Chapter Six Popper’s metaphysics 6.1 Introduction This chapter suggests ways of viewing Popper in relation to the traditions of Brentano, Frege and Lotze. It is this context that provides the conceptual apparatus enabling Popper to develop a “non-ontology” out of his earlier Bühlerian understanding of linguistic communication. It is possible that Popper received his Platonic interest in ideas as objectively real and having an independent existence from the subjective thinker from Bühler’s “Gebilde des objektiven Geistes”. Popper followed Bühler’s naturalistic approach to cognition by developing it into a kind of philosophical anthropology capable of relating the evolutionary nature of humans to the cosmological reality of emergence. This was formulated by Popper in the post-war period, demonstrating a later return to his formative influences. However, Hacohen identified Popper’s university teacher Heinrich Gomperz (1873-1942) as crucial in this respect. Hacohen also states that Gomperz’s naturalisation of knowledge problematized the autonomy of science, epistemology and logic. According to Hacohen: Gomperz separated radically between thought (Gedachte), and thinking (Denken), objective and subjective ideas (Gedanken), logical relationships among statements and cognitive psychological processes (experiences of consciousness).1 This procedure reflective of a broader tradition in Central European philosophy associated with Franz Brentano and his school as well as the Austro-Polish philosophers, particularly Kazimierz 1 M. Hacohen, Karl Popper, op. cit., p. 152. 122 Returning to Karl Popper Twardowski who is known for his work on the reality of non-physical, non-existent objects. Thus, Popper’s “non-ontology” can be seen to accord with Twardowski’s notion of reality as treatable independent of existence. This ontology needs to be viewed in association with Popper’s understanding of metaphysics and the particular role that it plays within human language. Ontology is used by Popper as a heuristic for guiding the reasonableness or otherwise of irrefutable philosophical assertions. 2 Thus, Stokes’ argument that Popper’s thought constitutes a kind of system, or more specifically an “evolving ‘system of ideas’” is further substantiated by this chapter.3 6.2 Propensities and the metaphysical ‘turn’ The various schools and influences that Popper drew upon were interconnected and part of a broader Central European republic of letters. All roads in this republic led back to Franz Brentano, and from there further back into antiquity. Although Brentano’s appointment to the University of Vienna was vetoed by the Emperor it did not stop him from leaving a lasting intellectual legacy in Central Europe. Of Brentano’s heirs two, Christian von Ehrenfels (1859-1932) and Kazimierz Twardowski (1866-1938), would leave a legacy that played an important role in the Viennese academic world that directly informed Popper’s thought. Christian von Ehrenfels was professor in Prague for more than 30 years and responsible for the Gestalt revolution in psychology. Karl Bühler played a role in bringing Gestalt philosophy to Vienna and formed a group which promulgated a naturalistic philosophy of Gestalten to which the young Popper belonged. It was this developmental psychology informed by comparative evolutionary biology which included a linguistics that would shape Popper’s thought. Modern Gestalt theory was a reformation of Aristotle’s theory of Form. According to Hacohen, “Bühler criticized Gestalt 2 However, Feyerabend argued that “an ontological description frequently just adds verbiage to the formal analysis; it is nothing but an exercise in ‘sensitivity’ and ‘cuteness’”. See: P. Feyerabend, Against Method, op. cit., p. 236. 3 G. Stokes, Popper: Philosophy, Politics and Scientific Method (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), pp. xii, 2. .