Does Popper’s Conventionalism Contradict His Critical Rationalism? Objections Against Popper in German Philosophy and Some Metacritical Remarks

Abstract

Popper’s philosophy has evoked much criticism in contemporary German philosophy that is directed in particular against the conventionalist features of his methodology of science. The critics mean that Popper, in these features, breaks his own principles of critical rationality. They accuse him of an ‘uncritical dogmatism’ and a ‘blind decisionism’, which is held to be all the more dangerous as it remains hidden under the mask of the claim that philosophical theories — just as scientific theories — are always exposed to the risk of failure. In reality, however, Popper’s so-called critical rationalism is supposed to be simply a pseudorationalism, at most a ‘halved rationalism’ with a ‘prematurely finished reflection’ on its own presuppositions, which could justify only its own errors and mistakes.