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On Popper's Metaphysical Realism in Memory of Sir Karl Popper

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On Popper's Metaphysical Realism in Memory of Sir Karl Popper No. 1 47 On Popper's Metaphysical Realism in Memory of Sir Karl Popper by Keiichiro KAMINO I Why on Realism Professor Sir Karl Popper passed away on the 17th of September, 1994. As he was born on the 28th of July, 1902, he had rather a long life. The concern for a philosopher, however, would be whether his own philosophy would survive for a long time after his death. Would Popper's philosophy still be some guide or some target of argument for future philosophers? I, who was once a student of his at L. S. E. more than thirty years ago, would like here to pay some homage to him by way of writing an obituary. Philosophically, however, in this essay I aim to clarify Popper's theory of realism, which I think might give us not only a better understanding of his whole philosophy, but also a clue for a further step towards expanding our knowledge. Popper's attitude in doing philospohy is, as is well known, his critical rational ism, which is the attitude of solving problems by an appeal to reason, i.e. to clear thought and experience, but is entirely different from comprehensive rationalism. The distinction between critical rationalism and extreme or comprehensive rational ism, however, is not the matter I would like to discuss here.(1) I referred to his critical rationalism only to draw attention to the fact that for his philosophy the concept of truth is very basic. Without the concept of truth, he cannot criticise any knowledge or theory by saying that this or that theory is true or false. Besides, as his arguments of W3 show, knowledge, in our search for a better world, has a fundamental importance. But 'knowledge is the search of truth' (S. B. W., p. 38). According to Popper, the proper way of expanding our knowledge is critical discussion. And this is the rational tradition in Western Europe. Modern epis temologists, as a matter of fact, have asked questions about the sources of our knowledge. But there is no ultimate source of our knowledge. The proper epis temological question is not one about the sources. We should rather ask whether the conjecture or hypothesis we have made is true. The question about the sources of our knowldege may be replaced by an entirely different question: 'How can we hope to detect and eliminate error?' And the proper answer to this is, he says, 'by criticising the theories and guesses of others and-if we can train ourselves to do so * Setsunan University , Faculty of Business Administration and Information, 17-8, Ikeda naka-machi, Neyagawa, Osaka, 572, Japan. -47- 48 Keiichiro KAMINO Vol. 9 - by criticizing our own theories and guesses' (C. R., p. 26). We human beings have reached the stage that we can consciously detect and elimimate error. Other animals cannot criticise each other, for they have no lan guage of descriptive and argumentative or explanatory function (C. R., p. 135). So they have no knowledge such as human beings have, say scientific knowledge. The invention of descriptive human language containing true and false statements made a further step possible, a further invention: the invention of criticism. This permits us a conscious and critical pursuit of our errors. "This", he says, "is the decisive point. Here begins what is called...human knowledge. There is no knowledge without rational criticism, criticism in the service of the search for truth. Animals have no knowledge in this sense.... But what we call knowledge, and the most important type of knowledge, scientific knowledge, is dependent on rational criticism. This is, therefore, the decisive step that depends upon the invention of true or false statements. And this is the step, that, I suggest, lays the foundation for W3, for human culture." (S. B. W., pp. 21-2). Here, however, a problem arises. What is the logical structure of criticism? How can we hope to show that some theory is wrong? The answer Popper prepared for this is 'falsification'. The criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability (C. R., p. 37). Of course, one of the cornerstones of his philosophy is his theory of falsifiability. This idea, however, presupposes the concept of truth, and leads to realism. For, although the mere adoption of the concept of truth does not necessarily mean the adoption of realism, but as his theory of truth is a correspondence theory of truth, which is based on Tarski's idea, Popper's position should at least, be very near to realism. Now I should like to discuss Popper's metaphysical realism. There are at least three types of argumrnt he offered for realism, namely, (1) metaphysical realism in his "Realim and the Aim of Science", and in "Two Faces of Common sense", in "Objective Knowledge". (2) the explanation of the concept of reality which he produced in developing his theory about W1, W2, W3, in "The Self and Its Brain", and the explanation of his standpoint in "Epistemology without a Knowing Subject", in "Objective Knowl edge". (3) the explanation of the concept 'real' in "Three Views concerning Human knowledge". I shall begin with (1). -48- No. 1 On Popper's Metaphysical Realism 49 II Metaphysical Realism in Realism and the Aim of Science, and Objective Knowledge. Popper says that he believes in metaphysical realism, and also that it is nowhere used to support any of the solutions proposed in L. Sc. D. In this he differs from idealists, or so he says (R. A. S., pp. 80-1). It is not one of the theses of L. Sc. D., nor does it anywhere play the part of a presupposition. And yet, it is very much there. It forms a kind of background that gives point to our search for truth (ibid., p. 81). Without an objective reality, there would be no point in our critical discussion aiming to get nearer to the truth. It is surely our task to attain to the world of objective reality, which is largely unknown. British empiricists such an Bacon, Hume, Mill, and Russell, according to Popper had the intention of being practical and realistic. But their subjectivist epis temology confiicted with their realist intentions. They upheld the theory that all knowledge is derived from sense experience, and equated 'is derived' either with 'is inductively derived' or with 'originated' (ibid.). This leads them to the belief that all knowledge is derived from sense experience, and that all knowledge is knowledge of what is going on in our mind. On this subjective basis, no objective theory can be built. Upon the idealist theory, the world becomes the totality of my ideas, of my dreams. And so Popper rejects idealism. It may well be that the doctrine that the world is my dreams is irrefutable, because it can deal with every objection as a dream. But, for a theory, irrefutability is not a virtue, but a vice. The irrefutability of idealism is not its virtue. This, however, also applies to realsim. Realism is also irrefutable. Pop per says that from the irrefutability of idealism follows the non-demonstrability of realism, and vice versa. Both theories are non-demonstrable, and also irrefutable: they are metaphysical (ibid.). In spite of this, however, he contends that there is an all-important difference between them: metaphysical idealism is false, and metaphysical realsim is true. And thus he starts the defence of realism by way of criticising idealism, particularly by rejecting solipsism, which is, from the point of view of idealist or subjectivist, the strongest form of idealism, or so Popper says. This, however, I will not discuss here. In any case, there are two reasons why Popper thinks that the subjectivisit theory fails. (1) it naively assumes that all knowledge is subjective, and that we cannot speak of knowledge without a knower, and (2) what is traditionally its fundamental quention is misconceived. It always asks 'how do I know what I know', with its implied naive answer 'from observation, or sense-experience'. Against all this, he contends that scientific knowledge is not his knowledge. For, he says, he knows that there are many things which are known to science, but -4 9- 50 Keiichiro KAMINO Vol. 9 not to him. Or "I have some knowledge, which, whether it be scientific, or common sense, or some kind of personal knowledge, I know that it is not from observation", and so on. But I do not here enter into the details (cf. op. cit., •˜9). I now turn to the second argument for realism. III The second type of argument for realism The second type of the argument Popper propounds for realism, is found in the sections 4, and 10 of "The Self and Its Brain", and in chap. 3 of "Objective Knowledge". In his "The Self and Its Brain", Popper discusses briefly the use of the term ' real'. According to him, the most central use of the term 'real' is its use to characterise material things of ordinaary size-things which a baby can handle and (preferably) put into his mouth. From this, the usage of the term 'real' is extended, first, to bigger things-things which are too big for us to handle, like railway trains, houses, mountains, the earth and the stars, and also to ssmaller things-things like dust particles or mites. The principle behind this extention is that the entities which we conjecture to be real should be able to exert a causal effect upon the prima facie real things-that is, upon material things of ordinary size.
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