Pocket Popper

by Karl Popper, David Miller (Editor)

classic guide

Genres: Philosophy, Science, Nonfiction, Biography, Psychology, Academia

Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Sir Karl Raimund Popper, FRS, rose from a modest background as an assistant cabinet maker and school teacher to become one of the most influential theorists and leading philosophers. Popper commanded international audiences and conversation with him was an intellectual adventure—even if a little rough—animated by a myriad of philosophical problems. He contributed to a field of thought encompassing (among others) political theory, quantum mechanics, logic, scientific method and evolutionary theory.

Popper challenged some of the ruling orthodoxies of philosophy: logical positivism, Marxism, determinism and linguistic philosophy. He argued that there are no subject matters but only problems and our desire to solve them. He said that scientific theories cannot be verified but only tentatively refuted, and that the best philosophy is about profound problems, not word meanings. Isaiah Berlin rightly said that Popper produced one of the most devastating refutations of Marxism. Through his ideas Popper promoted a critical ethos, a world in which the give and take of debate is highly esteemed in the precept that we are all infinitely ignorant, that we differ only in the little bits of knowledge that we do have, and that with some co-operative effort we may get nearer to the truth.

Nearly every first-year philosophy student knows that Popper regarded his solutions to the problems of induction and the demarcation of science from pseudo-science as his greatest contributions. He is less known for the problems of verisimilitude, of probability (a life-long love of his), and of the relationship between the mind and body.

Popper was a Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the British Academy, and Membre de I'Institute de France. He was an Honorary member of the Harvard Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, and an Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics, King's College London, and of Darwin College Cambridge. He was awarded prizes and honours throughout the world, including the Austrian Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold, the Lippincott Award of the American Political Science Association, and the Sonning Prize for merit in work which had furthered European civilization.

Karl Popper was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1965 and invested by her with the Insignia of a Companion of Honour in 1982.

(edited from http://www.tkpw.net/intro_popper/intr...)

Reviews

[Rosa Ramôa · Rating 5 out of 5]

“O relativismo cultural e a doutrina do contexto fechado constituem sérios obstáculos à disposição de aprender com os outros.”
(Karl Popper)

[Cam · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good selection of Karl Popper's voluminous writings by his research assistant David Miller who also provides a good introduction to Popperian philosophy.

The first two sections on the theory of knowledge and the philosophy of science are the best. There were half a dozen chapters taken from Conjectures and Refutations, and I'd probably recommend that volume as a better starting point to Popper. In fact, newbies to Popperian philosophy should start with David Deutsch's Beginning of Infinity as he's made improvements and is a better writer.

If you're mainly interested in Popper's social philosophy (which is inextricably linked with his theory of knowledge), section four pulls some of the best chapters from The Open Society and its Enemies supplemented with some chapters from The Poverty of Historicism so is more palatable than picking up those tomes.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was actually very interesting. Again, I wish I were discussing it in detail a philosophy class versus just touching on it in our financial accounting seminar, but overall I am glad that I read it.

[Marcel Santos · Rating 3 out of 5]

ENGLISH

The book reviewed here is “The Logic of Social Sciences”, apparently a uniquely Brazilian edition gathering texts which the Brazilian professor Vamireh Chacon obtained directly from Popper. I am posting this review here as there is no such book on Goodreads.

The “Logic” gathers the following articles from the great philosopher of science: “The Logic of Social Sciences”, “Reason or Revolution?”, “The Rationality of the Scientific Revolutions”, and “What I Understand as Philosophy”. This review refers only to the first one, which tackles the main point.

The article is a revised and amplified lecture presented at the opening of a 1961 symposium in Tübingen, Germany, organized by the German Sociological Society. Popper’s speech was followed by a reply from Frankfurt School professor Theodor Adorno. It is indicated as part of Adorno’s book “The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology”. Popper lays out his speech in 27 theses and a suggestion.

The theses summarize Popper’s known understanding of science: his Socratic-based position that the advancement of knowledge in fact increases our perception of ignorance; that refutation is the essential component of science's demarcation; and his famous critique of inductivism in science. The text closes with his particular view of the social sciences.

Popper’s theses approach his known position that knowledge starts from problems. A problem occurs when a situation differs from what we expect from our perception of reality based on our previous knowledge. Scientific propositions are those which can be refuted through testing. The more knowledge advances, the more our ignorance increases.

Then Popper criticizes those who believe that social sciences must be more objective, just like the natural sciences. Natural scientists are as unduly protective of their ideas as any other type of scientist. For Popper, this critique comes from those misguided by inductivism: they incorrectly start with data collection and statistics, and make generalizations and derive conclusions. As is known, scientific reasoning is deductive for Popper.

Particularly regarding the social sciences, Popper then starts out by criticizing a tendency toward behavioristic objectivity in anthropology. He exemplifies it with an anecdotal case: an anthropologist participated in a colloquium where Popper and the other lecturers were discussing science and humanism. They asked him what he thought of the discussion. The anthropologist replied that he was not paying attention to the contents of the arguments, as he was only interested in the dynamics of the behavior of the people talking. This was undue, as Popper saw it as the bad influence of an ideal of behaviorist objectivity in a social science such as anthropology.

Popper then differentiates individual psychology from sociology. Individual psychology can explain a lot of behavior, but the group, as well as the institutions (such as a warehouse, a university, the police, the Church, the State, or harakiri in Japan), condition individual behavior independently from individual psychology alone. He calls this "situational logic", or the situational analysis method: it’s a method focused on the individual, but it clearly differentiates itself from psychology because it is concerned with how groups and institutions influence individuals.

In his final 26th and 27th theses, he goes straight to the point: situational logic explanations are rational and theoretical reconstructions, but they are generally false because they are simplifications and are scketched out in a cursory manner. Nevertheless, they can have a considerable truthful content, so they can be good approximations of truth and better than other testable explanations. The logical concept of approximation of truth is indispensable for a social science that uses the method of situational analysis — it is rational, empirically criticizable, and capable of improvement. He reaffirms his emphasis that it should also be subject to testing: an ancient letter found describing habits and customs of a particular society can change the hitherto theorized knowledge about it.

Popper finishes by pointing out that institutions do not act; individuals act inside, for, or through institutions. Thus, the general situational logic of these actions will be the theory of the quasi-actions of the institutions.

Popper suggests the construction of a theory of the consequences of institutions, planned or not, of intentional action. This would also lead to the theory of the creation and development of institutions.

He concludes by urging the use of epistemology for the social sciences and philosophy as a remedy for the then European nihilism, which he saw as a result of the Socratic principle that the advancement of knowledge leads to an increased awareness of ignorance.


PORTUGUÊS

O livro aqui resenhado é “A Lógica das Ciências Sociais”, aparentemente uma edição exclusivamente brasileira que reúne textos obtidos diretamente de Popper pelo professor brasileiro Vamireh Chacon. Publico esta resenha aqui porque não há registro desse livro no Goodreads.

A obra reúne os seguintes artigos do grande filósofo da ciência: "A Lógica das Ciências Sociais", "Razão ou Revolução?", "A Racionalidade das Revoluções Científicas" e "O que Entendo por Filosofia". Esta resenha aborda apenas o primeiro deles, que trata da questão central.

O artigo é uma conferência revista e ampliada, apresentada na abertura de um simpósio realizado em 1961 em Tübingen, na Alemanha, e organizado pela Sociedade Alemã de Sociologia. A fala de Popper foi seguida por uma réplica de Theodor Adorno, professor da Escola de Frankfurt. O texto consta no livro de Adorno intitulado “A Disputa do Positivismo na Sociologia Alemã”. Popper estrutura sua exposição em 27 teses e uma sugestão.

As teses sintetizam a conhecida concepção de Popper sobre a ciência: sua posição de base socrática de que o avanço do conhecimento, na verdade, amplia nossa percepção da própria ignorância; a ideia de que a refutação é o componente essencial da demarcação científica; e sua famosa crítica ao indutivismo na ciência. O texto termina com sua visão particular sobre as ciências sociais.

As teses de Popper aproximam-se de sua conhecida posição de que o conhecimento parte de problemas. Um problema surge quando uma situação difere daquilo que esperamos com base em nossa percepção da realidade e em nosso conhecimento prévio. Proposições científicas são aquelas passíveis de refutação por meio de testes. Quanto mais o conhecimento avança, mais nossa ignorância aumenta.

Em seguida, Popper critica aqueles que acreditam que as ciências sociais devam ser mais objetivas, como as ciências naturais. Os cientistas naturais são tão indevidamente zelosos na defesa de suas ideias quanto qualquer outro tipo de cientista. Para Popper, essa crítica parte de pessoas equivocadas pelo indutivismo: elas começam, erroneamente, pela coleta de dados e estatísticas para, então, fazer generalizações e tirar conclusões. Como é sabido, para Popper, o raciocínio científico é dedutivo.

No que diz respeito especificamente às ciências sociais, Popper começa criticando uma tendência à objetividade behaviorista na antropologia. Ele ilustra isso com um caso anedótico: um antropólogo participou de um colóquio no qual Popper e outros conferencistas discutiam ciência e humanismo. Eles lhe perguntaram o que ele achava da discussão. O antropólogo respondeu que não estava prestando atenção ao conteúdo dos argumentos, pois lhe interessava apenas a dinâmica do comportamento das pessoas que conversavam. Popper considerou isso inadequado, vendo aí a influência negativa de um ideal de objetividade behaviorista em uma ciência social como a antropologia.

Popper então diferencia a psicologia individual da sociologia. A psicologia individual pode explicar muitos comportamentos, mas o grupo, assim como as instituições (tais como um armazém, uma universidade, a polícia, a Igreja, o Estado ou o harakiri no Japão), condicionam o comportamento individual independentemente da psicologia individual isolada. Ele denomina isso de "lógica situacional" ou método de análise situacional. Trata-se de um método centrado no indivíduo, mas que se distingue claramente da psicologia por se ocupar de como grupos e instituições influenciam os indivíduos.

Em suas teses finais, a 26ª e a 27ª, ele vai direto ao ponto: as explicações baseadas na lógica situacional são reconstruções racionais e teóricas, mas geralmente são falsas, pois constituem simplificações e são esquematizadas por alto. No entanto, podem conter uma parcela considerável de verdade, servindo como boas aproximações da verdade e superando outras explicações passíveis de teste. O conceito lógico de aproximação da verdade é indispensável para uma ciência social que utiliza o método de análise situacional — ele é racional, empiricamente criticável e passível de aperfeiçoamento. Popper reafirma a necessidade de que tal método também seja submetido a testes: uma carta antiga descoberta, descrevendo hábitos e costumes de uma determinada sociedade, pode alterar o conhecimento teorizado até então sobre ela.

Popper termina ressaltando que as instituições não agem; são os indivíduos que agem dentro, para ou por meio das instituições. Assim, a lógica situacional geral dessas ações constituirá a teoria das quase-ações das instituições.

Popper sugere a construção de uma teoria das consequências das instituições — sejam elas planejadas ou não — resultantes da ação intencional. Isso conduziria, também, a uma teoria sobre a criação e o desenvolvimento das instituições.

Ele conclui defendendo o uso da epistemologia nas ciências sociais e na filosofia como um remédio para o niilismo europeu da época, o qual ele via como resultado do princípio socrático de que o avanço do conhecimento conduz a uma maior consciência da ignorância.

[W · Rating 4 out of 5]

An expansive and deeper dive into Karl Popper. He is a refreshingly good writer and I am tempted by his ideas… his Darwinian epistemology in particular. Easily my second favorite Karl (behind Carl Von of course… the more well known Karl can suck it🤘).

[Michael Huang · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not an easy book to rate. It's a book excerpted from various papers of Poppers. The papers are organized into 4 sections: Theory of knowledge; Philosophy of science; Metaphysics; and Social philosophy.

What I liked about it: good philosophers can articulate about subtle points. Popper's discussion about the theory of knowledge and philosophy of science is great and sometimes exquisite. The first time you hear some of the perspectives you'd feel liberating.

What I don't like about it: This is not a book Popper wrote as a single treaties, thus it has the togetherness of any cut-n-pasted content. Some feel like yanked from a bigger piece and feels a bit hard to follow. The second issue is that of Metaphysics: it's just like the stereotypical philosophy: verbiage. I just don't resonate at all. YMMV.

[Peter Aronson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Karl Popper was one of the 20th Century's most important philosophers -- whether distinguishing between what is science from what is pseudo-science, elaborating on the scientific method, writing on the characteristics of a free society or in his critiques of Marxism and other utopian philosophies -- and he is still relevant today. This collection gives a wide overview of the subjects he wrote upon in easily digested chunks. Just don't be put off by the introduction -- Popper is much more readable than Miller.

[Christopher Elliott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good follow-on to Unended Quest. I essentially buy all of his arguments so my next step is to read up on criticisms of Popper's ideas to see where he went wrong and how much I missed. My first foray into philosophy and I'm very unsure who to trust.

[Harry Harman]

In recognizing that it was the falsifiability of scientific hypotheses that mattered

‘But’, the empiricist will reply, ‘how do you think that The Times or the Encyclopaedia Britannica got their information? Surely, if you only carry on your inquiry long enough, you will end up with reports of the observations of eyewitnesses (sometimes called “protocol sentences” or-by yourself-“basic statements”). Admittedly’, the empiricist will continue, ‘books are largely made from other books. Admittedly, a historian, for example, will work from documents. But ultimately, in the last analysis, these other books, or these documents, must have been based upon observations.

‘I read it in The Times'; let us say the assertion ‘The Prime Minister has decided to return to London several days ahead of schedule’. Now assume for a moment that somebody doubts this assertion, or feels the need to investigate its truth. What shall he do? If he has a friend in the Prime Minister’s office, the simplest and most direct way would be to ring him up; and if this friend corroborates the message, then that is that.

[Christian Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Popper is difficult (I am told), not surprising for a professional philosopher. But "Selections" is not, its essays and arguments culled by a loyal student for the express purpose of introducing Popper's ideas to folks interested in ideas for the sake of ideas. He is clear on science, funny on Marx, and overall--in this volume anyway-- readable and provocative. Philosophy as a discipline has many necessary prerequisites, and the lay reader is easily put off (also, much philosophy is translated by tin-eared hapless worker bees, pitiable in their failure because, well, try the original German ). But Popper on science, specifically on the "third world" from which theories spring, is like a cool breeze on a humid day, a sudden, if temporal, insight into the ineffable. He's not as funny as Bertrand Russell, but you can't have everything--where would you put it? 1.

Footnote 1. Joke attributed to the philosopher and standup comic Steve Reich

[Daniel Reis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb book. I knew nothing about Popper before reading, but am walking away very impressed.

[Twlogos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fair

[Carlos Sode]

Hasta nunca, Popper

[Matt Gordon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Popper is widely known, and extremely influential philosopher of science who doesn’t need an introduction by me. He cannot be avoided whether in academia or just on reddit. In that sense, this Reader is an excellent overview of his thought, and since so much of his thought was both consistent throughout his life, and self referential (his political and social philosophy, is based on his philosophy of science, and so on), a Reader such as this is able to provide the proper background for anyone who wants a working knowledge of Popper’s philosophy.

The book lacks a way to easily navigate to contemporary debates relevant to the selections in question, as they are arranged by theme rather than chronology, but other than that the coverage is excellent.

His philosophy is that of scientific realism matched with epistemological anti-realism, or agnosticism, with some important contradictions. Popper famously accepts Hume’s critique of induction, so essentially, we cannot know anything. He replaces this with the ‘logic of scientific discovery’, the equally famous ‘falsifiability test’ - can we falsify a theory, and therefore replace it with a better one, physics yes, psychoanalysis or Marxism, no. As has been pointed out many times, how this ultimately stays true (or surpasses) Hume’s critique is not clear - Popper’s realism about the empirical, material world (or World 1 as he calls it) is clear to see, but he maintains an agnosticism or relativism regarding knowledge of that material world (World 3), and so the question of Being/Thinking, or representation/mediation, is not addressed sufficiently in my view. This is what Roy Bhaskar has called the ‘epistemological fallacy’.

But of course Bhaskar points out, this is no an epistemological question but fundamentally a metaphysical-ontological one. Where is the ‘logic’ of falsifiability - where does it live, what is it’s ontological status? Does it flow in a determinate way from the concrete World 1, in which case, how can we find out about it? Or does it belong, along with all other forms of logic and maths, to the abstract World 3, in which case, what makes it real? Without answering this, which nowhere in this selection does Popper even attempt to, he is essentially a realist about the noumea, but a relativist, or at least a fuzzy-realist, about phenomena. He’s a Kantian of sorts, except, when it applies to his own philosophy. Popper then has access to the noumea, but no one else, including his beloved scientists, do.

This would be fine, it would be an inconsistent philosophy of science, except insofar as Hume is used to undermine all philosophy of presence from Plato to Hegel, in one all-encompassing sweep. Metaphysics is dead, because of the problem of induction, except for Popper’s own metaphysics (which is what the three worlds ontology is). No mechanism for mediation between World 1, 2, 3 is presented - to look for one is ‘non-science’ (nonsense), despite Popper’s view that all three worlds are real - albeit, some are more real than others. A bit like liberal humanism, we are equal, but….
I would say the influence on Kuhn or Feyerabend, in this respect, is obvious, albeit slightly counter-intuitive, as Popper’s pseudo-Humeanism allows him to weather later post-structuralist critics but also to become the patron saint of the 1990s ‘end of history’ trend, a la Stephen Pinker.

This is the revenge of World 2, the world of class and psychology and motivation, and makes Popper’s political allegiance to the ‘radical centre’ of liberal capitalism (despite the obvious and understandable reasons he was repelled by all forms of totalitarianism), quite easy to discern. It’s a technocratic Panglossian view of the world.

Popper’s scientific realism is well known, and even to some extent, so is the underlying Kantianism - based as it is, on the Neo-Kantian origins of logical positivism. But the false-Humeanism, which stresses our impotence in the face of World 1, is in my view less well known. We cannot know, let alone change, the material conditions, so there is no point in trying. That is not a philosophy of ‘openness’, of the best of all possible worlds, but one of emptiness and greyness.

[Mr. Wednesday IX · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es un texto que contempla lo crucial del pensamiento temprano y tardío de Karla Popper. La variabilidad de textos dentro del compendio promete no solo un análisis de calidad, sino una amplia gama sobre los principales estudios que realizo el autor en diferentes aristas filosóficas. Dentro, se puede encontrar desde sus escritos más básicos (pero aun complejos en cierto sentido), como lo son la lógica y la epistemología, pero tambien estan los de un criterio superior, como lo son la metafísica aplicada con física matematica y el análisis del espectro psicológico humanitario.

Los textos mas entrañables desde mi punto de vista son los políticos, pues deja un buen sabor de boca al realizar un análisis antropológico completo para ubicar al ser humano dentro de un gran sistema de Estado, contemplando sus esferas primarias (la política, la económica y la social). La critica que realiza a otros autores como son Kant, Hobbes, Hume, Hegel, Marx, Engels, Bacón, entre otros, es excelente, pues no solamente es una critica vacua, sino un análisis profundo que busca rescatar lo mejor de cada tesis de estos pensadores (como un serio maestro ecléctico), refutando las partes que estima erróneas en la aplicabilidad realista, pero proponiendo soluciones proactivas que se ajusten a esa misma realidad que socializa. Por último, y solo por dar un comentario negativo al compendio, creo que le falto un poco mas de análisis al aspecto de la fenomenología que comparte con Husserl o a la parte de la filosofía psicológica que debate contra Sigmund Freud.

Este libro es una excelente recomendacion para entender los aspectos esenciales pero tambien contextuales de Karl Popper, por lo que lo recomiendo bastante.

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

A posthumous collection is always a hit or a miss but luckily Popper produced so much solid work during his time that the lack of the author's vision doesn't bog this down too much. Picked this up to read on the metro but honestly it was a little too dense to be able to fully sink into on a short ride which made it drag. Still, some fantastic ideas and exposition - Popper remains the only Western philosopher I have any respect for, largely because of a zeal-like commitment to avoiding lazy thinking.

If you haven't read any Popper before I wouldn't start with this - the strength of his writing is how he brings numerous detailed little viewpoints together in a compelling and thorough arc, which just doesn't show up well in an essay collection format. However if you are familiar with his work like I was, it's an easy way to get a wide survey on his ideas without having to read each of his books.