Rethinking Popper and His Legacy

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements I wish to thank Dr Paolo Baracchi for his philosophically insightful linguistic revision of the text. Notes [1] Some authors who stressed Popper’s antifoundationalism are cited both in Gattei’s book and in the other works with which we are concerned here; to the list one should add at least Radnitzky (1982a Radnitzky, G. 1982a. “Popper as a turning point in the philosophy of science: Beyond foundationalism and relativism”. In In pursuit of truth: Essays in honour of Karl Popper’s 80th birthday, Edited by: Levinson, A. 64–80. Brighton: Harvester Press. [Google Scholar] and 1982b Radnitzky, G. 1982b. Knowing and guessing: If knowledge is conjectural, can we speak of cognitive progress? On persistent misreadings of Popper’s work. Zeitschrift für allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie, 13: 110–121. [Google Scholar]), because, to my knowledge, he was the first to develop this interpretation systematically. [2] Skolimowski (1974 Skolimowski, H. 1974. “Karl Popper and the objectivity of scientific knowledge”. In The philosophy of Karl Popper, Edited by: Schilpp, P. A. 483–508. LaSalle, IL: Open Court. [Google Scholar]), 495. I myself have argued at length for a distinction in three phases similar to Jarvie’s, not only regarding the development of Popper’s theory of knowledge (Buzzoni 1982 Buzzoni, M. 1982. Conoscenza e realtà in K. R. Popper, Milan: Franco Angeli. [Google Scholar] and 1987 Buzzoni, M. 1987. “Gewißheit und Wahrheit bei Popper”. In Gewissen und Gewißheit, Edited by: Baumgartner, W. 141–163. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. [Google Scholar]), but also regarding the development of his thought on the social sciences (Buzzoni 1980 Buzzoni, M. 1980. Umanesimo e scienze sociali in Popper. Sociologia, 14(3): 49–92. [Google Scholar]) and history (Buzzoni 1981 Buzzoni, M. 1981. Popper e l’oggettività delle scienze storiche. Il Contributo, 5(1): 3–20. [Google Scholar]). Today, after the publication of very important works on the early Popper (such as Berkson and Wettersten 1984 Berkson, W. and Wettersten, J. R. 1984. Learning from error: Karl Popper’s psychology of learning, LaSalle, IL: Open Court. [Google Scholar]; Wettersten 1985 Wettersten, J. R. 1985. The road through Würzburg, Vienna and Göttingen. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 15: 487–506. [Google Scholar] and 1992 Wettersten, J. R. 1992. The roots of critical rationalism, Amsterdam: Rodopi. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Hacohen 2000 Hacohen, M. H. 2000. Karl Popper—The formative years, 1902–1945: Politics and philosophy in interwar Vienna, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]), I would of course add a precritical period.