Book Description
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. ... Read more

Book Description
Karl Popper and Ludwig Wittgenstein were two of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. The account of their one and only meeting at Cambridge in 1946 has become legendary for the aggressive disagreement between the two men. Peter Munz, an eye witness to the great dispute, is the only person in the world to have been a student of both Popper and Wittgenstein. Here he describes their philosophical relationship as he experienced it.

Munz argues that the later Wittgenstein and Popper ought to be seen as complementing one another. Popper believed that when truth is discovered meaning will take care of itself. However, since, in Popper's view, we can never verify a general proposition, we can never be certain of its truth. There must thereforebe a way of understanding what it means even though we cannot be sure of its truth. The post-Tractatus Wittgenstein enables us to see how propositions are meaningful regardless of whether we can ascertain their truth and thus fills a gap in Popper's philosophy.

At the same time, Popper was able to make up a deficiency in Wittgenstein's later philosophy. While Wittgenstein had had it that meaningful propositions can be generated in any social order, Popper showed that if propositions are to be true as well as have meaning, the socio-political order in which they are put forward, has to be free and open.

Popper and Wittgenstein were barking up the same tree. Though they had much to learn from each other, their personalities stood in the way. Munz imaginatively reconstructs a dialogue to show how the conversation ought to have gone on that famous evening at the Moral Sciences Club in Cambridge in 1946 and then sets out in detail the philosophy that would result from a synthesis of these two great men. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A bold attempt at synthesis
This book is a sequel to "Wittgenstein's Poker" by David Edmonds and John Eidinow who vividly described the background and the events at the showdown between Wittgenstein and Popper at the meeting of the Cambridge Moral Sciences Clubin 1946. On that occasion the two Viennese masterminds confronted each other in a brief exchange which ended when Wittgenstein left the room after waving a poker.

Peter Munz has unparalleled qualifications for this assignment becausehe is the only person who was a student with both Popper and Wittgenstein, moreover he is one of the few people still alive in recent times [he died a year or two ago] who witnessed the non-debate in 1946. Munz arrived in New Zealand with his family in 1940 as a German Jewish refugee. He attended Popper's lectures when he started an MA in History at Canterbury University College, Christchurch and they struck up a lifelong friendship which survived better than most of Popper's relationships with his students and colleagues. Munz moved on to Cambridge for further postgraduate work in history and he pursued his interest in philosophy as a member of Wittgenstein's seminar. Hespent the rest of his academic career in history at Victoria University in Wellington where he wrote more than a dozen books on history and several others developing and exploring the Darwinian aspects of Popper's theory of knowledge.

Munz has radically upgraded his estimate of Wittgenstein's contribution since 1986 when he published"Our Knowledge of the Growth of Knowledge: Popper or Wittgenstein?".That book made a strong case for Popper against Wittgenstein, and also against Kuhn and Rorty. All three were depicted as agents of relativism, promoting the balkanisation of intellectual life into self-contained, autistic specialties.Munz now argues that Wittgenstein and Popper should have stood together as colleagues to pool their ideas andproduce a doctrine with the strengths of each. However this was precluded by their unyielding resistance to rival schools ofthought.

The organisation of the book is complicated by Munz's larger game plan to establish Darwinian evolutionary epistemology as the pre-eminent development in modern thought. The second part of the book is devoted to a critique of Evolutionary Psychology and this gives the appearance of two separate books in one, unless the larger project is kept in mind as the framework that pulls the two pieces together. According to this framework, scientific knowledge is an evolutionary product ofhuman activity. Knowledge itselfevolves in a dialectic fashion, propelled by human ingenuity, checked by various formsof criticism including experimental and other practical tests. Contrary to classical empiricism and rationalism, neither sensations nor intuitions have foundational status.Rationality does not consist of avoiding error or achieving certainty but instead means the willingness to take on board criticism with a view to improvement. Truth is not a terminus but a regulative principle.

Behind this framework stands the giant figure of Charles Darwin and also, more immediately, the almost forgotten shade of Karl Buhler who was one of the really important pioneers of psychology and language in the twentieth century who. He also taught both Wittgenstein and Popper (so far as anyone can claim to have taught Wittgenstein).He promoted a non-reductive psychology, insisting that human behaviour cannot be reduced to the causal chains of physics and behaviourism. Both Popper and Wittgenstein took this on board, though in different ways.Wittgenstein developed his views on "forms of life" and "language games" while Popper formulated his theories of critical rationalism and conjectural objective knowledge.

According to Munz, both of them missed a vital part of the picture. Popper refused to be distracted from the quest for truth by the problem of meaning which in consequence remained something of amystery in his scheme. Wittgenstein for his part was obsessed with meaning and did not care about the growth of knowledge or the state of science and society. Munz suggests that Wittgenstein's theory of meaning as a function of rule-following behaviour in relatively closed speech communities fills the gap in Popper's program. According to Munz that is the lesson that Popper should have learned from Wittgenstein, while the latter should have picked up from Popper the importance of critical appraisal of"forms of life" and their conventional rules in order to move from closed or tribal societies towards more open societies.

Munz re-wrote history in the form of an imaginary dialogue between Popper and Wittgenstein (at the Moral Sciences Club circa 1946) to show how they might have worked through some of their differences and misunderstandings to reach a happy if grudging accommodation.Munz concluded his revised history with a flourish: "Everyone started laughing and the room was filled with a fine sense of convivial agreement". If only!That marks the end of the first part of the book. The case that Munz has provided for a creative synthesis is challenging and instructive, though not entirely convincing. The weakness of Popper on meaning is asserted without a convincing explanation and it remains to be seen whether the cohorts of the two champions will come to the party (with a fine sense of convivial agreement!) and find illumination from a source that they have previously regarded with disdain.

The second part ofthe book takes up some of the difficulties which need to be resolved to provide a convincing explanation for the miracle of knowledge and its growth, without recourse to the simple certainties of positivism and the mirror theory ofscientific knowledge. Here Munz brings a great deal of criticism to bear upon some American scholars who are making careers out ofevolutionary psychology without, on his account, taking on board the full Darwinian account of the evolutionary process. This part of the book does not really mesh smoothly with the first and the technical level of the argument is likely to strain the general reader. Munzwrites clearly but the argument is dense.
Throughout the book a great deal of scholarship is on display, fortunately enlivened in the first part by some interesting and even-handed commentary on the personalities and eccentricities ofthe two arch rivals.

a clear path out of superstition
Building slowly and methodically from the foundational and irrefutable logic established by Kant, Tarski, Wittgenstein, Popper and Kuhn, the author breaks a pathway out of the vicious circularity of his predecessors.

Perhaps one ought to read the Munz's previous works to understand the conclusions reached in this one. I found the combination breathtaking in its comprehensiveness and conclusiveness.

The conclusion is anti-theistic, anti-religious and anti-ideology. It is thoroughly pro-human freedon. It thus will draw self-righteous criticism from all quarters for that fact alone. However, any argument against the book should focus on the train of logic it embodies.

The effect of reading this book will be satisfyingly liberating to anyone who cherishes freedom. It is a superb and compassionate treatment of the most difficult problems the human species faces.

There is hope here. Realistic hope.

Superstitions
Apart from its anecdotical interest (the author's personal encounters with Popper and Wittgenstein), this book is based on very shaky ground.
It explains clearly Popper's critical rationalism, his anti-essentialism and his social-economic policies (prosperity is a means to guarantee freedom).
But it misrepresents Popper's stance on meaning. The sentence 'In a Popperian world, propositions to the effect that God is triune ... can have no meaning, because they are not true', is simply not true. These propositions are not meaningless for Popper, as novels are not meaningless (he loved the novels of Selma Lagerlof). Novels are not scientifically true, because they cannot be falsified.
The fundamental question, however, is: should a community be built on propositions which are superstitions? Peter Munz's answer is: YES. For him, superstitions (e.g. 'souls are reincarnated') have a social function. More, 'superstition performs such a society-building function better than genuine knowledge.' This is a mind-boggling sentence from a pupil of Popper. Cui bono?

Peter Munz also misrepresents Hayek. The sentence 'Hayek famously denounced the attempt to soften the abrasiveness of the open-market system society by the promotion of a welfare state', is fundamentally wrong. As Hayek stated in 'The Road to Serfdom', one of the basic elements of economic policies should be 'to secure a minimum income for everybody'.

Munz shows also unintentionally Wittgenstein's disastrous influence on post-modernist nonsense (Baudrillard: there was no Gulf War; Lyotard: anthropologist interpretations are rape; Derrida: to consider that 'saying 'sheep' = refering to sheep' is a metaphysical superstition; Foucault: reason and criticism are local.)

But his main target is neo-Darwinism and more particularly John Tooby's and Leda Cosmides's Evolutionary Psychologism (E.P.), which is badly presented as a kind of Lamarckism (learning by instruction). One of his main arguments against E.P. is Quine's and Witgenstein's rejection of ostension ('ostension cannot define what we mean'), which caused Wittgenstein to establish his language theory on speech communities (Gemeinschaften).
However, the anti-ostension argument is based on a very poorly constructed experiment: one person pointing at one thing in an empty space, once.
Explanation: One walks in a foreign country with one of its inhabitants. In a field containing flowers, geese, horses, rabbits ... the inhabitant points his finger at rabbits and says 'gavegai'. A little further, there is a new field with pelicans, flamingos ... and rabbits. The inhabitant points again at rabbits and says 'gavegai'. One should be very stupid not to understand, after two ostensions, that 'gavegai' means rabbits. By the way, the inhabitant pointed also at other animals saying ...
Of course, ostension can define what people means.

Q and W's poor experiment lead to a mass of linguistic 'conceptual deliriums' (Jean Fourastié).

This is a mind-boggling book by a pupil of Popper and Wittgenstein.

Clarity on two great philosophers
I recommend this book unreservedly to all who are interested in these two philosophers, or even to those who have never read either. It is not necessary to have read ... Read more

Book Description
This intellectual biography recovers the legacy of Karl Popper (1902-1994), the progressive, cosmopolitan, Viennese socialist who combated fascism, revolutionized the philosophy of science, and envisioned the Open Society. Malachi Hacohen draws a compelling portrait of the philosopher, the assimilated Jewish intelligentsia, and the vanished culture of Red Vienna, which was decimated by Nazism. Seeking to rescue Popper from his postwar conservative and anticommunist reputation, Hacohen restores his works to their original Central European contexts and, at the same time, shows that they have urgent messages for contemporary politics and philosophy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Pretty Good
I read this book after Caldwell's excellent "Hayek's Challenge".I don't normally read biographies, but that was so good I hunted around for related material (and found this).

Unfortunately, this suffers in comparison.Caldwell is much better at signposting and structuring the argument.In contrast, Hacohen jumps around, often covering the same period in different contexts.And his hand is too heavy - the authorial opinions are often forced (or even plain odd - what on earth does he have against Popper's wife?).

Still, his intentions are generally honourable (not always; there's a blind spot as far as Zionism goes) and the final chapter, which places Popper's thought within the current(ish) left-wing context, is interesting.

Hope and vision
Prof. Hacohen gives us an eminent look at the personal, political and scientific antecedents of Karl Popper's main scientific and political publications.
His book is also an excellent and concise economical and social panorama of Austria in the first half of the 20th century.

It is a realistic portrait of Popper as an individual: irascible and arrogant, an eternal dissenter, intellectual loner, not without a certain persecution mania.
It shows clearly how Popper's main philosophical contributions, 'testing and falsification', came into being, as well as his political defense of 'The Open society'. It is all the more surprising how great the difficulties were to publish his books, although they constituted a crucial and fundamental philosophical breakthrough.

Although, for me, Popper is the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, some of his positions are flawed. He is a dualist (mind/body). His defence of Socrates is also much contested. The Dutch classicist G. Koolschijn pretends that Socrates was not a democrat. He was probably condemned for pleading against democracy in his teachings.
Particularly interesting is Popper's struggle with Heisenberg's Indeterminacy Principle, where he lost the battle with Heisenberg.
I also agree with the author's essential remark that 'socially disadvantaged groups do not have a fair chance of being heard, let alone prevailing, in the so-called democratic political process. Organized elites and corporate interest block, manipulate, and circumvent the channels ... a fairly egalitarian socioeconomic structure and public control of corporations are preconditions to effective democratic dialogue.' (p.543)

This book contains an excellent presentation of Wittgenstein's Tractatus and Popper's critique of it. It runs the defenders of Otto Neurath (Cartwright & Co) into the ground.

All in all, a fascinating book for those who are interested in modern philosophy and more particularly in Popper's work.

Newcomers should first read the works of Popper himself, or the excellent introduction by Bryan Magee in his small book 'Popper'.

An important chapter of intellectual history
There are two standard evaluations of Popper's importance. The first sees Popper as an important figure in the philosophy of science, one whose work is now passe, but whose influence cannot be denied. The other sees Popper as one of the great geniuses of the twentieth century, a polymath who gave us new paradigms of scientific and political thinking. This second view, while still the view of the minority, is gaining support in a new millennium where Popper is enjoying something of a renaissance. This is the view that has inspired both Bryan Magee and Antony Flew to pen histories of philosophy subtitled (surely not just for the sake of alliteration) "From Plato to Popper." And this is the view that inspires Malachi Haim Hacohen to give Popper a central place in what, despite its title, is an intellectual history of inter-war Vienna.

If Popper's importance has not been properly appreciated, suggests Hacohen, that is because we try to situate him in the Anglo-American tradition that appropriated him after the Second World War and in which he became famous. Instead, Hacohen traces the genealogy of Popper's philosophy through the currents of thought in inter-war Vienna, showing how they shaped Popper and how Popper responded to them within this context. We see how his principle of falsification evolved as a response to the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle, and how his critique of historicism and promulgation of the Open Society--though published in and appropriated by a Cold War West--were in fact inspired responses to the socio-political debates of 1930's Vienna.

Hacohen's primary aim is to give us a greater understanding, and hence a greater appreciation, of Popper's achievement. But in tracing inter-war Viennese culture more broadly, he also shows the extent to which that culture's set of concerns has shaped our own intellectual outlook thanks to the diaspora of Viennese intellectuals--many of them Jewish--in the face of the Nazi threat. The Vienna Circle influenced a generation of philosophers, Hayek has become a champion for libertarians, and Gombrich has changed the way we look at art. In all of these cases, but none more so than in philosophy, these thinkers have found success in England and America by adapting ideas born out of uniquely Viennese debates to contexts that these debates never reached.

Inevitably, our reception of these ideas on foreign shores distorted their intent. For instance, we tend to understand the Vienna Circle as Ayer understood it without appreciating how the tools and methods these philosophers developed were meant to settle the debates on the nature of science that had divided an earlier generation of Viennese thinkers, the likes of Boltzmann and Mach. Like the Vienna Circle, Popper is too often read as his English-speaking contemporaries interpreted him, and Hacohen's book gives us a rich sense of the problems and debates that shaped Popper's distinctive outlook. Hacohen has labored tirelessly in the archives, and while his preference for completeness and transparency of research over readability makes it a laborious slog, both the depth, breadth, and originality of Hacohen's scholarship is exceptional. He is more at home discussing the social sciences than the natural sciences, but he is more at home in both of these fields than most of us can ever expect to be.

The problem, then, is whether Popper is the central figure of the intellectual history of inter-war Vienna, which is how Hacohen portrays him, or if he is only one of a number of bright minds to emerge from that context, and neither the brightest nor the most influential. He was a marginal figure at that time, and his contemporaries in the Vienna Circle, though respectful, seemed not as convinced as he was that he had delivered the deathblow to logical positivism. The philosophical world more generally tends to give the role of death-dealer to Quine for his 1951 paper, "Two Dogmas of Empiricism." Hacohen might reply that we inflate Quine's importance to Popper's detriment because we come to logical positivism from an Anglo-American perspective, and that in failing to appreciate its original context, we fail to appreciate that Popper had buried logical positivism by 1934. There is some merit in this argument, and perhaps if Popper had arrived in London before 1946 and if the Logic of Scientific Discovery had been published in English before 1956, things would be different. But whether a result of historical mischance or of Popper's work not being as decisive as he thought, he has failed to have an impact on English-speaking philosophy that rivals the Vienna Circle. Or Quine, for that matter.

Hacohen makes an excellent case for the tremendous, and too-often unnoticed, influence of inter-war Vienna on post-war scholarship in the English-speaking world, but he is less convincing in situating Popper as the central figure of this influence. Popper certainly developed interesting and fertile responses to the problems of his intellectual milieu, but it seems a bit of an exaggeration to claim that he solved these problems, or even that his solutions are more compelling than those of any of his contemporaries. Hacohen does not simply state his allegiance to Popper baldly; he provides arguments, but these arguments are not likely to convince those of us who are not already Popperians.

Popper has never been fully embraced by the mainstream of Anglo-American philosophy, and this may be connected with his having been shaped by a different set of concerns than his English-speaking contemporaries. With these concerns in clearer focus, he still doesn't emerge as one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century, but Hacohen's effort to give him his due does shed valuable light on an interesting period. Though his emphasis on Popper's importance may be misplaced, Hacohen's book nonetheless makes for engaging intellectual history.

A comprehensive study of a great philospher
Malachi Hacohen as written a great biography that both covers the personal has well as the philosphical development of one of the 20th century's greatest minds. This is a big book in every sense of the word, big in ideas, big in scope. One of the by products of reading this book was to discover the immense impact that intellectuals from 1920's Austria and non germanic Central Europe had upon, not just philosphy, but also economic and political developments in the Anglo Saxon world. People such as Hayek, Drucker, Polyani, Tarski, Neurath, Mises and many more have had a profound effect upon the thinking of both the Right and the Left in the US and Britain. One of those books which one can honestly say the reader will be much wiser after finishing it.

Battle of Britain in the world of ideas
The book has several different aspects, all of absorbing interest, including the detailed reconstruction of Popper's intellectual career and the depiction of the social and political milieu of Vienna between the wars.

Popper was the archetypal workaholic. Hacohen reports that he worked for 360 days of the year, all day, without the distraction of newspapers, radio or TV. Several times a month, even in old age, he worked all night and friends such as Bryan Magee would get an early morning call from Popper, bubbling with excitement to report on his latest ideas. Popper lived well out of London near High Wycombe and when Magee gained Popper's confidence he was invited to visit, taking the train to "Havercombe" (in Popper's heavily accented English). When I made the trip to Havercombe, Popper arranged to meet me at the station, carrying a copy of the BBC Listener, presumably to pick him out from all the other elderly gentlemen of middle-European extraction who might be thronging the platform at 2.00 on a Wednesday afternoon. In the event, he left the magazine at home and the kiosk had sold out so he had to buy The Times and fold it to the size of the Listener. Of course he was the only person in sight apart from the Station Master. Popper, then aged 70, had what his research assistant tactfully described as a "very positive" attitude to driving. Fortunately it was not far to his home and there were few other cars on the road. Safely home, our conversation laboured, and he frequently pushed a tray of choc-chip cookies towards me. Later he lamented to his assistant that I had eaten a whole weeks supply of his favorite cookies in one afternoon. These aspects of Popper are the other face of the man who some described as "the totalitarian liberal".

Hacohen has provided sufficient background to explain why Popper's ideas were so exciting for some people, and so threatening for others, though it was left to Bill Bartley in the 1960s to articulate the way that Popper had challenged the unstated and uncriticised assumption of "justificationism" which is the glue that holds together the ideas of the positivists and other "true belief" philosophers. Popper's lack of progress in the community of professional philosophers needs to be understood against the persisting background of justificationism, subjectivism and determinism which he has criticised in favour of critical rationalism, conjectural objective knowledge and non-determinism.

Hacohen has assembled a massive amount of material and a lesser talent in organization would have lost the plot among the details. Helped by a liberal quantity of headings sub-headings and his very clear exposition, he has kept his material under control and kept several balls in the air with superb aplomb. The several balls are Popper's diverse interests and the chaotic events that were going on around him in Vienna, not only among the intellectuals but also in Austrian politics.

These events forced Popper to flee to the other side of the world, to New Zealand, surely the antithesis of Vienna in most cultural, intellectual and political respects. There, his campaign for critical rationalism, objectivism and non-determinism was waged in political philosophy. His achievement in writing the two large volumes of "The Open Society and its Enemies" can be compared with the Battle of Britain, where young pilots held Hitler at bay in the skies over the English Channel. Popper daily patrolled the intellectual stratosphere, challenging Hitler's intellectual henchmen from Plato to modern times. This work would have been an amazing achievement under any circumstances, as it was it had to be done in the face of dreadful news from home (fourteen relatives died in the Holocaust), under the threat of Japanese invasion and against the resistance of his Professor who regarded his research and writing as theft to teaching time.

To conclude, this book is a wonderful piece of scholarship and its deserves to be read with close attention by anyone with a shred of interest in the ideas that have shaped the world today. With any luck Popper's ideas will help to shape the world tomorrow. I dissent from Hocohen's reading of Popper's ideas as a prop for social democracy, but anyone imbued with the spirit of critical rationalism can make up their own mind on that.

This book is actually worth six stars, so buy two copies, one for your local library. ... Read more

Book Description
The first systematic treatment of Karl Popper's contribution to the philosophy of the social sciences. ... Read more

Book Description
'Here, Popper's ideas are expressed with a beguiling simplicity and with considerable humour and charm. The enthusiasm (and, occasionally, puzzlement) of the original audience is preserved in the records of discussions following each lecture. The volume serves as an excellentintroduction to Popper's later thought for those who think philosophy beyond them.' -- Roger Caldwell, Literary Review Based on lectures given in 1969 by Sir Karl Popper at Emory University, Popperargues forcefully that the problem of the interaction between mental and physical states is still open regardless ofassertions by materialist philosophers' that it has 'evaporated'. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Interactionism of what?
The book is not bad, but... afterall, what interacts? The brain and the body? The Body/Brain and the Enviroment (the outside world)? Mind (the working of the brain) and Culture (our environment, build by us) interact? What's new about that?

Popper tries to build a language to clarify and facilitate discussion and change of ideas, but he writes in such a way that many people are missleaded. I know people who see in Popper a foundations for their mistical views of the Universe ( afriend of mine even argues with me that evolution is not the answer to the many features we humans have: seek the mind, he says.So, is three-worlds philosophy has led some people to seek the mind OUTSIDE the brain (they don't perceive that one of the strugles of science is the reduction of EMERGENT properties to POTENCIALS - be they phisical or chemical potentials). What really interacts are phisical sistems (the various subsistems of the brain, these subsistems and the outside world). His evolutionary epistemology has lots is common with modern sociobiology, but sociobiology is better.

Another problem with Popper's epistemology is that he reduces epistemological concepts to ontological things. His epistemology should be viewd as heuristic, not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

By the way, if you read Popper's book and enjoy'd it, read Hofstadter's GEB (Godel, Escher, Bach). You wont regret.

indispensible texton epistemology and interactionism
Popper creates an original (and useful) theoretical framework to interpret the interaction of mind and body- the world3 model.Although parts seem uninformed by advances in neurology and cognitive science, the frameworkitself is useful in explaining the relationship between the physical world(world1), the cognitive world (world2), and the products of the mind thatexist as a result of human invention (world3). As always, Popper provides aseries of compelling arguments that at the very least establish a thresholdof reason that must be crossed for the serious student of epistemology. ... Read more

Book Description
This is a comprehensive introduction to the philosophical and political thought of Karl Popper, now available in English. It is divided into three parts, dealing with his biographical data, his works and recurrent themes, and finally his critics. It was approved of by Popper himself as a sympathetic and comprehensive study, and will be ideal to meet the increasing demand for a summary introduction to his work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Karl Popper's books are better than this introduction
I've always found Karl Popper's writing clear and understandable.This 'introduction', though apparently written in english, is neither.

Popper, Condensed and Referenced
This is a fine book which details Popper's final thoughts on all of his theories, and the long road that led him there.Everything is well coordinated with cross-referenced citations for all of his major works andtrends.

I would give it 5 stars, but as Popper would be the first toacknowledge, there is always room for improvement! ... Read more

Book Description
Science and the Open Society is a clearly argued and easy to read defense of Karl Popper's philosophy by Dr. Mark Notturno, the man whom Popper chose to research and edit his archives. The author argues that Popper's ideas about science and open society are still largely misunderstood in the west, but are now more important than ever in providing inspiration for the people in Central and Eastern Europe and Middle Asia who are struggling to open up their closed societies.

This groundbreaking volume draws together themes from Popper's epistemology and social philosophy - showing, for example, the connections between his distrust of communism and inductivism, his resistance to institutionalized science and logical positivism, and his opposition to intellectual authority and bureaucracy. Notturno discusses Popper's disagreements with Wittgenstein, Freud, Carnap, Gruenbaum and Kuhn, while developing the implications of his view for a wide range of contemporary issues, including politics, education, logic, critical thinking and the history of 20th century philosophy.

Science and the Open Society is written for the general reader in a style that will appeal to philosophers and non-philosophers alike. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Great writing about Great Thinking!
I'm not sure if this book is out of print -save for the hardcover - or just unavailable but it is well worth getting (even supposing you have to go elsewhere).

Why? First off, anyone who's read Karl Popper knows that he was a phenomenal writer who could pack much content into any one sentence. Mark Notturno is not only that good, dare I say it, he may be better at it than Popper?! Whereas Popper's terseness occasionally led him to vagueries, Notturno is always crisp.

Second, books on Popper tend to rehash his views (which the authors either understand or not - 50/50). Notturno extends Popper's thought. Never quite disagreeing with any of it, Notturno does find fault with a few of Poppers vagueries and corrects them. The essay herein - "induction and demarcation" is notable as it focuses on Poppers tendency to mislead on certain views he held. The distinction between falsification and falsifiability, the problem not being of induction altogether but the fact that bad inductive conclusions, unlike deduction, will not point to a false premise, and from it the fact that Popper did not quite believe all induction to be invalid.

Some other good essays to note (in addition to the ones listed two reviews below) are "education and the open society" which is a good essay on why current education methods might fail (his similarity to John Dewey in this, and other, regards always amazes me). Also 'inference and deference' is a great article exposing the failure of logic to justify, contra popular philosophic practice, deference to authority. Not barring it outright, Notturno highlights two errors of thought that lead us to defer abdicatingly to authority: defensive thinking and poitical thinking. If there was an essay focusing solely on these two concepts (this one only devotes a few paragraphs) then I would've had to give the book seven stars. Also worthy of mention is the afterword "what is to be done" about post-communism and how a proper trainsitiion to a truly open-society can take place. In short, very good book. If you are a Popper fan and are tired of reading secondary books that only rehash, never expand, this is the best book I can think of.

Blows Your Mind
Wow!Easily one of the best reads I've had in years.Not only is it an insightful source of understanding for those interested in Karl Popper's philosophy, but Notturno, himself, emerges as a powerful player in the field of critical reasoning and the politics of knowledge.A devastatingly effective thinker and writer in his own right.It will change your view of the world and the role of reasoning and politics in the conduct of human affairs.Awesome!

The Enduring Legacy of Karl Popper: A Review
Karl Popper had one of the broadest ranges of any 20th Century philosopher. He wrote in Epistemology, Philosophy and History of Science, Logic, and Democratic Theory. In each area he wrote trenchantly and with great excellence and imagination. He was the greatest of 20th century philosophers. Why I feel this way can begin to be understood by reading Mark A. Notturno's "Science and the Open Society." Notturno's work is the most valuable gateway to Popper's yet. It is one of those very few books that serve as the core of one's library, that one returns to again and again.

All of the Chapters in "Science and the Open Society" are striking and contain worthwhile insights. As a whole they allow one to think about the corpus of Popper's work and the major themes he developed over the course of 60 years. In fact, Popper himself wrote no single work that would allow us to do that. Notturno, in providing that perspective here, gives us a bird's eye view that we must work much harder to get from Popper's work. If you seek an understanding of Popper, start with Notturno and then read Popper for yourself, with the context you need to actively grasp what Popper presents.

All of the book is valuable, but there are a few Chapters that stand out from my own perspective as a Knowledge Management practitioner. These are Chapter 10 on the choice between Popper and Kuhn, Chapter 7 on the meaning of world 3, Chapter 5, a brilliant account of the breakdown of foundationalism and justificationism and of how Popper's critical rationalism escapes from the problems inherent in these views and provides a basis for solving the problems of induction and demarcation, and Chapter 3 on the significance of critical rationalism for education in open societies. Here is a more detailed review of Chapters 10 and 7.

Chapter 10, "The Choice Between Popper and Kuhn: Truth, Criticism, and the Legacy of Logical Positivism," takes up again the task of proper reconstruction of the nature of science following the breakdown of logical positivism. Notturno shows that Popper and Kuhn took two contrasting roads in journeying from this crossroads of 20th century philosophy. He traces how Kuhn and the many who followed him took the road to relativism, institutionalism, and "political" science, while denying the possibility of external rational critques of governing paradigms. Popper, on the other hand, took the road to thoroughgoing fallibilistic truth-seeking, a path which rejected foundationalism and justificationism, and offered a view of scientific objectivity attained through shared criticism of alternative knowledge claims conjectured as solutions to problems. As Notturno puts it (P. 230): "The issue at base is whether science should be an open or a closed society." Notturno shows that its is Kuhn's choice that leads to the closed society, and Popper's that supports the idea that (P. 248) ". . . our scientific institutions should exist for the sake of the individual - for the sake of our freedom of thought and our right to express it - and not the other way around."

Chapter 7 is a careful account of Popper's controversial notion that there are at least three "worlds" or realms of ontological significance: (1) the material world of tables, atoms, buildings, lamps, etc., (2) the mental world of thoughts, beliefs, emotions, etc. and (3) the "world" of words and language, art, mathematics, music, and other human, non-material, but sharable and autonomous creations. Popper criticized monism, the doctrine that only the physical world exists, and dualism, the idea that there is only mind, matter, and the interaction between them, in favor of a broader interactionism among three realms. This idea has been among the most difficult of notions for people to accept.

To many (including Feyerabend and Lakatos who ridiculed it), it smacks of Platonism, even though Popper clearly distinguished his own world 3 ideas from platonic forms. But Popper's world 3 notions are critical to his ideas about the pursuit of truth, criticism and trial and error as the method of science and problem-solving, the growth of knowledge, and evolutionary epistemology. Popper's world 3 is also critical to knowledge management, because without it we can't sensibly talk about managing the interaction between subjective mental knowledge (world 2) and objective linguistic knowledge (world 3), and, one can argue, it is managing this interaction to enhance the growth of relevant knowledge that is knowledge management's greatest challenge and major preoccupation.

Of all the commentary I have seen on world 3 Chapter 7 is the best at simply stating what Popper meant by it, why the notion is important to critical rationalism and the growth of knowledge, why people have denied its importance, why world 3 is consistent with a thoroughgoing fallibilism, why world 3 is a denial of empiricist epistemology, why the notion of world 3 is not invalidated by the greatly over-rated "Ockham's Razor," why world 3 doesn't violate the principle of causality, and finally why world 3 is important in spite of the view of the Wittgensteinians that solutions to philosophical problems which world 3 is an instance of, are meaningless because such problems are themselves meaningless. And in the process of doing this commentary, Notturno presents and analyzes for us a wonderful story of an encounter between Popper and Wittgenstein (mediated by Bertrand Russell) at Cambridge on October 26, 1946, which in microcosm, illustrates the conflict between reason and authority, and the open society and the closed society. It was an encounter in which the master of the cold stare, the mystique of genius, and the pithy aphorism, found himself so frustrated by the master of critque and dialogue that he left the field of open debate in anger and disgust.

Free up your thinking with this book
There are many excellent critiques of contemporary discourse, but few disclose the problem in its broader range. Of those that do, fewer still identify principles by which we could extricate ourselves. Popper would seem an unlikely starting point. In the opinion of many, Popper had his day along with the authoritarianism he opposed. Indeed, the main impetus forrevival of Popper's open society concept has been George Soros's effort tohelp polities in the former Soviet block rid themselves of the vestiges ofcommunism. What worries Soros is that former Soviet citizens will retain autopian thought structure and simply plug in different parts, notablymarkets anddemocracy. Visiting Americans don't always help. Russians whoreceive lectures from Americans complain of condescension, but it is often worse than that -- the lecturers don't understand the underpinnings of theinstitutions they recommend. The lecturer may assume thatmarkets anddemocracy will, by themselves and of necessity, create a non-authoritariansocial field. They don't. It is one of Notturno'saims to explain thisdisturbing possibility that many Western elites fail to grasp.

Theauthor has applied remarkable energy to running open society seminarsthrough the post-Soviet world. Some of the chapters of thebook are basedon these seminars, and the talks are honed through frequent delivery beforegroups that are receptive yet skeptical. It would be a terrible mistake toassume that the presence of this audience means that the book is notrelevant to the American experience. Notturno understands that Popper'sintention was to promote openness in all modern societies, not justCommunist ones,and he has admirably brought Popper's program up to date.He efficiently critiques the primacy given to consensus in science. He alsoaddresses dangers outside the scientific institution proper by taking ontolerance, relativism, therapy, and bureaucracy.

In several cases hisstarting point is biographical, and he offers some revealing letters andcontemporary accounts that most of us will not be familiar with. Thesematerials give his philosophical arguments freshness and motivation notoften found in academic works.Wittgenstein, Carnap, Freud, Bohr, Kuhn,and several other heroes are indicted for various offenses against openscience. Popper isn'tspared either, though he certainly comes out aheadon crucial matters.

The best feature of the book is that the reader hasa sense of where to begin and what to do. I found myself wanting to standup, ask aquestion, and engage somebody in authentic discussion. You arepropelled forward toward problems, in your own voice, not backwardtowardanything that Popper might have said. I can image that this would be a veryuseful book in almost any public affairs course that reflects on groundrules for debate and investigation. Better yet, the book can help adultlearners free themselves from the stifling rhetoric of ideologists.

Iwas curious and asked Notturno where his program is headed. I was pleasedto find that he has plans for workshops, internationalacademic contacts,dissertation support, and other collaborations that offer practicalresults, or at least a fuller sense of whatrational discussion entails. Irecommend that you get in touch with him, especially if you have ideas onhow to institutionalize theseactivities. ......................

Disputing disputation. I accept what Notturno extracts from Popper asgood logic, but I wonder whether something more needs to be saidabout thesocial side of argument. Popper was relentless in finding thecontradictions in others. Students who tried to fend him offusingself-protective rhetoric often felt ridiculed when his persistent questionseventually forced them to admit their errors.But it is probably the casethat students who adhered to good logic were also humiliated. Theassumption behind such intellectualconflict is that contradictions arenot voluntarily displayed. More generally, one defends tidy statements thatbrook no problem. Is that the kind of statement we must have at the readybefore speaking to each other, and is that process ideal?

I wonder aboutsuch things, and suffer for it. Last week, I drafted a report and offeredexamples of how software could be used. Imentioned an operation thatwould be useful to execute in the software, but cautioned that theoperation might be too difficult toimplement. I figured that it would beuseful to retain the idea as a possibility rather than to discard it. Theproject manager, adheringto conventional practice, did not want this orany problem mentioned in our report, and the idea was discarded. Themotivation, I suppose,is to give the client nothing that can bequestioned, nothing incomplete. Is that good?

The same sort of thinghappens when writing definitions. The definition and examples stay wellwithin what is safe to say, and noguidance is offered that would helpdecide hard cases, which is exactly when definitions are needed.

Wechallenge each other to find weaknesses that we are reluctant to discloseand may actually be hiding. It is a cat and mouse game, nota mutualexploration with a common object. To explore together would require a kindof trust between partners that doesn't often exist.One approach tobuilding that trust is to create a space for imaginative thought in which adifferent set of rules is enforced.

DeBono has argued well for aseparate imaginative effort prior the critical effort, symbolized as greenhat versus black hat thinking. But consider how things actually play out inan organization that sequesters thinking in this way. 3M requires thatpeople work on secret projects for a significant percentage of their time,and theyare expected to bring a project forward when it is ready to becriticized. Whenever anything is brought before an "outsider",the presumption is that it is offered as something to be attacked. There isno possibility of wider collaboration beyond a secret cell of partners.

To put it bluntly, I'm wondering whether loose thinking should be anelement of openness. The idea is not to avoid critical thinking, buttoneither elevate nor extend it to the point that it suppresses options,rewards timidity, and encourages unproductive conflict. [1] In both scienceand business, new approaches that eventually prove to be better usuallyperform poorly at the beginning. An idea gains afollowing on anintuitive, theoretical, or emotional basis before it reaches final form.[2] Without these non-rational appeals, which arevery similar to the"communal" appeals that Notturno counts as a danger, theinnovation pipeline could dry up. [3] Notturno says thatfalse theoriesare a dime a dozen, which is true, but new theories are in the same stack.

An open attitude, I feel, is something different from the criticalattitude that is admittedly necessary to sustain both open science and anopen society. An open attitude can tolerate indecision, incompleteness, andeven contradiction. (Someone said that the testof a good mind is that itcan hold contradictory thoughts simultaneously.) [4] The open attitudemoves toward clarity, but not prematurely and not toward complete closure.That may be too muchforbearance to ask for some, and offer too easy aride for others. Yet, in our atmosphere of both heavy criticism and acommunal science that avoids criticism, we tend to confine ourselves tosafe science. Those who can't stand this situation may exile themselves, orclaim outlandish revolutions, neither of which gains any traction..................................

KARL POPPER: Recent book by Notturno
For about thirty years I have been a fan of Karl Popper's writings. This recent book on Popper's philosophy (of science and of politics) is most excellent. It presents Popper's ideas more clearly than Popper himself, inmy opinion. So readers can get a quick taste of this work I refer them totwo pages: On p88 Notturno argues that "institutiomalism andinductivism are more closely related than one might think." Inductiveconclusions do not follow from their premises. Group solidarity is used toclose the gap. On p142 Notturno clarifies: Popper posited World 1 as theworld of physical objects, World 2 as the world of thoughts (feelings andimagination), and World 3 as the world of imaginative artifacts (songs,theorems, laws, etc.). The creative act corresponds to taking an insightfrom World 2 into World 3, from where it can be shared (I have a theorem inmathematical physics named for me internationally so I know this processfirst hand.). IT'S A FINE READ! ... Read more

Book Description
Few philosophers in this century have had either Karl Popper's range or influence, inside and outside philosophy. This collection of essays by fifteen distinguished philosophers, several of whom have been closely associated with Popper and his work, provides a timely assessment of Popper's contributions in a number of key areas: the methodology and philosophy of science; probability and determinism; quantum theory; biology; the theory of evolution; and the theory and practice of politics. ... Read more

Book Description
In these compelling interviews given shortly before his death in 1994, Karl Popper warns us against the increasing violence and egoism that threaten our democratic society. Believing that the philosopher has a duty to intervene in politics, he utters a clear call for all of us to rise to the challenge of finding solutions to our environmental problems, preventing the violence engendered by our society, and preserving our democratic system while paving the way for global peace. Now in paperback, The Lesson of This Century reveals the brilliance of Popper's thought on a range of twentieth century topics as he reminds us that our actions are of great consequence in shaping the future of the world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Freedom
In these interviews with Giancarlo Bosetti, Karl Popper gives us a rare appreciation of current political events, like the Cuba crisis of 1962, Gorbachev's Russia, the fall of the Marxist regimes in Eastern Europe or the Balkan problem (ethnic identity as a State doctrine).

His main purpose is individual liberty (freedom of opposition, democracy). The other side of the French Revolution coin, equality, endangers freedom; and if freedom is lost, there will not be equality among the unfree.

This is not to say that there should be absolute freedom. Human beings, and certainly the intellectuals, have moral obligations.
But his hope in intellectual honesty has been bitterly betrayed. The intellectuals invented the most terrible harm: mass exterminations in the name of an idea, a doctrine or a theory.

For Popper, the main problems in the modern world are the search for peace, demographic responsibility (stop the demographic explosion) and good education. At this level, his plea for media censorship is at least controversial. But for him, a message of non-violence is a moral must towards our children.

This book should be read as an example of how one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century proposes solutions for world problems within his philosophical framework and that of other important predecessors like Kant and Mill.
Not to be missed. ... Read more