." |
| ionism | 174 | Popper points out that the blueprint (for social Utopia) isn't static, and may in fact need to be revised before the process of change is completed. |
| Utopia- nism | 177 | "... The Utopian method must lead to a dangerous dogmatic attachment to a blueprint for which countless sacrifices have been made." [RT: e.g. we can't tell the surviving families of the 'martyrs' that the loss of their loved ones was in vain. More generally, too many vested interests (especially financial) are at stake.] |
| 178 | Unlike Plato, "Marx condemns in fact all social engineering" - but he relies on the 'laws of history' instead. | |
| 'Radicalism' literally means attacking the 'roots' - of whatever one wishes to replace. Both Plato and Marx wanted extreme radicalism. | ||
| 179 | People (including Plato) want a 'brave new world', as some aesthetic ideal. "But this aesthetic enthusiasm becomes valuable only if it is bridled by reason, by a feeling of responsibility, and by a humanitarian urge to help. Otherwise it is a dangerous enthusiasm, liable to develop into a form of neurosis or hysteria." | |
| KRP: "I do not believe that human lives may [should?] be made the means of satisfying an artist's desire for self-expression." Everyone should have "the right to model his life himself, as far as this does not interfere too much with others". | ||
| 180-1 | In this 'artist' analogy, one must first make one's canvas clean. Plato's answer to this was to expel all citizens above the age of 10 and re-educate the remaining children. | |
| 181 | The paradox to this is that one would have to expel the painter as well! And what should the State do when it finds out that bits of the new system don't work? Expel and re-educate from scratch again? | |
| 182 | It's all Romaticism, an appeal to the emotions. | |
| 10 - | 185-6 | What about happiness in all this? Plato only considers the happiness of the State. |
| 187 | Plato probably honestly wanted to restore happiness [RT: to those who had something to lose?] after the many upsets of his times (the Peloponnesian War and extreme political changes). But a return to tribalism (Popper says) was hopelessly wrong. [RT: The world had 'moved on'] | |
| 188 | KRP's re-cap of Plato's "lack of distinction between the customary or conventional regularities of social life and the regularities found in nature", both being determined by "supernatural will". | |
| 189 | "Based on collective tribal tradition, the institutions leave no room for personal responsibility." Taboos aren't good enough - they are more about "appeasing the powers of fate". | |
| 190 | "... the magical or tribalist or collectivist society" is what Popper calls the closed society. | |
| 191-2 | An open society may become an 'abstract society' without concrete, co-located groups [RT: sounds like Facebook] | |
| 192 | Durkheim "never gave up the dogmatic belief that society must be analyzed in terms of real social groups". | |
| 192-3 | Things started to change in ancient Greece with population growth, 'daughter cities', commerce and seafaring [RT: and, eventually, money]. | |
| 193 | "But with the breakdown of the closed society, this certainty (of a fixed order of things) disappears, and with it all feeling of security." | |
| 194-5 | Another trigger was "close contact with other tribes". Athens had it, Sparta hated it. | |
| 197 | "... the same historians who hail Rome for her achievement, the foundation of a universal empire, condemn Athens for her attempt to achieve something better." | |
| 199 | "And whatever one might say against plutocracy" (as in Athens), "it is preferable to a rule of looters" (like Rome). | |
| Spartan foreign affairs policy was: 1) protect arrested tribalism; 2) shut out all equalitarian, democratic and individualistic ideologies; 3) be independent of trade; 4) differentiate 'our' tribe from all others; 5) dominate and enslave your neighbours; 6) do not become too large. | ||
| "But our world [i.e. nowadays] has become so small that everybody is now a neighbour." | ||
| 200 | In Athens, democracy got confused with 'rule of the mass uneducated' - which does have its dangers. | |
| 201-4 | Quotes from Pericles's Athens - and Plato's caricature of this called Menexenus. | |
| 206-9 | A review of Socrates' influence; he did mix with anti-democrats, but was a critic of all sides. | |
| 210-1 | The death of Socrates after the democrats got back into power after the end of the Peloponnesian war. | |
| 212 | Plato tried to implicate Socrates in his theories (his sayings were much different between the earlier Apology and Crito, and the later Laws. Socrates would never have been given the chance to defend himself if he had lived under Plato's Republic. | |
| 213-5 | Why did Plato do this? Popper thinks it was to quiet his own bad conscience for being "in the camp of its [the open society's] enemies". | |
| 215-6 | For Plato, the root of all evil was the 'Fall of Man', the breakdown of the closed society. [RT: does that compare with Adam and Eve?] | |
| 216 | At least Plato wanted to improve on tyranny, and would have been influenced by the 'Periclean generation' - even if he wanted to close the door on it. | |
| 217 | "Plato thus became, unconsciously, the pioneer of the many propagandists who, often in good faith, developed the technique of appealing to moral, humanistic sentiments, for anti-humanitarian, immoral purposes." He implied that he yearned for "... a heavenly state in which everybody is satisfied and happy and in which the crudity of money-grabbing is replaced by laws of generosity and friendship". | |
| 218 | But "he did not succeed in arresting social change" - although he helped trigger 'Platonic-Aristotelian Essentialism", which did succeed for a while [RT: e.g. in the later Middle Ages]. | |
| "... once we feel the call of personal responsibilities, and with it the responsibility of helping to advance knowledge, we cannot return to a state of implicit submission to tribal magic. For those who have eaten of the tree of knowledge, paradise is lost." | ||
| "The more we try to return to the heroic age of tribalism, the more surely do we arrive at the Inquisition, at the Secret Police, and at a romanticized gangsterism." | ||
| "There is no return to a harmonious state of nature. If we turn back, we must go the whole way - we must return to the beasts." | ||
| after-thought | History shows that Sparta's (Plato's ideal?) supremacy didn't last long in ancient Greece - it crumbled to Thebes (north of Athens) at the battle of Leuctra (371 BC); Thebes in turn was overcome by the Macedonians a few decades later, which led to the empire of Alexander the Great. | |
| In the 5th edition, there is a longish set of addenda at this point; most of the pages are taken up with Popper's answer to some of his critics, especially RB Levinson who had written a book In Defence of Plato, virulently attacking Popper and his analysis. | ||
| 11 - The Aristot- | 253-4 | Aristotle supported slavery and a slave class, and even denied any vote to professionals or producers. Feudal rulers should never do anything but their hobbies - and then not even arts or science, except maybe 'liberal arts' and philosophy. |
| elian roots of | 255 | In contrast to Plato's ideal Forms (with everything having degenerated from them), Aristotle proposed that everything has a Final Cause towards which they develop. |
| Hegelian | 257 | Aristotle: the 'essence' of something is the sum of all its potentialities. |
| -ism | 257-8 | The Historicist consequences of this are: 1) we can only get to know about something when it develops; 2) change makes apparent the inherent essence; 3) in order to emerge into 'existence' a thing has to "assert its personality" (with persons, this involves attempts to dominate others). |
| 259-63 | Aristotle's 'essentialist' method needs 'basic principles' and 'definitions' - which leads to the ideal of 'perfect' knowledge through logic. This is all very different from the 'scientific method'. | |
| 264-5 | Science reads definitions from Right to Left - we first observe X and then give it a name. "What is X?" type questions are not so important. Science is 'nominalist', not 'essentialist'. | |
| 267 | Husserl's Phenomenology is a form of Aristotelian essentialism. Popper criticizes the view that 'if we don't know the meaning of words, we can't have a meaningful discussion', because of the risk of infinite regression. [RT: i.e. that in the definitions we give, we must always refer back to some other concept(s) that have already been defined - where does this stop?] | |
| 269-72 | Science avoids this by not overburdening terms with meaning; instead, it states the conditions under which a hypothesis is proposed or an observation is made. The name of the term is decided afterwards. But in Aristotle's day, his approach won out. | |
| 273 | The Cynic movement, and later Christianity, "opposed the highbrow Platonic idealism and intellectualism of the 'scribes' ...". | |
| Christianity, says Popper, was "a protest against Jewish tribalism, against its rigid and empty tribal taboos, and against its tribal exclusiveness" ('chosen race'). | ||
| 274 | Early Christians showed moral courage, but then Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire; it then became un-egalitarian and open to manipulation by those in authority. The Dark Ages began in 529 AD with Justinian's persecution of non-Christians and philosophers. | |
| 275 | This trend culminated in church totalitarianism and the Inquisition. Yet some fashions today want to go back to this, rather than face modern agnosticism - KRP calls this "romantic mediaevalism". The question is, does God 'rule the world', or do leaders actually have to accept the responsibility of ruling it themselves? | |
| 276 | Dancing mania and religious fanaticism were a feature, especially after the Black Death. [RT: Saturday Night Fever?] | |
| 277 | Plato and [especially] Aristotle were adopted by mediaeval authoritarianism. | |
| 12 - The rise of | 278-80 | Popper thought that Hegel wrote gibberish, and wanted to replace "barren formal logic" by something simpler and all-encompassing (i.e. Dialectics); Hegel basically started an "age of dishonesty". |
| National | 281 | The extreme [political] left and right - and to some extent the conservative centre - all owe much to Hegel. |
| -ism | 282-5 | Hegel was appointed by King Frederick William III of Prussia to oppose the ideas of the French Revolution, just after Napoleon had been ousted. He applied Plato [RT: 'in spades', or 'Plato++'], especially the idea that the State is all. |
| 286 | Despite Marx having based his dialectics on Hegel's, Hegel was not a very Marx-like person. | |
| 288 | Hegel's direction of evolution, through the dialectic process, was towards the perfect Idea. | |
| 289 | Hegel believed that war is just, and that "The History of War is the World's Court of Justice" [RT: Might is right again]. A nation asserts its individuality by fighting other nations and seeking world domination. | |
| 290 | Kant railed against "mere fancies" and "sterile dogmatism", for which there is always a counter-assertion, and evidence can be used to judge. But Kant didn't write well either, and Hegel and his followers were able to "bewitch the public" (Schopenhauer [a big critic of Hegel]). | |
| 291 | Hegel thought that if contradictions are unavoidable and desirable, there is no need to eliminate them. | |
| 292 | Hegel embraced the "philosophy of identity", following Heraclitus's "unity of opposites", although Hegel did think it was a bit barmy. Examples: Essence = Idea, Subject = Object, Being = Becoming, Everything = Nothing, Change = Rest, Actuality = Potentiality, Reality = Appearance, Matter = Spirit, Belief = Truth etc etc | |
| 293 | He followed "ethical and juridical positivism", i.e. "what is, is good", "all that is reasonable is real" - which again all lead to "might is right". | |
| 295 | "... the claim of science to judge for itself is described [by Hegel] as 'pretentious'." | |
| "... if faced with subversive opinions, "the State must protect objective truth". [RT: Whose version? Presumably those with the most power] | ||
| 295-8 | He also similarly twisted logic to rubbish the need for a constitution [which the King didn't want], for equality before the law, and liberty. | |
| 299 | Hegel saw history as "the thought process of the Absolute Spirit". | |
| 301 | Hegel "opposes the brotherhood of man, humanitarianism ... conscience must be replaced by blind obedience and by a romantic Heraclitean ethics of fame and fate, and the brotherhood of man by totalitarian nationalism". | |
| 302 | Prussia itself was a Slav kingdom ruled by Germans [RT: like 'Bohemia'] - even in 1815. | |
| 304 | General triggers for Prussian nationalism were 1) reaction to the Napoleonic invasion; 2) romantic 'general will (Rousseau); 3) national borders (Herder); 4) language (Fichte). | |
| 312 | Hegel did correctly attack extreme rationalism and intellectualism that fails "to appreciate the indebtedness of reason to tradition", as did Burke. But taking this too far leads to: "... the dangerous doctrine that what is believed today is in fact true today, and the equally dangerous corollary that what was true today may be false tomorrow". | |
| 313 | "Fascism grew partly out of the spiritual and political breakdown of Marxism." [RT: In Germany, at any rate, in the form of Social Democracy.] | |
| "Modern totalitarianism is only an episode within the perennial revolt against freedom and reason." | ||
| 314 | "Fascism has not much time for an open appeal to the supernatural." Fascism translated Hegel's 'Spirit' [Geist] into 'Blood', i.e. race. | |
| 315 | The main ideas of Fascism are: "a) nationalism, chosen race/nation destined for world domination; b) state as natural enemy of all other states must assert its existence in war; c) state is exempt from any kind of moral obligation - history is the sole judge, collective utility the sole principle of personal conduct, propagandist lying and distortion of the truth is permissible; d) the ethical idea of war, fate and fame as most desirable goods; e) creative role of the Great Man; f) ideal of the heroic life as opposed to petty bourgeois life of shallow mediocrity". Hegel justified almost all of this. | |
| 321 | Hegel: "War protects the people from the corruption which an everlasting peace would bring upon it." | |
| 324 | Many of Popper's quotes come from a book by Kolnai. | |
| "One of Hegel's feats was the revival of the Heraclitean idea of 'fate', or rather 'destiny." | ||
| 325 | Stapel (in KRP's view a paganized Christian, who supported the Nazis) said "Do such deeds as spell glory". | |
| 329 | Stapel: "An ethicized Christianity is counter-Christianity through and through ... God has made this world perishable; it is doomed to destruction. May it, then, go to the dogs according to destiny! men who want to create a 'higher' morality are starting a ridiculous petty revolt against God. ... The hope of Heaven does not mean the expectation of the blessed; it means obedience and war comradeship." | |
| KRP accuses Hegel of having a pessimistic streak, as do Stapel, Heidegger and Jaspers. | ||
| 330 | Heidegger: "The enquiry should be into the Existing or else into ... Nothingness. ... We know Nothingness ... 'fear reveals nothingness' "; i.e. we are "directed towards death". Also, "Science and German Destiny must attain Power ...". | |
| 331 | Jaspers: "Only when you are faced with Nothingness, with annihilation, will you be able to experience and appreciate Existence". Popper: Then "enjoy yourself perishing! This is the philosophy of the gambler - of the gangster [RT: like Bonnie and Clyde?] ... this demoniac 'religion of Urge and Fear, of the Triumphant or else the Hunted Beast' (Kolnai)". | |
| 333 | Schopenhauer saw through all this. | |
| 13 - | 338 | Karl Marx at least made an honest try to improve the lot of the vast majority. |
| Marx's Socio- | 339 | But his shortcoming and falseness was that he "misled scores of intelligent people into believing that historical prophecy is the scientific way of approaching social problems". Marx dismissed social technology as Utopian. Lenin's New Economic Policy had nothing to do with Marx and Engels. |
| logical | 340 | "... hardly a word on the economics of socialism (is) to be found in Marx's work." |
| Determin | 341 | "... rigid determinism', " 'inexorable laws' of nature and historical development ..." |
| -ism | Science, KRP points out, doesn't need things to be deterministic - it's not like machinery. | |
| 14 - The Auto- | 346 | JS Mill thought it all depended on human psychology, but Marx said that social existence determines human consciousness, rather than vice versa - and Popper agreed. |
| nomy of Socio | 348 | Motives alone can't determine action ('Autonomous sociology' means not needing psychology). [RT: I'd say that the individual human need for security can't be dismissed.] |
| -logy | 349 | But methodological individualism is preferable to methodological collectivism. [RT: I think this implies that someone should be accountable.] |
| 350 | Psychologism has to rely on the idea of 'a beginning of society', i.e. what happens just prior to societies developing. [RT: presumably our ape-like ancestors had societies.] | |
| 352-4 | Psychologism may also involve a dependence on conspiracy theories. | |
| 355-6 | "... to live in the haven of a tribe, or of a 'community' ... is for many men an emotional necessity (especially for young people) ..." | |
| 15 - Eco | 358 | Thinking that Marx's economics is all driven by individual and class motives is what Popper calls 'vulgar Marxism' - not what Marx proposed. |
| -nomic | 359 | Marx's view was that strains were caused unwittingly by "agents who are caught in the network of the social system". |
| Histor | 360 | Marx deviates from Mill and Hegel in saying 'yes, it's historical, but it's materialistic'. |
| -icism | 361 | "Human thought is not itself the basis of human life, but rather a superstructure." Popper describes this as "practical dualism". But Marx did not feel any love for the "kingdom of necessity", i.e. he wasn't totally materialistic. |
| 362 | "We are not purely spiritual beings", so are not fully free. "All we can achieve is to improve upon the exhausting and undignified conditions of labour, ... and to reduce drudgery to such an effect that all of us can be free for some part of our lives." | |
| 364 | "... 'economics' covers [RT: should?] man's metabolism, the exchange of matter between man and nature." | |
| 364-5 | "... the science of society must coincide with the history of the development of the economic conditions of society, usually called by Marx 'the conditions of production'." But 'production' needs to include distribution and consumption (largely ignored by Marx and Marxists). | |
| 365 | Marx too simplistically equated 'reality' with the material world (including economics and man's metabolism), and 'appearance' with the world of thoughts and ideas. | |
| 366 | Dependency on economics was exaggerated. | |
| 367 | The Russian revolution depended more on the idea of 'workers unite'. Lenin preached dictatorship of the proletariat [RT: does that mean of 'union leaders'?] "plus the widest introduction of the modern electrical industry". | |
| 367-8 | Marx had too limited an idea of exactly how a revolution should happen, but the Russian revolution had no similarity to Marx's idea. | |
| 16 - The Classes | 369 | Marx and Engels: "The history of all hitherto existing society is a history of class struggle". Traditional history (e.g. of nations and rulers) doesn't often appreciate any of this. |
| 370-1 | We may only be able to free ourselves up from the 'productive process' by getting others to do our share of the 'dirty work', thus tending to form classes. | |
| 371 | Classes depend on the 'conditions of production', especially feudalism and capitalism, and we get "caught in the machinery" of the resulting social system. | |
| 374-5 | The Marxist view (of history) is an over-simplification. What about Pope versus Emperor (i.e. rival ruling classes)? [RT: or, workers who save versus those who don't.] | |
| 375 | The unrestrained capitalism of the mid 1800s was a lot different from today's capitalism. | |
| 17 - The Legal | 377 | The Communist manifesto said: "Political power ... is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing the other. Marx sees the State in essentialist terms ... what it is, rather than what it is there for. But politics are impotent, because they cannot alter economic reality." |
| and the | 378-9 | Even the workers' party can't have much effect. Engels: "... the State withers away." [RT: joke!] |
| Social | 380-1 | (Here there is a description of the horrors of unrestrained capitalism.) |
| System | 382 | "Exploitation ... cannot be eliminated by merely legal means." |
| 383 | But just as we have legal and political systems to protect people from physical bullying, we need systems to cover economic bullying. We can't tolerate non-interventionism. | |
| 384 | Marx's limitation of politics "to shorten and lessen the birth pangs" of the communist society is unrealistic. | |
| 385 | Marx never grasped the level of power that the State could develop, and ignored the issue of how to keep it in check. | |
| 387 | Political power can often outrank or outwit economic power. And in a democracy, we can vote it out. | |
| 388 | Because they thought politics was impotent, Marxists "never realized the danger inherent in a policy of increasing the power of the State. Although they abandoned more or less unconsciously the doctrine of the impotence of the State, they retained the view that State power presents no important problem, and that it is bad only in the hands of the bourgeoisie." | |
| 389 | "... if we do not strengthen our democratic institutions while giving more power to the State by interventionist 'planning', then we may lose our freedom." | |
| 390-1 | 'Indirect' intervention (by a legally constrained and delegated institution) is far better than giving the State carte blanche. | |
| 392 | Some people still fail to see this distinction [RT: and ignore the question 'Quis custodiet ...?']. | |
| 393 | Marx was [RT: hopefully!] the last of the great holistic system builders, "one of the greatest among the idealist philosophers, in the German - that is to say the bad - sense of the word 'idealist' ". | |
| 18 - The | 397 | Marx prophesied the end of capitalism, but capitalism seems to have evolved and lasted. |
| Coming of Soci- | 399 | Marx's 3 steps 1) increase (in parallel) of wealth and misery (chapter 20); 2) reduction to 2 classes, namely a small bourgeoisie and a large exploited working class, leading to social revolution; 3) after the revolution, a one-class society of socialism. |
| alism | 400 | In fact, a new ruling class arises. |
| 401 | And workers don't always stick together - trades may compete. | |
| 402 | A classless society is wishful thinking. | |
| 403 | Total State control isn't the only option, e.g. Sweden. Most of Marx's 10 points have been carried out to a greater or lesser extent in many states, communist or not. However "abolition of all property in hand" has not been one of these. | |
| 404-5 | One can't say that it's all down to historical prophecy, as moral and ideological factors always have some - not totally predictable - effect. | |
| 406 | One can't succeed with planning some institutions. | |
| 406-7 | Communists had a kind of irrational faith in the final success of the Russian experiment; Social Democrats were sceptical, as - according to the prophecies - it was wrong that the revolution happened in un-industrialized Russia. | |
| 407-8 | But the Social Democrats and Communists alike just sat waiting for the predicted self-destruction of capitalism, thinking that Fascism was its last throw. | |
| 19 - The | 409 | Popper thought that neither 'reduction to 2 classes' nor 'inevitable revolution' followed from the assumptions of 'increased wealth and misery'. |
| Social | 411 | The agricultural middle class (small farmers) would not tend to merge. |
| Revol- ution | 412 | KRP's alternative set of classes: 1) bourgeoisie; 2) big landed proprietors; 3) other landowners; 4) rural workers; 5) a new middle class; 6) industrial workers; 7) rabble proletariat. Even #6 might split. |
| 414 | Marx was equivocal about whether violence would be needed. Morally, Popper thought, violence would only be justified to overthrow tyranny, or against a threat to democracy. | |
| 416 | Marxists and Social Democrats wouldn't agree, unless the bourgeoisie started a fight. | |
| 418 | Outbreaks of violence might occur, but they may not be the 'social revolution'. | |
| "Marx lived long enough to see reforms carried out which, according to his theory, should have been impossible." He wrote: "My party ... considers an English revolution not necessary but - according to historical precedents - possible". | ||
| 418-9 | "There is no logical necessity why a gradual reform, achieved by compromise, should lead to the complete destruction of the capitalist system; why the workers, who have learned by experience that they can improve their lot by gradual reform, should not prefer to stick to this method, even if it does not yield 'complete victory', i.e. the submission of the ruling class." | |
| 419 | Proletarians do not have "nothing to lose but their fetters". An evolutionary interpretation "destroys the whole Marxist argument". "If the possibility of gradual reform is admitted ... the theory of increasing misery must be given up". | |
| 420 | A major reason is that the middle class won't cease to exist. | |
| 421 | Another ambiguity is whether one should just get a majority, or entrench one's class as 'un-removable by democratic means' (i.e. go for class tyranny). | |
| 423 | The idea that the bourgeoisie would fire the first shot was pretty crazy. | |
| 424 | The ambiguity regarding violence "makes the working of democracy impossible". | |
| 425 | It encourages blaming democracy for all evils, and saying that only complete conquest is good enough. | |
| 426 | It assumes that the only issue is "who rules?" rather than "how much power is wielded?" Some Marxist parties seemed to be waiting for democracy to fail, thus blaming democracy. | |
| 427 | There was a lot of "talking big and doing nothing". Political strikes are counter-productive - they encourage anti-democratic tendencies among the rulers. | |
| 428 | "The fact is that the Marxists taught the theory of class war to the workers, but the practice of it to the revolutionary diehards of the bourgeoisie." | |
| 429 | "For the Communists were sure that the proletarian revolution was overdue and that the Fascist interlude, necessary for its speeding up, could not last longer than a few months." | |
| Einstein said "It was only the Church, or rather a section of the Church, which seriously offered resistance (to Fascism)". | ||
| 20 - | 434 | Marx's predicted squeezing out (of competitors) does happen, but countermeasures can and have been applied |
| Capital -ism and | 436-7 | Marx tried to save the "labour theory of value" from destruction, by saying that "the worker's whole labour power is equal to the labour hours needed for producing the means of his subsistence", and any higher value means that there is exploitation. |
| its Fate | 439 | But 'value' is rather a matter of supply and demand. |
| 441 | Exploitation wasn't due "to the mechanism of a perfectly competitive market", but to other factors, e.g. low productivity and imperfect markets. | |
| 442 | The 'essence' of value (in a labour theory) is "entirely divorced from experience". | |
| With unemployment, wages cannot (be expected to) rise. | ||
| 443 | Once trade unions are allowed, the arguments for 'increasing misery' break down. | |
| "Which freedom should the state protect?" That "of the labour market, or freedom of the poor to unite?" | ||
| 444 | So the State cannot but intervene. | |
| 444-7 | Unemployment, surplus population and trade cycles have an effect, as does new machinery. | |
| 447 | Marx "never investigated the possibility of a systematic interference with the trade cycle". | |
| "In the name of their (Marxists') own interests they are fighting against progress ... and they do not see ... that there are intellectual investments, as well as material ones." | ||
| 449 | Marx's theory is that, if capitalism is squeezed, it takes it out on the workers. | |
| 450 | It's just that capital increases faster than profits - this does not necessarily mean a capitalist is squeezed. | |
| 451-2 | Despite capital accumulation, misery has in fact declined. | |
| 452 | Marx and Engels then decided that 'colonialism' was the cause of the breakdown of their original theory. | |
| 453 | They complained about 'bourgeoisification of the proletariat', which was "hateful because it did not fit in with the way the world should go according to Marx. | |
| 454 | Lenin therefore thought that the trigger for revolution would come from the colonial empire. But workers in countries with colonies fared much the same as those in countries without. And although colonialism may be detestable, things have generally greatly improved [RT: but not in the colonies after colonialism.] | |
| 455 | Social Democrats, waiting to get a majority, "did not see that the industrial workers nowhere formed a majority, much less an 'immense majority'," and they would have to represent more than just industrial workers. | |
| Marx naively thought they could bring "the rural producers under the intellectual leadership of the central towns of their districts, there securing to them, in the industrial worker, the natural trustee of their interests." | ||
| 456 | Mainstream communists say 'keep fighting the petty battles, increase class consciousness, hype up the misery and hope it increases. When it doesn't happen, they lose members, including the "vanguard of the working class". | |
| 457 | "They are forced to fight for the immediate betterment of the workers' lot and to hope at the same time for the opposite." ... "Ultimately, they must become mystics." ... "It seems that it is not only capitalism which is labouring under inner contradictions that threaten to bring about its downfall." | |
| 21 - An | 459 | Marx "had no inkling of what was lying ahead". |
| Evalua- | 460 | But he did correctly predict trade cycles. |
| tion of | 461 | But these don't totally explain armaments or war, as these seem to explain the success of totalitarian states in fighting unemployment. |
| the Pro | 462 | Any success in Marx's predictions were due to "institutional analysis", and not his historicist method. |
| -phecy | 463 | "Roughly speaking, Marx shared the belief of the progressive individualist, of the 'bourgeois' of his time..." But this is still naive historicist optimism. |
| HAL Fisher: "The fact of progress is written plain and large on the page of history, but progress is not a law of nature. The ground gained by one generation can be lost by the next". | ||
| 463-4 | Marx's prophecies are more like 'religious inspiration'. | |
| 464 | If Marx hadn't discouraged research into social technology the result might have been success - but it wouldn't have fulfilled the prophecy. | |
| 22 - The | 467 | Like it or not, Marx's "writings contained, by implication, an ethical theory ...". Capitalism ... "is condemned for the cruel injustice inherent in it ...". |
| Moral | 468 | Men selling their labour on the open market reduced slavery. Marx avoided an explicit moral theory - maybe because he hated preaching. |
| Theory of Hist- | 470-1 | Marx's 'activist' tendencies were drowned by his historicism. He and Engels tried to bridge this gap with 'historicist moral theory', which says that ideas of justice are a by-products of social and historical development. |
| oricism | 473 | Marx might claim that why he supported exploited workers wasn't moral sentiment, but the scientific corollary of taking his position - that is, to base socialism on "rational economic grounds of social development, instead of justifying them on moral grounds". |
| 474 | But we can't adopt the morals of some possible future system unless we say that it's 'inevitable' - and so relying on pseudo-scientific historicism. | |
| 475 | It's like saying "coming might is right". | |
| 477 | Which influences our opinions most? 'Sociologism' or 'Historism' (the latter not the same as Historicism). | |
| 478 | But we can criticize, discuss and develop our opinions - they are not all pre-conditioned. And what about 'free will'? | |
| 479 | What about Beethoven's works? Were they totally dependent on socio- or historio- influences? Generalizations on such influences are much exaggerated. | |
| 480 | KRP: we still need some moral radicalism. Marx had some, despite his protestations (but see the second, smaller addendum - p 588) | |
| 23 - The | 484 | Following Marx's sociologism, Scheler and Mannheim argued for the "social determination of scientific knowledge". [RT: very non-Popper!] |
| Socio- | 485 | That's a passive, 'bucket' or 'receptacle' theory of the mind, as opposed to an active 'searching', comparing, unifying and generalizing approach like Kant's. |
| logy of Know- | 486 | Historism means 'all truth is relative to the point one is at in history'. 'Sociology of knowledge' sounds a bit like Deconstruction - i.e. removing all the assumptions and background, and aiming for pure 'objective' knowledge. |
| ledge | 486-7 | Psychoanalysis is somewhat similar - it's a matter of 'blaming' the patient's repressions. Marxists 'blame' their opponents' class bias. |
| 487-8 | But the sociotherapists don't spot that they themselves are working from their own pre-conceived theory. | |
| 489 | For Popper, "science and scientific objectivity do not (and cannot) result from the attempts of an individual scientist to be 'objective', but from the friendly-hostile cooperation of many scientists". This point is neglected by supporters of the Sociology of Knowledge theory. 'Free criticism' and 'experience' are open to the public [RT: unless suppressed]. | |
| 490-1 | A clairvoyant, or Robinson Crusoe, can't produce scientific objectivity in isolation | |
| 492 | Our presuppositions can be changed or refined by experience, bit by bit. | |
| 493 | "Most scientific results [RT: still] have the character of hypotheses." | |
| "Social sciences have not yet fully attained this publicity of method." They display many unbridgeable "total ideologies". | ||
| 494 | "Practice is not the enemy of theoretical knowledge but the most valuable incentive to it. ... Those who overlook it have to pay by lapsing into Scholasticism." | |
| "Those who are most convinced of having got rid of their prejudices are the most prejudiced." | ||
| 495 | Engels: "Freedom is the appreciation of necessity." [RT:
presumably, what our theory says is necessary?] Popper: "Self-analysis is no substitute for those practical actions which are necessary ..." | |
| 24 - Oracular | 496 | Marx's rationalism got swamped by the irrational 'oracular' elements. Popper saw this sort of reaction against rationalism as "the most important and even moral issue of our time". |
| Philo- sophy and the Revolt against | 497 | Rationalism means not just Reason [RT: in the sense of logic] but Reason + Empiricism (here meaning the confirmation -or otherwise - by observation). It's "an attitude that attempts to solve as many problems as possible by an appeal to reason, i.e. to clear thought and experience, rather than by an appeal to emotions and passions." The attitude is "I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth." [RT: or 'best solution'?]. It's similar to KRP's scientific method - it gets us nearer 'objectivity'. We need "argument and careful observation", and "readiness to listen to critical arguments and learn from experience". |
| Reason | 498 | It's individuals talking to individuals (but concentrating on the argument rather than the person). It's not just 'society'; it's "inter-personal", not "collectivist". |
| 499 | "Clever men may be very
unreasonable." "Authoritarianism and rationalism (in our sense) can never be reconciled." | |
| 500 | Plato's [KRP: "pseudo-"] rationalism is very different, virtually the opposite. Plato: "True opinion is shared by all men, but reason [KRP: "intellectual intuition"] is shared only by the gods, and by very few men". [RT: That's been the view of 'authority' over many centuries!] | |
| But ... "we need only consider how small is the number of men who are capable of argument" to realize that "the majority of men will always have to be tackled by an appeal to their emotions and passions rather than an appeal to their reason." | ||
| 501 | And what about creativity? Isn't that "entirely irrational, a mystical faculty?" In the Middle Ages, there was a contrast between Scholasticism (in the ex-Roman empire provinces [RT: Italy certainly, but Britain as well]) versus Mysticism (in former barbarian areas) [RT: like Meister Eckhart?]. | |
| 501-2 | In the early 1900s, Bergson [RT: of élan vital fame] and German intellectuals deplored scientists as "poor in spirit" or soulless [RT: my old classics master, JP Morrison, was just the same]. They were maybe thinking of "uncritical" rationalism. | |
| 503 | "Comprehensive rationalism" is, however, untenable; one needs an irrational resolve to be a rationalist" - i.e. one needs to have 'faith in reason'. | |
| 505 | Given such a decision has to be made, one needs to envisage the likely and/or possible consequences (like the chaplain in Shaw's St. Joan, horrified when he witnessed the burning). | |
| 506-7 | The consequences of irrationalists' priority for emotions and passions are crime, violence, persecution and persuasion by force [RT: and love, surely?]. | |
| 507 | The fact that all men are not equal doesn't justify inequality before the law. "... The irrationalist attitude can hardly avoid becoming entangled with the attitude that is opposed to equalitarianism". | |
| 508 | Even a Christian "cannot feel equal love for all men." Our 'natural' reaction is to distinguish "friend and foe, [RT: us and them], believers and unbelievers, leaders and led." We all tend to consider the person rather than the argument. | |
| 509 | "... he who teaches that not reason, but love should rule opens the way for those who rule by hate." [RT: emotional (and a fortiori romantic and carnal) love are naturally discriminatory.] | |
| 509-10 | Wanting to make people happy (Aquinas' definition of love) can lead to imposing our higher values on others. This is OK only "if they can get rid of us". | |
| 511 | "... faith in reason is not only a faith in our own reason, but
also - and even more - in that of others." "... rationalism is linked up with the recognition of the necessity of social institutions to protect freedom of criticism, freedom of thought, and thus the freedom of man." | |
| 512 | Rationalism includes using language "as an instrument of rational communication, of significant information, rather than as a means of 'self-expression', as the vicious romantic jargon of most of our educationalists has it." | |
| What about rationalism and 'imagination'? Does rationalism not lead to "an unimaginative dry scholasticism? "From an institutional point of view ... it appears that rationalism must encourage the use of imagination because it needs it, while irrationalism must tend to discourage it ... must tend towards dogmatism (where there is no argument, nothing is left but full acceptance or flat denial." | ||
| KRP deplores "... oracular philosophy where an endless repetition of impressive words seems to do the trick". | ||
| 513 | Irrationalism can be associated with humanitarianism, but the association tends to get awkward. | |
| 513-4 | Some intellectuals find rationalism "commonplace" and "look out for the latest esoteric, intellectual fashion, which he discovers in the admiration of mediaeval mysticism ..."; KRP instances Albert Keller. | |
| 515 | "This kind of 'Christianity' which recommends the creation of myth as a substitute for Christian responsibility is a tribal Christianity. It is a Christianity that refuses to carry the cross of being human." | |
| 516 | Macmurray: "Science itself, in its own specific fields of research, employs a method of understanding which restores the broken integrity of theory and practice." KRP: "This, I believe, is why science is such an offence in the eyes of mysticism, which evades practice by creating myths instead." | |
| 517 | Is Science not to blame for many modern evils? Popper replied that anything can be misused [RT: hijacked]. And there have been many religious wars, but none were fought over science. | |
| It's not smart to regard Science as humble by saying that there is a mystical world that it doesn't reach. [RT: the two should at least be on the same level.] | ||
| 518 | A myth is just a "cheap rationalization". Kafka: "All mystics set out to say that the incomprehensible is incomprehensible, and that we knew before." | |
| KRP: "It is the unique and concrete individual which cannot be approached by rational methods, and not the abstract universal." | ||
| 519 | It's like "the artist who does not rationalize, who does not use abstractions, but who creates, in his imagination, concrete individuals and unique experiences". | |
| The conflict between science and religion is between two faiths: a) that in "reason and human individuals"; and b) that in "the mystical faculties of man by which he is united to a collective". [RT: so, don't we need a bit of both?] | ||
| 520 | But "mystical intellectualism" is a "dangerous skin disease of our time". | |
| 520-4 | KRP found Whitehead's work very confusing; he said it didn't address Kant's criticisms of Metaphysics for its lack of development compared with Physics. | |
| 524-32 | KRP seriously criticizes Toynbee's 'A Study of History' - in spite of the lots of good things in it. | |
| 525-6 | He complains that Toynbee ('T') first looks for the "unconscious motives and determinants in the social habitat of the thinker, instead of first examining the validity of the argument itself". "... the general impression conveyed by Toynbee's work (is) that arguments are an unimportant mode of speech, and that the history of mankind is a history of emotions, passions, religions, irrational philosophies, and perhaps of art and poetry; but that it has nothing whatever to do with the history of human reason and human science" (e.g. Galileo, Newton, Harvey, Pasteur). | |
| 526 | On Marxism, T got carried away by biblical apocalyptic allusions. | |
| 526-7 | T purported to describe an argument, but the serious issues weren't included. | |
| 528 | He uses "the phrase 'the verdict of history may turn out', with its implied historicist moral theory and even moral futurism". | |
| 529 | Historism (e.g. T's view that "all historical thought is inevitably relative to the particular circumstances of the thinker's own time and place") "is a typical though slightly obsolescent product of our time; or more precisely, of the typical backwardness of the social sciences of our time". | |
| 530 | Historism is itself a historical product, "born out of despair of reason". | |
| T rates 'other-worldly' actions (he instances Jesus Christ and Ignatius Loyola) above worldly ones (e.g. Mohammed was tainted by his practical, material leadership). But Popper comments that in fact, Loyola, through the Jesuits, did become practical and worldly. | ||
| 531 | T thought that "the religious tolerance in the Western World from the 17th century ... down to our day" was "a notorious example of non-violence of this unedifying kind"; i.e., it was "cynical disillusionment with violence", i.e. not 'noble'. [RT: Toynbee did have an interview with Hitler in 1936!] | |
| Popper: "I feel no hostility towards religious mysticism (only towards a militant anti-rationalist intellectualism) ..." | ||
| Summary of Toynbee: "only allegiance to a superhuman whole can save us"; there is "no 'terrestrial road' by which tribal nationalism can be superseded." | ||
| 532 | KRP: "Although ... Christianity ... may make a great contribution to establishing the brotherhood of man, ... those who undermine man's faith in reason are unlikely to contribute much to this end." | |
| 25 - Has | 536 | "... science is not merely a 'body of facts'. It is, at the very least, a collection, and as such it is dependent on the collector's interests, upon a point of view." |
| History | But the "method of science is rather to look out for facts which may refute the theory" - i.e. Popper's 'falsifiability' criterion. | |
| any Mea -ning? | 536-7 | The 'searchlight' theory of science means that what we see depends on the searchlight's "position, our way of directing it, and upon its intensity, colour etc". "All description is selective" - and this also applies to History. |
| 538 | 'Causal explanation' needs a) a general statement and b) case-dependent initial conditions. | |
| 539 | "We can never speak of cause and effect in an absolute way"; it
always has to be related to some universal theory or law that we assume
applies. We can use a theory for explanation, prediction or testing. 'Generalizing' sciences and 'applied' sciences have different emphases. | |
| 540 | There are also times when an unexpected effect is observed in a particular case - this could be called historical science. But one can't legitimately generalize from case-specific science. | |
| 542 | History (on the other hand) is almost always 'particular cases'; but there are often pre-conceived ideas that are used as if they were universal laws, e.g. "character of 'Great Men', or the 'national character', or moral ideas, or economic conditions etc". These 'quasi-theories' are generally un-testable; we can't "obtain new data" as in Physics. | |
| 543 | "... we shall give up the naive belief that any definite set of historical records can ever be interpreted in one way only." (This applies to science, too, e.g Newton versus Einstein.) But all interpretations are not necessarily of equal merit. Interpretations can "be circular in the sense that they must fit in with the interpretation which was used in the original selection of facts". "It is a very dubious argument in favour of a certain interpretation that it can be easily applied, and that it explains all we know; for only if we can look for counter-examples can we test a theory." | |
| 544 | "This was nearly always overlooked by admirers of the various 'unveiling' philosophies, especially by the psycho-, socio- and historio- analysts." Interpretations are "crystallizations of points of view"; different interpretations may seem unbridgeable, but may still complement each other. | |
| Our point of view is not necessarily "inferior to that of a writer who naively believes that he does not interpret ..." | ||
| 545 | "There can be no history of 'the past as it actually did happen'." | |
| The rationalist asks "What are we to choose as our next most urgent problems, how did they arise, and along what roads may we proceed to solve them?"; while the historicist asks "Which way are we going? What, in essence, is the part that history has destined us to play?". The historicist interpretation is like turning the searchlight on ourselves. | ||
| 546 | Popper claims there is no [RT: absolute? definite? objective?] meaning in history. | |
| 547 | There's no universal history - just "an indefinite number of histories of all aspects of human life". History books concentrate just on the 'history of power' - maybe, Popper says, because we 'worship' power, heroes etc; also because history has often been written "under the supervision of the emperors, the generals and the dictators". [RT: presumably, to justify themselves to posterity.] | |
| 548 | Some Christians maintain that the meaning of history is "the purpose of God". Hegel "looks upon history - political history - as a stage, or rather as a kind of lengthy Shakespearian play" - written by God. But KRP says that's blasphemy - it was written by a university professor under supervision of "generals and dictators". | |
| But in fact, "we ourselves are responsible for it" (i.e. the history of freedom). | ||
| "The theory that God reveals Himself and His judgement in history is indistinguishable from the theory that worldly success is the ultimate judge and justification of our actions." This again comes down to "future might is right". | ||
| 548-9 | "... all the history which exists, our history of the Great and the Powerful, is at best a shallow comedy; it is the opera buffa played by the powers behind reality (comparable to Homer's opera buffa of the Olympian powers behind the scenes of human struggles. It is what one of our worst instincts, the idolatrous worship of power, of success, has led us to believe to be real. And in this not even man-made, but man-faked 'history', some Christians dare to see the hand of God!" Karl Barth thought along very much the same lines as this. | |
| 549-50 | "What matters to Christianity is not the historical deeds of the powerful Roman conquerors but (to use a phrase of Kirkegaard's) 'what a few fishermen have given to the world'." | |
| 550 | "Which Church incorporated this spirit (of Christianity) more purely, that of the martyrs, or the victorious Church of the Inquisition?" | |
| Macmurray's 'The Clue to History' emphasized the prophecy aspect, thus implying that "the final outcome does not depend on our moral decision, and that there is no need to worry over our responsibilities". That implies that historical prophecy overrules conscience. "The meek shall inherit the earth" - so we'd better all be meek. | ||
| 551 | Christianity "certainly teaches that the only way to prove one's faith is by rendering practical (and worldly) help to those who need it" - and for its own sake. | |
| 552 | Popper says that "our intellectual, as well as our ethical education is corrupt. It is perverted by the admiration of brilliance, of the way things are said ... we are educated to act with an eye to the gallery". | |
| "What really matters are human individuals, but I do not take this to mean that it is I who matter very much." | ||
| 552-3 | "The importance of the self, of its emotional life and its 'self-expression' is romantically exaggerated, and with it, the tension between the 'personality' and the group, the collective. This takes the place of other individuals ... but does not admit of reasonable personal relations. 'Dominate or submit" is, by implication, the device of this attitude; either be a Great Man, a Hero wrestling with fate and earning fame ... or belong to the 'masses' and submit yourself to leadership ..." [RT: Sounds like my English Public School] | |
| 553 | A teacher shouldn't "impose his scale of 'higher' values on his pupils, he should certainly try to stimulate their interest in these values." | |
| " 'Do no harm' (and, therefore, 'give the young what they most urgently need in order to become independent of us, and to be able to choose for themselves') would be a very worthy aim for our educational system ..." | ||
| 554 | KRP criticizes current education: "Since it is felt, and rightly so, that we have to aim for something beyond our own selves, something to which we can devote ourselves and for which we may make sacrifices, it is concluded that this must be the collective, with its 'historical mission'. Thus we are told to make sacrifices and, at the same time, be assured that we shall make an excellent bargain by doing so." So we must obtain honour and fame, become 'leading actors', heroes on the Stage of History etc. | |
| The idea of "The Unknown Soldier" shows an opposite trend; our ethical education ought to follow suit. [RT: like 'play up and play the game' (Newbolt)?] | ||
| 555 | "Although history has no meaning, we can give it a meaning." | |
| "We ourselves and our ordinary language are, on the whole, emotional rather than rational; but we can try to become a little more rational." | ||
| "It is up to us to decide what shall be our purpose in life, to determine our ends." | ||
| "Facts as such have no meaning; they can gain it only through our decisions." | ||
| 555-6 | "Historicism is only one of many attempts to get over this dualism (facts versus decisions [or standards - see Addenda page 574]); it is borne of fear, for it shrinks from realizing that we bear the ultimate responsibility, even for the standards we choose." | |
| 556 | In the end, historicism is superstition; "it tries to shift our responsibility on to history, and thereby on to the play of demoniac powers beyond ourselves; it tries to base our actions upon the hidden intentions of these powers, which can be revealed to us only in mystical inspirations and intuitions; and it thus puts our actions and ourselves on the moral level of a man who, inspired by horoscopes and dreams, chooses his lucky number in a lottery. Like gambling, historicism is born of our despair in the rationality and responsibility of our actions." | |
| Any religion that teaches the importance of conscience is incompatible with historicism. | ||
| "We need hope ... but we do not need certainty. Religion, in particular, should not be a substitute for dreams and wish-fulfillment; it should resemble neither the holding of a ticket in a lottery, nor the holding of a policy in an insurance company." | ||
| 557 | "Progress rests with us, with our watchfulness, with our efforts, with the clarity of our conception of our ends, and with the realism of their choice." Instead of posing as prophets we must become the makers of our fate." | |
| Addenda | 559-61 | KRP comments on Truth, and Tarski's 'correspondence with the facts' approach. |
| 560 | "But it is essential for our present purpose not to mix up questions of actual truth-seeking or truth finding ... with the question of what we mean when we speak of truth or correspondence with the facts." | |
| 561-2 | It's mistaken to claim that we must always have criteria for deciding whether a given statement is true or false - we practically never do have one. | |
| 562-4 | Criterion philosophies; Tarski said that there can be no general criterion of truth. | |
| 564-5 | Fallibilism: science is fallible, because science is human; the choice between theories is not arbitrary; we can learn, and get nearer the truth. | |
| 565-6 | Fallibilism and the growth of knowledge: "Every discovery of a mistake constitutes a real advance in our knowledge; it is something if we know where truth is not to be found." | |
| 566-7 | Getting near to the truth: despite Quine's views, we don't need to be skeptical. | |
| 567-8 | Absolutism (with respect to truth) is generally repugnant, but 'fallibilistic absolutism' - i.e. "if there's an error, then that's it" - is OK. | |
| 568 | Sources of knowledge: "every source - tradition, reason, imagination, observation or what not - is admissible and may be used, but none has any authority". All can be criticized. | |
| 569-70 | Is a critical method possible? Doesn't the validity of any criticism depend on its assumptions? Yes, but they don't have to be justified - one can argue it through. | |
| 570-1 | Decisions don't have to be 'a leap in the dark', but they are always tentative all the same. | |
| 571-3 | Are today's social and political problems due to the decline in authoritarian religion? Nietzsche quoted von Kleist who was shattered when he learnt that we can't absolutely decide what is the truth. Certainty may be unattainable, but the situation isn't desperate - we can learn and grow in knowledge. | |
| 573 | Some say "that this new way of knowing is too abstract and too sophisticated to replace the loss of authoritarian religion. This may be true." The more enlightened individuals [RT: e.g. Hayek, Popper!] may "eventually succeed in spreading the good news that the nihilist ado was about nothing". | |
| 574-7 | On reflection (1961) Popper felt that dualism of "facts and standards" was better than "facts and decisions". The hypothesis, discussion and decision to adopt a standard don't create a fact. There is an asymmetry here in that "standards always pertain to facts, and ... facts are evaluated by standards". "The fact that a certain standard has been adopted or rejected ... must, as a fact, be distinguished from any standard", including the one in question. But we can criticize and discuss both proposals and propositions. | |
| 575-6 | We can talk about good and bad, right and wrong, valid and invalid etc. | |
| 576 | "The fact that God, or any other authority, commands me to do a certain thing is no guarantee that the command is right. It is I who must decide whether to accept the standards of any authority as (morally) good or bad. God is only good if his commandments are good." This is KRP's idea of 'autonomy'. "No appeal to authority, not even religious authority, can get us out of the difficulty that the regulative idea of 'rightness' or 'goodness' differs in its logical status from that of absolute truth." | |
| "We create our standards by proposing, discussing and adopting them." We can seek the truth, but we shouldn't claim to have found it. | ||
| 577 | "Minimization of misery" is a good criterion; "cruelty is always bad" and "do as you would be done by" are also good. | |
| 577-9 | Two wrongs do not make two rights: if our ideas and beliefs differ widely from those of other groups, who are we to insist that ours are the right ones? Probably, both are wrong - or at least deficient. We don't have to take a relativist view and say both are 'OK'. | |
| We need to give up "cocksureness". | ||
| 579 | "Self-criticism should not be an excuse for laziness and for the adoption of relativism." | |
| 579-83 | 'Experience' and 'intuition' as sources of knowledge: we can't appeal to the 'authority' of experience. There are no pure data. "Criticism which appeals to experience ... consists, rather, in comparing some dubious results with others, equally dubious ...". 'Scientific experience' and 'ordinary empirical knowledge' are more like the everyday use of the word 'experience' than the way it is used by 'Empiricist' philosophers. | |
| Similar thoughts apply to 'moral intuition'. "... we may learn from our mistakes to take care even beyond the golden rule." Sympathy and imagination may also play a role, but they too are not authoritative. Whatever we accept is tentative. | ||
| 582-3 | Even if we did have absolute standards, people might still take no notice. He quotes from somewhere "I am not in the least interested in your 'ought'." | |
| 583-4 | Regarding his dualism and liberalism, Popper says that the relativist, or the moral positivist would think "we never have to transcend the realm of facts - there is no dualism". However we (liberals) can always ask whether it was 'good' or 'bad'. | |
| 584-7 | Popper admits that he was too optimistic in thinking that people would see through Hegel, as Schopenhauer did. Hegel was another who ignored the dualism. His 'philosophy of identity' (i.e., opposites are really the same) is a clear example; and this encouraged totalitarianism. He (Hegel) also undermined "standards of intellectual responsibility and honesty by his use of tricks and his mistakes". | |
| 587 | Conclusion of the first addendum: Popper thinks that his fallibilism has much to offer the social philosopher. | |
| 588 | The second addendum: a 1965 book on Marx by L. Schwarzschild revealed Marx-Engels correspondence showing Marx was less of a humanitarian than Popper had thought. |
Index to more highlights of interesting books
Some of these links may be under construction – or re-construction.
This version updated on 21st September 2011
If you have constructive suggestions or comments, please contact the author rogertag@tpg.com.au .