The political thought of Karl Poppe

THE POLITICAL THOUGHT

OF KARL POPPER

THE POLITICAL

THOUGHT

OF KARL POPPER

Jeremy Shearmur

London and New York

First published 1996

by Routledge

11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

© 1996 Jeremy Shearmur

Jeremy Shearmur has asserted his moral right to be identified as the

author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or

reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,

mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter

invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any

information storage or retrieval system, without permission

in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

Shearmur, Jeremy, 1948–

The political thought of Karl Popper/Jeremy Shearmur.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-415-09726-6 (alk. paper)

1. Popper, Karl Raimund, Sir, 1902—Contributions in political science.

I. Title.

JC257.P662S47 1996

320’.092—dc20 96–7016 CIP

ISBN 0-203-21282-7 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-21294-0 (Adobe eReader Format)

ISBN 0-415-09726-6 (Print Edition)

To Colin, Mary and Pam

vii

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ix

Bibliographical information xi

INTRODUCTION 1

1 THE DEVELOPMENT OF POPPER’S POLITICAL

PHILOSOPHY 18

Introduction 18

New Zealand 22

The placing of The Open Society 26

After The Open Society 30

2 THE OPEN SOCIETY AND THE POVERTY OF

HISTORICISM 37

Popper contextualized 37

Between Scylla and Charybdis 40

The political philosophy of The Open Society 47

3 AFTER THE OPEN SOCIETY 65

Introduction 65

Epistemological optimism 66

‘Towards a Rational Theory of Tradition’ 70

Politics and ‘world 3’ 78

4 VALUES AND REASON 89

Moral theory 89

Moral universalism and negative utilitarianism 99

The limits of rationalism? 106

CONTENTS

viii

5 POPPER, LIBERALISM AND MODIFIED

ESSENTIALISM 109

Introduction: liberalism and democratic socialism in

The Open Society 109

Some remarks about monitoring 116

Popper’s anti-essentialism 124

Structure and depth in the social world 125

Political philosophy revisited 131

Abstract institutions and social engineering in an

open society 133

6 THE CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE OF

POPPER’S WORK 159

Introduction 159

Between dogmatism and relativism 160

Critical theory 164

Towards a normative sociology of knowledge 168

Popper’s critique of romanticism 172

Conclusion 175

Notes 179

Name index 209

Subject index 213

ix

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The contents of this volume draw upon reading and discussion

with those interested in Popper’s work, over many years—in which

connection I would particularly like to thank my teachers at the

LSE Philosophy Department, and Karl Popper himself. It would

be futile to try to refer to all those from whom I have gained,

through discussion on these issues, but I would particularly like

to thank the following: Bill Bartley, Larry Briskman and lan Jarvie

(especially for his comments on a late version of the manuscript);

Malachi Hacohen and Geoff Stokes for recent work on Popper’s

political thought which I have found particularly stimulating; the

Austrian Wittgenstein Society, the Departments of Philosophy at

the University of Montreal and York University, Toronto, and the

Department of Economics, University of Vienna, for the

opportunity to present some of this material; and Liberty Fund

for invitations to conferences which, in retrospect, have been

important in shaping my ideas on issues discussed in this volume.

I would also like to thank the Earhart Foundation for financial

support which allowed me to undertake research in the Popper

Archives at the Hoover Institution, upon which I have drawn in

writing this volume, and I am grateful to the staff at the Hoover

Institution Archives for their unfailing help, assistance and

consideration.

In addition, I would like to thank Mr and Mrs Mew for their

permission to quote some unpublished material from the Popper

Archives at the Hoover Institution, and to mention that portions

of the material in the present volume were first published as:

‘Philosophical Method, Modified Essentialism and The Open

Society’, in I.C. Jarvie and N. Laor (eds) Critical Rationalism, the

Social Sciences and the Humanities, Essays for Joseph Agassi, volume

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

x

II, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Dordrecht: Kluwer,

1995; ‘Epistemological Limits of the State’, Political Studies, 1990;

‘II liberalismo a la societa aperta’, in Popper: il metodo e la polit-ica,

Biblioteca delta Liberta 84–5, 1982; ‘Abstract Institutions in an Open

Society’, in Wittgenstein, The Vienna Circle and Critical Rationalism,

HPT, Vienna, 1979.

Finally, some of the ideas which have influenced my approach

to Popper are explored further in my Hayek and After, London and

New York: Routledge, 1996.

Jeremy Shearmur,

Bungendore, NSW

March 1995

xi

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL

INFORMATION

The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934), London: Hutchinson, 1959.

The Poverty of Historicism (1944–5), London: Routledge & Kegan

Paul, 1957.

The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), London: Routledge &

Kegan Paul, fifth edition, 1966.

Conjectures and Refutations, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,

1963.

Objective Knowledge, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972.

Unended Quest, London: Fontana, 1976.

The Self and Its Brain (with Sir John Eccles), Berlin, etc.: Springer

International, 1977.

Postscript to The Logic of Scientific Discovery: Realism and the Aim of

Science, London: Hutchinson, 1983; The Open Universe, London:

Hutchinson, 1982; Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics,

London: Hutchinson, 1982.

In Search of a Better World, London: Routledge, 1992.

The Myth of the Framework, London: Routledge, 1994.

Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie (1930–3), Tuebingen:

J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1979.

P.A. Schilpp (ed.) The Philosophy of Karl Popper, La Salle, IL: Open

Court, 1974.

David Miller (ed.) A Pocket Popper, London: Fontana, 1983,

contains useful selections from Popper’s work.

1

INTRODUCTION

I was lucky enough to be taught by Karl Popper, and also to work

with him as his assistant for some eight years, between 1971 and

1979. While I gained immensely from this experience, I do not

claim, by virtue of this, a privileged position for my interpretation

of his views. In addition, any reader of Popper will be familiar

with his argument that philosophers have sometimes been betrayed

by those who were close to them. This was his view of the

relationship between Socrates and Plato, and also between Kant

and Fichte.1

I am, accordingly, acutely aware of the fact that were

Popper still with us, he might well see my work in the same light;

not least because, as the reader will discover, I wish to argue that

Popper’s work has consequences in the political realm which are

suggestive of views which are different from those which Popper

himself espoused, especially as a young man.

My approach to Popper’s early work—notably The Open Society

and Its Enemies and The Poverty of Historicism—has been influenced

by the older Popper, who in some important respects held views

which were different from those of his younger self. I do not

mean just his explicitly political views, although there are some

differences here. More significant are differences in his views within

philosophy. Popper was never a positivist. But the older Popper’s

approach was less positivistic than that of the author of The Open

Society. The older Popper was more overtly a scientific realist

(although realism in some form was clearly one of Popper’s long￾standing concerns2

); he also took the view that metaphysical

theories could be made the objects of rational appraisal.3

In

addition, there is a sense in which the author of The Open Society

exhibits some affinities with post-modernism; something with which

I have no sympathy whatever.

INTRODUCTION

2

The younger Popper and post-modernism share a rejection of

historical teleology. With this I am in full agreement. What seems

to me less acceptable is the younger Popper’s coming close to the

rejection—in some of his criticisms of ‘essentialism’, and in his

pursuit of a resolutely pragmatic orientation towards the social—

of a realist approach to social science. I will also take issue with

his emphasis on individual moral decisions, some of his views

concerning which, despite his frequent disclaimers of relativism,

come unacceptably close to a form of ethical subjectivism. I will

argue in some detail that there is a—to me more acceptable—

fallibilist moral realism to be discerned in his work. I also criticize

his account of the value of (subjective) historical interpretation.

By way of contrast, I make use of aspects of Popper’s work which

are in tension with these ideas. I have in mind here not only his

realism, which I will suggest can be extended to the social sciences,

and which seems to me to constitute a significant improvement

upon the ideas on the status of social science which inform The

Open Society. Perhaps even more important are his Kantian-derived

ideas about interpreting objectivity in terms of inter-subjective

acceptability. These play an important role in Popper’s work. But

their application there is unsystematic, and is intermingled with

themes which seem to me more subjectivist in their character. I

argue that this Kantian theme should be adopted more

systematically. Doing this would allow one to interpret Popper’s

work in a way which avoids those elements that are subjectivist

and, to the contemporary palate, post-modernist in their flavour.

It would also bring out the respects in which his ideas are close

to some themes in the later work of Juergen Habermas.

This volume is preliminary in its character—and not only in the

sense in which this would be said by any fallibilist. I am acutely

aware that my own views on the issues which I am here discussing

are themselves in flux, not only as I discover more about Popper’s

work, but also as I consider it in relation to other material. But

as the search for an interpretation of Popper’s work in which I

can have any real confidence seems to me not only an unended

quest, but also possibly an unending one, I feel that I should

write now, rather than wait for a conclusion to my research, at

which I may never arrive. At the very least, this will mean that

others can join in the criticism of the views to which I have at

present been led.