Post by Tamrin on Sept 17, 2011 16:33:54 GMT 10
Karl Popper, the pragmatic philosopher
(Died this day 1994)
[Excerpt - Yaron is Writing blog - Linked Above]
(Died this day 1994)
[Excerpt - Yaron is Writing blog - Linked Above]
Anyway, Popper was a mid-20th-century philosopher, one of the many notable figures who escaped from Austria and Germany to the west during the 30’s and 40’s. His basic idea was the concept of “falsifiability”. He started with the premise that theories about the world are at a natural disadvantage: it’s extremely easy to disprove a theory, since all you have to do is find one counterexample. On the other hand, it’s impossible to prove a theory. From this, Popper surmised that there are only two kinds of theories: those that have been proven to be false, and those that have not yet been proven to be false. In other words, any attempt to describe the world is bound to be false to same extent. Whatever set of theories hold sway at any given time are those that are the most useful, and those that best fit the set of facts known at the time. Theories are useful, Popper said, both in describing the world and in decision-making, but they should never be mistaken for absolute “truth”. It’s a familiar concept for those of use who are involved in the world of wikis, where the current version of the truth tends to change in an orderly fashion from day to day.
This view of the progress of ideas as just moving from one fallacy to the next might come off as bleak, but there are certain advantages Popper saw from it. For one thing, he felt that it makes it easy to distinguish science from pseudo-science: true science sets itself up to be disproven, by making specific statements and predictions. Pseudo-science and dogmatic religious beliefs (Popper was especially preoccupied with Marxism) are careful to make no claim that can be disproven. (That’s not to say that Popper was anti-religious, just that he felt that science and belief should always be kept distinct.) And as with science, so with politics: Popper defined a good government as simply one that allows for its own removal without violence. In both cases, there’s an emphasis on pragmatism above all.
This view of the progress of ideas as just moving from one fallacy to the next might come off as bleak, but there are certain advantages Popper saw from it. For one thing, he felt that it makes it easy to distinguish science from pseudo-science: true science sets itself up to be disproven, by making specific statements and predictions. Pseudo-science and dogmatic religious beliefs (Popper was especially preoccupied with Marxism) are careful to make no claim that can be disproven. (That’s not to say that Popper was anti-religious, just that he felt that science and belief should always be kept distinct.) And as with science, so with politics: Popper defined a good government as simply one that allows for its own removal without violence. In both cases, there’s an emphasis on pragmatism above all.