Popper Re-Appraised
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Popper Re-appraised : New Perspectives on Karl Popper’s Method and its Applications Author Naraniecki, Alexander John Published 2010 Thesis Type Thesis (PhD Doctorate) School School of Humanities DOI https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/1880 Copyright Statement The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise. Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/365412 Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au Popper Re-appraised: New Perspectives on Karl Popper’s Method and its Applications Alexander John Naraniecki BA (Hons.) School of Humanities Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Griffith University A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. September 2009 1 2 Statement of Authorship This work has not been previously submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. Alexander J. Naraniecki 3 4 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Bruce Buchan for his supervision of this thesis and for his many readings of the drafts and the high scholarly standards that he expected of my work. I would also like to thank Wayne Hudson for his supervision of my thesis as well as his overseeing of my intellectual and scholarly development since my undergraduate years. I am very grateful to Regina Ganter who has also supported and guided my research at Griffith University since my honours year and for the valuable insights that she has provided me with over the years. I would like to thank Kay Ferres the Dean of Arts, Langauges and Criminology for her support. Many thanks to Janice Mitchell and the other administrative staff at the School of Humanities who have provided constant support over the years. I am thankful to Paul Turnbull who, as Head of School, assisted me with supporting my months of archival research in Klagenfurt, Austria without which this thesis would not have been possible. I would also like to thank Manfred Lube the Bibliotheksdirektor at the Universitätsbibliothek Klagenfurt for allowing me to research the materials at the Karl-Popper- Sammlung. His helpfulness, interest and knowledge of the collection made the months spent at the archive a scholarly experience that I will never forget. I would also like to thank Jeremy Shearmur at the ANU for advising me on the whereabouts of certain letters and lectures as well as clarifying certain arguments of Popper’s political philosophy. I would also like to thank Zuzana Parusniková for organising the “Rethinking Popper” conference at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague in 2007. Allowing 5 me to present my findings and to discuss Popper’s thoughts with his former students and other experts was a major turning point in my research. I am greatly indebted to Arne F. Petersen’s insights into Popper’s early writings that I have gained through discussions with him at the “Rethinking Popper” conference and through our subsequent correspondence. I am also grateful for my discussions in Prague with Joseph Agassi, Robert Cohen, Alan Musgrave, Ionut Isac, Michel Ter Hark, John Wettersten, Ian Jarvie, Federico Fernandez, Nimrod Bar-Am, Noretta Koertge, Anthony O’Hear, Stefano Gattei and Alain Boyer. I have also received invaluable criticism and insights from David Miller and Diego Rosende. I would also like to thank, Dominic Hyde, Ghil‘ad Zuckermann, John Mandalios and Haig Patapan and the late Jerzy Smolicz for the knowledge that they have imparted to me over the years. I would like to thank my family for supporting me during my years of research. This dissertation is dedicated to my late grandfather Józef Naraniecki (1920-2008). An attempt to comprehend my grandfather’s experiences of displacement and enslavement at the hands of the two great totalitarian regimes of the last century attracted me to Karl Popper’s thought more than anything else. I am grateful to my friends, who, under Wayne’s guidance at Griffith University formed an exceptional antipodean intellectual environment, and also those others with whom I have discussed my ideas with over the last few years often over a game of chess or during café discussions. 6 Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………...9 Author’s Note……………………………………………………………………..10 Chapter 1: Introduction………………………………………………….13 1. Outline………………………………………………………………...13 2. Interpreting Popper……………………………………………………24 3. Overview of Chapters…………………………………………………28 Chapter 2: The Viennese Context…………………………………....34 1. Introduction …………………………………………………………...34 2. The Vienna Circle……………………………………………………..35 3. Julius Kraft: an Extraordinary Friendship……………………………..48 4. The Renewal of Kant’s Enlightenment………………………………..51 5. Conclusion…………………………………………………………….54 Chapter 3: Popper’s Revision of Kant……………………………...56 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………56 2. Kant’s Problem and Popper’s Solution………………………………..58 3. Konrad Lorenz and the Biological Answer to Kant…………………...66 4. Popper and the Würzburg School of Cognitive Psychology………….70 5. Popper’s Friesian Epistemology………………………………………82 6. Kritisierbarkeit and Gegenstand………………………………………99 7. The Theory of Knowledge and the Psychology of Knowledge……...111 8. Conclusion…………………………………………………………...119 Chapter 4: Truth and The Open Society…………………………..121 1. Introduction…………………………………………………………..121 2. Background to the Popper-Tarski Connection……………………….124 3. Popper’s Problematic Understanding of Truth………………………127 4. Combining Bühler’s Linguistic Schema and Tarski’s Truth Theory..143 5. Broader Philosophical Implications…………………………………149 6. Conclusion…………………………………………………………...154 7 Chapter 5: Definitions and Essences………………………………157 1. Introduction ………………………………………………………….157 2. Essentialism in Popper’s Thought…………………………………...158 3. Diarrhesis and Definition……………………………………………167 4. Negativism…………………………………………………………...177 5. The Problem of Meaning…………………………………………….181 6. Ethical Principles and the Theory of Human Knowledge…………...186 7. Conclusion…………………………………………………………...190 Chapter 6: Realism and Objectivism……………………………..191 1. Introduction…………………………………………………………..191 2. Popper’s Metaphysical Turn…………………………………………193 3. Popper’s Cosmology…………………………………………………198 4. The World 3 Ontology……………………………………………….202 5. Popper and the Reality of Objects…………………………………...212 6. Objects, Individual Kinds and Causal Powers……………………….216 7. A Hidden Essentialism……………………………………………….222 8. Conclusion…………………………………………………………...227 Chapter 7: Popper, Berlin and Political Philosophy………….229 1. Introduction…………………………………………………………..229 2. Intellectual interaction between Popper and Berlin….........................231 3. Epistemological Differences………………………………………....235 4. The Challenge of the “Third Discipline”…………………………….238 5. The Problem of Liberty………………………………………………244 6. Conclusion…………………………………………………………...253 Chapter 8: The Late Lectures………………………………………….255 1. Introduction………………………………………………………….255 2. The Origin of the European Book…………………………………...260 3. Ethical and Methodological Individualism………………………….267 4. Public and Private Values…………………………………………...287 5. Conclusion…………………………………………………………...299 Chapter 9: Conclusion………………………………………………….301 Bibliography.................................................................................................314 Tables Table 1: Popper-Bühler Linguistic Schema……………………………………..81 Table 2: Popper’s Worlds and Corresponding Language Functions……….......206 8 Abstract This thesis takes a twofold approach to Popper’s work. First, it observes the thematic changes in his work over the course of his life. Second, it analyses the methods used by Popper in articulating his arguments and observes how those arguments relate to his methodological prohibitions. It will be argued in the thesis that Popper’s methodological thought was shaped by his ambition to deal with theories that did not fit into his previously prescribed limits for science. The practical need to create reasonable arguments that were both critical and rational in The Poverty of Historicism (1957) and The Open Society (1945) would force a change of stance in his attitude towards “transcendental criticism” and its procedural role in the process of expanding the horizon of what a critical rationalist can argue. Popper expanded the scope of what can be rationally argued by experimenting with different ways of rationally treating hypotheses that were clearly irrefutable. At the same time he was adamant that his theory of falsification should never be abandoned. This theory was used throughout his career to navigate his many theories through his use of non-falsifiable concepts, exemplified by his late ontological writings. It is this tension in the relationship between his theorisation of the method of falsification and his non-falsifiable arguments in ontology and political philosophy that gave Popper’s thought such a distinctive quality. In tracing that relationship, this thesis will contribute to the ongoing task of interpreting Popper’s philosophical, political and moral thought. It will do so by drawing on his published texts and unpublished letters and writings to emphasise the continuity of his thought. 9 Author’s Note The central contribution that this thesis makes to scholarship on Popper’s philosophy, results from the use of Popper’s personal letters of correspondence as well as other lesser known lectures, drafts and interviews. All the unpublished material in this thesis was accessed over