The treatment of Karl Popper in philosophy courses raises some disturbing matters of intellectual fashion or, using Thomas Kuhn's word, paradigms. Surely it cannot be due to Karl's reputedly poor social skills, after all philosophers avoid ad hominem arguments like the plague.
Popper sits in an interesting taxonomic position, despite growing up in Vienna he is not a continental philosopher (obviously) yet one can read encyclopaedic articles on analytic philosophy with nary a mention even though his criticisms should be taken into account. He seems to have been relegated to being merely the promoter of "falsificationism in the philosophy of science".
Rafe Champion is at least attempting to assist a broader exposure to Popper by publishing a series of guides to his works. It is not that Popper is not a clear writer but the difficulty of the subject can make it hard work to stick with the subtlety of his arguments. Popper is lucid in the same way as Schopenhauer who, by the way, was a great and abiding influence on both Popper and Wittgenstein. In these days when so many young academics are getting tangled in the rhetoric of conventional philosophical streams like phenomenology there is a crying need for some lucidity.
Unfortunately the received myths regarding the message Popper encoded in his many works block a straight feed - this is where Rafe Champion has provided a service. Champion has tried hard to minimize his own commentary and to let Popper speak. However to his credit he provides a very helpful take on Popper by categorizing the six themes of his thought:
(1) The conjectural, hermeneutic or non-justificationist theme means that Popper rejected the traditional concern in the theory of knowledge of justification of our ideas by reference to some authority or foundational source of knowledge.
(2) The objective theme depicts knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, as a human product, spelled out for public inspection and criticism. He acknowledged the existence of subjective beliefs and states of mind but he rejected the traditional focus of the theory of knowledge on subjective beliefs (and especially the justification of beliefs).
(3) He did not accept that it is helpful to pursue extended analysis of concepts to explicate them or make them more precise. Against "essentialism" and the quest for linguistic precision he favoured clarity of speech and writing as a means to an end in the discussion of specific problems.
(4) The social theme means that he appreciated the social nature of science and the function of conventions or "rules of the game", in scientific practice.
(5) On metaphysics Popper moved from a position that metaphysical theories should be replaced by testable theories as soon as possible to his later theory of metaphysical research programs.
(6) Brief references to biology and evolution can be found in Logik der Forshchung. In the 1960s this became a major theme in his work.
Falsificationist indeed!
The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Routledge Classics)
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