Critical Rationalism (After Popper)

Abstract

In geography, Karl Popper is known almost exclusively as a philosopher of science. His creation – critical rationalism – is considered by most geographers to be a mere footnote to logical positivism, a technical modification whereby a criterion of falsification replaces a criterion of verification within an otherwise unchanged rubric for establishing propositional knowledge. This is a considerable misapprehension of the implications of critical rationalism for the philosophy of science, and is an equally egregious underappreciation of Popper's contribution to late twentieth-century social and political philosophy. Critical rationalism is but a part – albeit a fundamental part – of Popper's total philosophical construction, in which continuous criticism propels an endless cycle of formulation, falsification, and reformulation, to produce temporary and contingent knowledge in science, and to challenge statism and authoritarianism in social and political realms. For Popper, the goal is improvement, what might be called ‘progress’, but improvement tempered by an unshakable belief in the impossibility of ultimate certainty or perfection – so, no truth. This article examines critical rationalism as an epistemology and traces its evolution into Popper's social and political philosophy, and finally into his theory of knowledge as an independently existing product. Popper's thinking was often triggered and transformed by events and their contexts as seen within his life, as he moved from central-European philosophical radical, through survival-driven displaced scholar, to publicly lauded champion of tolerance and openness in his final home, post-World War II England. Throughout, criticism was the central engine of his philosophies, but only as long as it did not apply to himself! A more thorough reading of Popper shows how critical rationalism effectively demolishes logical positivism as a theory of knowledge, and similarly destroys the classical Baconian–Newtonian conception of science to which many geographers outmodedly cling. Geographers' appropriations of Popper are, for the most part, misinformed, selective, and taken out of context, although there are some notable exceptions, reviewed here. Despite his mixed legacy in science and philosophy, Popper is worth (re)visiting.