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Popper, Social Epistemology and Dialogue, Jeremy Shearmur

SERRC — August 4, 2017 — Leave a comment

Author Information: Jeremy Shearmur, Australian National University, Jeremy.Shearmur@anu.edu.au

Shearmur, Jeremy. “Popper, Social Epistemology and Dialogue.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 6, no. 9 (2017): 1-12.

The PDF of the article gives specific page numbers. Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-3If

Please refer to:

Cruickshank, Justin and Raphael Sassower. Democratic Problem Solving: Dialogues in Social Epistemology. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.
Bacevic, Jana. “Solving the Democratic Problem.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 6, no. 5 (2017): 50-52.
Kemp, Stephen. “On Popper, Problems and Problem-Solving: A Review of Cruickshank and Sassower’s Democratic Problem-Solving.“ Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 6, no. 7 (2017): 27-34.

Image credit: Rowman & Littlefield

I was motivated to produce this contribution because the contributors to Cruickshank and Sassower’s Democratic Problem-Solving (2017) on which I was invited to comment were concerned with Popper and social epistemology but, in my view, did not really get to the heart of what he has to contribute to this field. It also seemed to me that an important qualification needed to be made to his approach, which they also seemed to me not to appreciate. The first point I found strange, because in my view social epistemology is at the heart of a Popperian approach, and Ian Jarvie, in his The Republic of Science,[1] has offered a most important interpretation of his views from this point of view.[2]

Rather than simply re-presenting Jarvie’s ideas, I will here offer a briefer account of my own. I have treated some of these issues at greater length elsewhere, and I apologise for the fact that, for this reason, I have referred quite extensively in what follows to my own writings.

Methodological Rules

The first and key point that in my view should be appreciated, is what Popper says in his Logic of Scientific Discovery about the aim of science and methodological rules. Popper, as is well-known, favoured boldness in science, and was inspired in his approach by his understanding of Einstein’s work and its significance. He offered, as is also well-known, an account of the development of scientific knowledge by way of conjectures and refutations. However, when he wrote he was well-aware that an approach very different from his own was possible: that of the conventionalists. What is striking is that, in The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Popper readily admitted that such an approach could be taken, and that it was completely coherent. But while Popper favoured boldness, and the growth of knowledge by way of conjectures and refutations, the conventionalists favoured making the smallest changes that were necessary to render our ideas consistent.

One can see Popper’s distinctive approach to the theory of knowledge as a product of his choice of a particular view of the aims of science. Given the aim that Popper was commending, then boldness, and the adoption of a distinctive set of methodological rules to guide the development of our knowledge, made sense. If, by contrast, one favoured the aim of science chosen by the conventionalists, then the methodological rules that it would make sense to follow would be very different.

In The Logic of Scientific Discovery Popper, while making clear where his own preferences lay, left the view that one took of the proper aims of science as a matter of decision. One reason for this was that, while Popper was conscious of holding metaphysical ideas, and stressed that they were typically meaningful, and the role that some metaphysical ideas had had in the development of science, he did not have to hand a theory of the rationality of holding one rather than another such view. Indeed, as I have argued elsewhere, one might see Popper’s ideas about the scope of reason (in the sense of what was open to rational resolution) as being limited, at the time, to empirical claims, formal and mathematical claims, and to methodological claims given some view about the aims of science (and, implicitly, of whatever other activity one was engaged in). He was gradually to generalize his approach. In his Open Society, he discussed ‘the rational attitude’ as an approach which exposed our ideas to criticism. His ideas here were clearly a generalization of his views about science. At the same time, he seemed at the same time to make a number of issues—e.g. moral matters—matters of decision. And when criticizing some claims made by Whitehead about progress in metaphysics, he wrote in such a way that it seemed clear that he thought that there was no way in which such a thing could be assessed.[3]

Popper had hoped that a translation of his Logik der Forschung would be published in English in 1954, and he planned to publish a postscript—which in the end became an additional, lengthy, book—in which he would report on developments in his ideas. It would take a great deal of work in Popper’s and other archive material to date exactly when these ideas developed. But among them was the view that metaphysics (of certain kinds) could be rationally assessed, and also his ideas about the role of ‘metaphysical research programmes’ in science. Through this work, one had a generalization of his falsificationism into his later and wider view of ‘critical rationalism’.

I have reported on all this for several reasons. First, it is, in my view, important to bear in mind when, in Popper’s work, various ideas are presented—just because the earlier ideas sometimes have what, from the perspective of his later work, a ‘decisionistic’ character. Second, the significance of methodological rules—which seem to me at the heart of his theory of knowledge—are often overlooked. In particular, it is often argued that Popper has no response to the ‘Duhem-Quine’ problem. But his view, already in The Logic of Scientific Discovery, was that while it was clearly open to us to make modifications to our ideas in the face of their encountering prima facie refutations, what was crucial was how we did this: by what methodological rules we were guided. Popper’s epistemology involved the elaboration of those methodological rules which were appropriate if the aim of scientific knowledge was as he indicated. And this meant that social procedures—about how ideas were handled—lay at the centre of his epistemology.

This, as I suggested in a couple of papers published a few years ago,[4] opened the way to seeing traditions and social institutions as something that also functioned as epistemological rules in Popper’s sense. This opens up the possibility of the scrutiny of our various institutions, traditions and procedures from the perspective of their epistemological consequences. I subsequently suggested that from the perspective of Popper’s emphasis on the importance of others as sources of criticism, then given an interest in truth (or in the correctness of our moral views), there was an epistemologically-based argument for the according of rights of a certain kind to others.[5]

While there is not the space to explore it here, one can obviously take an approach of this kind also to the organization of academic work itself. That is to say, scholars are subject to all kinds of incentives, from requirements to raise funding, to the procedures for tenure, promotion, the acceptance of papers by journals (and the pressure to publish in journals which are highly-ranked within their discipline). All this can be seen—and evaluated—as a system of methodological rules, in terms of its epistemological consequences. It is striking that many of those involved in academic life are contemptuous of the idea that, in economics, ‘the world runs [OK] by itself’.[6] But there, after all, there is the price mechanism and a system of incentives which have been argued, in the presence of a legal system of a certain kind, to have a broadly equilibriating effect. With regard to the academic world, it seems a massive (and blind) act of faith to imagine that our current arrangements produce the macro-level effects at the level of knowledge that we would actually wish for.

I need also to mention one other important but complex problem. It relates to pluralism. Popper (and still more strongly Feyerabend at that time in his career when he could be described as more or less a Popperian) stressed the significance of the contention of a pluralism of different perspectives. In the light of Popper’s later work, one might conceptualize these as people who are pursuing different research programmes. If we are to learn from one another, it is, however, important that people are fallibilistic about their approaches, and also distinguish between programmatic ideas, and having actually delivered on what they had hoped for.[7] For this to work, it seems to me, it requires that people respect that there should be shared (albeit revisable) standards as to what they need to do in order to be successful.

Discussion about these can, clearly, involve argument that aspects of existing standards are problematic, or that aspects of what had taken to be the problems that needed to be resolved themselves stand in need of revision. It would seem, here, attractive if there could be physical clusters which exemplify different approaches.[8] (In my own education, I benefited from this at the L.S.E., where there was a cluster of Oakeshottian political theorists in the Department of Government, while the Department of Philosophy was Popperian.) This seems much more effective than having a ‘token’ follower of different particular approaches in each department. At the same time, however, it would seem important that an understanding of the wider state of the discipline be cultivated, and that there exist professional institutions within which there are exchanges between different such perspectives, rather than people just working, like Kuhnian ‘normal scientists’ at technical puzzle-solving within their respective sub-disciplines.

Criticism, Dialogue and its Limits

One important theme in Popper’s work was his emphasis on the role played by theories and ideas—from biologically-based preconceptions upwards—in experience. He stressed, strongly, the idea that all experience is interpreted, and that one could not escape this by trying to limit ourselves to what seemed self-evident. For Popper, the way to respond to this problem was to expose our ideas to inter-subjective criticism. One might put this point by saying that, faced with Descartes’ discovery that all kinds of opinions that he had held from his earliest days might be incorrect, Popper recommended a path which was roughly the opposite of Descartes’. Rather than cutting himself off from others, and re-creating knowledge from what seemed to be undeniable, Popper’s view was that we should, as it were, go out into the street, and try to learn from dialogue with others. In this context, Popper’s discussion of objectivity in his Open Society is striking:[9] on his account, objectivity is a social product. While we aim for truth and objectivity, we can’t tell if we have reached it and other people pay a key role in informing us that things which we think are OK, aren’t.

It is, however, worth drawing attention to some distinctive features of Popper’s account. There are, it seems, two different approaches to be found in his work, although they share some things in common. What is shared in common is the idea that we are all fallible, and that we should approach others with the idea that we might have something to learn from them. (This re-enforces the idea, to which I referred above, of an inter-relation between epistemology and certain ethical ideas: here, that we should be according a particular kind of respect to everyone. At the same time—and this is at odds with many contemporary ideas—it is a respect for what we may each have to contribute towards the discovery of truth, rather than that kind of respect which treats people’s ideas as if they were true, whatever their merits might or might not be. This does not mean that we should force our criticisms onto others if they don’t want them. But it is at odds with the idea that we should take all ideas as ‘true for the people who hold them’.[10])

The key thing, then, is that we are enjoined, by Popper, to hold our ideas open to criticism, and to look not for cheap confirmations, but for cases in which we might well expect our ideas to be wrong. (It is, here, worth bearing in mind that even if all of our observations are interpreted in the light of a particular theory, this does not mean that our observations have to confirm the theory. We can ask: what kinds of behaviour of things—couched in terms of the theory—would call what the theory claims into question?) In all of this, we may be assisted by others. The task of appraising, critically, our favoured theories may be no easier than appraising objectively family members or much-loved pets. But luckily, other people—especially those who favour different views—can assist us here.

This brings me to the first the approaches in his work which seems distinctive. It is his theory of the empirical basis (his approach towards which is also, as I will explain, in some ways paralleled by what he had to say about approaches to social policy in his ‘Public and Private Values’). Popper argued that we should appraise our conjectures against ‘basic statements’, where these were not the undeniable truths held with subjective certainty of the Cartesian or empiricist traditions, but, rather, claims about the world and its behaviour about which there was inter-subjective agreement.[11] That is to say, for Popper, we should set out to put our ideas to the test, against an inter-subjectively agreed consensus as to what is the case; something which is itself fallible, and can be contested—but where such contestation needs itself to be conducted within the realm of what can be inter-subjectively agreed. What can be agreed about, is something at which we are likely to have to work, in discussion with others. In the course of this, we may have to strip off some theoretical content from our claims (where we find that this is contested by others), and work towards what we can agree upon. In this process, claims that we, as individuals, are certain about something clearly carry no weight.

As I indicated in the previous paragraph, there is a certain parallel between this, and Popper’s ideas about the formation of an agenda for public policy in a situation in which people may favour radically different ideals, in his ‘Public and Private Values’. This account, which Popper himself did not publish, seems important because it explains better what is often referred to as, and in my view mis-described as, his ‘negative utilitarianism’.[12] The idea, here, is that in the area of politics, people may be inspired by a range of different ideals—Popper refers to socialism and (classical) liberalism, but also mentions Christianity and utilitarianism. His discussion brings out two features: on the one side, that it will seldom be the case that if people discuss these ideals, they will be able to convince one another that they are correct; on the other, that the ideals, as such, may be found problematic by people who don’t share them. (That is to say, it is not just that the liberal might think that socialism would not work; he might well think that, if it did, a socialist society was not the kind of society in which he would like to live—and visa versa.)

Popper here argued that in the face of this, we should explore the extent to which we might be able to form a shared agenda, directed towards things which we can agree are unacceptable, and in need of remedy through collective action. This could be called a ‘negative’ approach; but its content will be set by our consensual procedures rather than being dictated by ‘negative utilitarianism’. It is also worth noting that Popper, when he refers to what must be read as possible candidates for such things, includes points about injustice rather than just suffering. Popper had a life-long concern about suffering, but his own suggested agenda for public policy was not restricted to this.[13]

The results of such a process, Popper suggested, should form the agenda for public policy. Just because of our fallibility, and because actions taken to address it, can be expected to have unintended and perhaps problematic consequences, Popper argued for the importance of critical feedback from all citizens. He took up, in this context, the Kantian theme of the ‘rational unity of mankind’. From Popper’s perspective, it was important that we can get rid of governments democratically, without bloodshed. While it is also vital that there should be effective critical feedback as to whether policy is ineffective or is leading to problematic consequences. What might best exemplify this, however, is a matter of controversy.[14] Such ‘piecemeal social engineering’ was envisaged by Popper as operating within a framework within which people’s liberty was protected, where this would include their protection from economic exploitation.

Popper’s views in this whole area are modest, and on the face of it they would work to produce substantive agreement on an agenda for public policy only when social divisions were not too deep. In addition, if people have commitments to some background religious or social view which would prevent them agreeing to things which, otherwise, they would be expected to endorse, this may also pose problems.[15] The result may be frustrating, but it seems that our more typical inclinations here—to force onto others things that we think are important, over the objections of those who disagree, when there is no procedure on the basis of which it can be shown that our views are better—are highly problematic.[16]

The second approach to be found in Popper’s work is, I think, an important one. His writings about it typically date from the period after he extended the scope of critical rationalism much more widely. They are, for example, to be found in his ‘The Myth of the Framework’, and also in his paper ‘On Toleration’.[17] They can be seen as extending what Popper says about ‘the rational approach’ in his Open Society. Popper on the one side argues that rational interchange and learning is not limited to those with whom we are in fundamental agreement, and that we can hope to learn from anyone who is willing to adopt the view that we may each have something to learn from one another. At the same time, and this seems particularly important, Popper stressed that while we might learn from such discussions, there is no reason to suppose that they will lead to a consensus. Indeed, he illustrated this point from science, where he discussed the exchanges between Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein. They were, Popper argues, in fundamental disagreement—they were clearly following very different research programmes—yet they learned a lot from their exchanges, and the exchanges were very productive, scientifically.

One might sum all this up in three points.

First, in the background there is a need to accept that one is fallible, that one is aiming at truth, and that one aims to learn from interacting with the other person or persons. In addition, it is worth bearing in mind that the methodological rules which are appropriate can depend crucially on what one is aiming at, so that there may, for example, be difficulties in conversations between what one could call a Popperian aspirational realist (i.e. someone aiming at true, realistic knowledge about the world), and someone who is a conventionalist, at least until they both realize what is going on.

Second, we are, on Popper’s account, influenced by our theories and by preconceptions of a kind from which we can’t release ourselves simply by trying to be objective. Rather, we need to be open to learning from others where our ideas—and our assumptions and procedures—may be problematic. But this requires that we seek ways in which our ideas etc can be scrutinized, criticized and tested, on the basis of things which might seriously cause problems for them, and on a basis which it is inter-subjectively agreed is pertinent to their evaluation.[18] What can be evaluated in this manner, however, may be limited in its scope, and all kinds of things which may be both influential upon us personally, and important for our lives and work, may not be things which we can appraise in such terms.

Third, these latter things, however, may be opened up to critical appraisal—but in a weaker sense, as the discussion may have to be much more personal, and cannot be expected to lead to consensus. However, we may be able to learn a great deal from it.

The Problem of the Public Sphere[19]

Appraisal in a public sphere was favoured in the liberal tradition. But, typically, liberals did not reflect much on where—and by whom—such reflection could take place (other than saying that people should not be excluded from it—compare Mill’s The Subjection of Women). Jürgen Habermas’s Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere was, in this context, path-breaking.[20] But he seemed to throw up problems—e.g. about the way in which democratization had a devastating effect on an older deliberative public sphere—which he never resolved. (The idea that new social movements could help resolve problems of inter-subjective deliberation, seems to me fatuous.)

Since he wrote, studies from different perspectives (from Nancy Fraser to the work of people influenced by Robert Young and by Darnton’s approach to the book[21]) have called into question the idea that there was a single public sphere of the kind which—from J. S. Mill to Popper—liberals tended simply to assume exited. Since then, the development of the internet, the effect that this has had on serious investigative journalism, and the fragmentation of the public sphere into groups on social media, which often just re-enforce one another’s prejudices, seems to pose some real difficulties for the critical rationalist who interprets Popper in terms of social epistemology. Indeed, the problems run deeper than this, and beyond just virtual reality. Bill Bishop’s The Big Sort documented the way in which, in the United States,[22] people have tended to cluster together, physically, in like-minded groups. The problems posed by this—notably as they have been magnified by certain recent developments within politics in the U.S.[23]—are considerable.

The current rise of populism in such a context, internationally; the shortening of the news cycle, and the role played by social media (and the circulation within it of ‘news’ without fact-checking or any kind of critical gate-keeping) suggests that we face a difficult problem of institutional design if we are to preserve an effective public sphere. It seems to me that the current British House of Lords offers an interesting model here. Its membership consists predominantly of life peers, who are appointed—after consultation—on the basis of their experience and ability to represent a particular kind of perspective in such a setting. They will customarily retain connections with the sphere from which they were drawn (which might, say, involve charities which work with people who can’t easily be given a voice themselves). But at the same time, they will not serve as political lobbyists for it. In addition, their taking up such a position is normally a mark of their not having further ambitions from the field from which they were drawn.

Appointment to the House of Lords is an honour; discourse within it is informed and reflective, and there is typically not a majority committed to support of any particular political party. Their role, it seems, could be enhanced if they were provided with effective support and staff, such that they could become a channel for reflective issues emanating from the citizenry as a whole. (More direct requests for assistance and lobbying would be channelled through the other, political body—in the British case the House of Commons—as at present.) An effective and improved House of Lords could serve as a focus for the work of public policy institutes and bloggers, so that they might hope to make a deliberative case of a sort which would command support if it were raised in the Lords. It would also have the virtue of being a single, central body which could speak with some authority. This is obviously just one, briefly developed, suggestion. My aim in making it has not been in the expectation that, on coming across it, any reader will be convinced. My hope, rather, is to stimulate them to do better.

Enter Friedrich, Stage Right, and the other Karl, Stage Left

In what I have written above, I have set out briefly some of the themes which seem particularly interesting when Karl Popper’s work is read as social epistemology. The story is complicated and nuanced, and one has, in particular, to consider how Popper’s views about what is open to rational evaluation change over time. In addition, it seems to me especially important to note the difference between those areas in which Popper thought that we might be able to aim at consensus (important both in terms of the evaluation of empirical claims, and as setting an agenda for public policy), and other areas in which, while we might hope to learn, consensus was not to be expected.

In this final section, I need to introduce an important qualification to all this. It is provided by Karl Popper’s friend, and arch ‘neoliberal’ (in the terminology being used in this particular context[24]), Friedrich Hayek. (As I will explain, there is a sense in which I could have developed the argument with reference to aspects of the work of Karl Marx, but because of the emphasis on ‘neoliberalism’ in the material to which I am responding, I will here concentrate on Hayek.) Popper’s links to Hayek were personal and intellectual rather than political. Popper felt deeply grateful to Hayek for helping place The Open Society with Routledge, and for enabling him to move from New Zealand to a Readership at the L.S.E. In addition, Popper in part drew on Hayek when developing his ideas about the philosophy of social science.[25] However, he was critical of Hayek’s ideas about ‘social justice’, and clearly felt that Hayek was too sanguine about the operation of markets. More generally, while Hayek was a market-oriented classical liberal, Popper was more of a social democrat. (Whether he should have been, is another issue; one which I have addressed elsewhere.[26])

The significance of Hayek for our story is twofold. First, spurred by what he thought, when he came to Britain, was a surprising lack of knowledge about discussions that had taken place on the Continent about the economic problems of socialism (understood as a system which replaced markets by administration), he published a collection, Collectivist Economic Planning.[27] To this, he himself contributed, and he subsequently published additional papers on the same topic. While in some ways at the heart of Hayek’s collection was Ludwig von Mises’ argument that rational economic (as opposed to purely technical) decision-taking could not take place in the absence of markets and market prices, for our purposes the key argument was one that Hayek himself developed. It was that one should see society as involving individuals (both acting as such, and also in organizations), as having all kinds of knowledge, including knowledge which could not be articulated, which could not be centralized.

It was possible, Hayek argued, to make use, socially, of this scattered knowledge (and also for us to learn that aspects of it were incorrect), by way of the operation of the price system. This—in a rough and ready way—gave us information about the preferences and plans of others, in an aggregated form, and also incentives to adjust our assumptions and expectations so that they became more coherent with those of other people. All this, he argued, played a key role in large, non-face-to-face societies,[28] and a central problem about socialism was that it ignored the existence of this, and the (key) role that it played. These ideas then also played an important role in the development of Hayek’s own more narrowly economic ideas, in which he started to take issue with assumptions about perfect knowledge on the part of actors, which were commonly made in microeconomics.

Hayek was not opposed to governmental action, and, indeed, he supported the idea of a welfare state.[29] But for him, a key problem became what government should do, and how it should do it without inadvertently destroying the operations of these mechanisms. Indeed, Hayek went on to spell out that there were, in his view, some real problems here, as markets rewarded people on the basis of something like the social utility of their actions (judged in terms of individuals’ preferences), rather than their merits. While, following David Hume, he argued that the legal system that was needed was likely to generate cases in which what took place would seem—if one did not bear in mind the wider social function which the legal rules in question played—to be unfair. All of this is relevant for our present concerns. For if Hayek has got this anything like right (and his account of these matters seems telling), then two things follow.

First, markets serve as a kind of system of communication. This is not to say that they are in any sense perfect. And, clearly, it may be important to reflect critically, together, on our preferences and on the macro effects which acting on them may generate. But that the functions with which Hayek was concerned are being discharged plays a key role in our society, and one which it is not clear that we can replace.

Second, the mechanisms which play such a role may, indeed, be open to modification and improvement. But, as Hayek identified, there may be features of them, or effects of them, which we don’t like, but which play a key role in their operation. That is to say, Hayek has argued that there exist important social structures, with sometimes unlovely features, by which we need to be constrained if we are to enjoy their benefits.

If he is right about this—and I think that he is—then Popper’s criticism of ‘essentialism’ was, in part, mistaken.[30] Indeed, one might add that while it seems that Marx’s optimistic teleology is mistaken in two ways (that there is a telos to history, and that there is the possibility of running a developed society which is socialist in his sense), some of his points about the ways in which we are constrained by products of human action but not of human design are also completely correct. We need, I think, to be realists in the philosophy of social science, in a way that parallels the realism of Popper’s philosophy of natural science. Insofar as Popper—and indeed Rorty (to say nothing of ‘postmodernists’)—disagree with this, they seem simply wrong.

This, however, also has important consequences for Popper’s ‘piecemeal social engineering’. For we may be able to agree that some things are problematic, and put them on our agenda for governmental action, not realizing that they are things to change which would do grave damage to social institutions which we value. Clearly, what we can and can’t do here is a matter for theoretical debate. But it is a matter, typically, for specialist debate. It would be good if we could render this discussion as open as we can; but there may be limits to this. I, say, am highly conscious that when discussion gets into certain kinds of technicalities, I don’t have the training or I suspect the capacity, to contribute to it. Further, while such knowledge is obviously fallible and tentative, in a good society it would seem to need to be given a certain authority, and rendered immune to merely populist criticism. One might, thus, say that if there is anything to this line of argument from Hayek, we need to modify the ideas about dialogue and ‘piecemeal social engineering’ which I earlier explored in connection with Popper’s work, and to accept that they are likely to need to operate within the constraints of a socially entrenched fallible framework of specialist knowledge. At this point, I am conscious that my thoughts are being interfered with what I think may be ironic laughter from the ghost of Plato; so I will stop.

[1] Ian Jarvie, The Republic of Science, Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 2001.

[2] Jarvie’s approach may usefully be contrasted with that of David Miller in his Critical Rationalism, Chicago: Open Court, 1994 and Out of Error, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006, in which logic rather than methodology is emphasised.

[3] See Popper’s Open Society, London: Routledge, 1945 etc, chapter 24, section V.

[4] ‘The Religious Sect as a Cognitive System’, Annual Review of the Social Sciences of Religion, 4, 1980, and ‘Epistemology Socialized?’, et cetera, Fall 1985.

[5] I discussed this in ‘From Dialogue Rights to Property Rights’, Critical Review, 4, numbers 1 & 2, 1990; ‘From Intersubjectivity Through Epistemology to Property: Rejoinder to Michelman’, Critical Review, 4, numbers 1 & 2, 1990 (which as a reply I think was not very effective), and also in my Political Thought of Karl Popper, and my Hayek and After, both London: Routledge, 1996. See also my ‘The Use of Knowledge in Organizations’, revised version, Knowledge Technology & Social Policy 13, no. 3 (2000): 30-48.

[6] Compare David Boaz, The Libertarian Mind, New York: Simon and Schuster, page 53, who refers to a group of merchants as responding to Louis 15^th’s asking what he could do to help them by saying: Leave us alone: the world runs by itself.

[7] See for discussion of a specific case, my ‘Why the “Hopeless War”: Approaching Intelligent Design’, Sophia 49 (2010): 475-88

[8] It is interesting to note that this was favoured by both Abraham Kuyper and the later Alasdair MacIntyre.

[9] See Popper’s Open Society, chapter 23.

[10] There is a deeper problem, concerning interesting tensions between what is probably our need to protect certain elements of our identities from criticism, and the fact that they may include false ideas, and the difficult issues posed when such core ideas pose problems for others. This, however, calls for a paper other than this one!

[11] How the resulting approach should best be characterized seems something on which ongoing work is needed. I have had an initial attempt in ‘The Empirical Basis’, in David Miller, Karl Milford and Ian Jarvie (eds), Karl Popper: A Centenary Assessment, volume II: Metaphysics and Epistemology, Aldershot: Ashgate, December 2006, 197-208, and ‘Popper’s Theory of Basic Statements’, Cahiers épistémologiques, numéro 4 ‘Spécial Popper’, volume 2, but I am far from satisfied with this. My approach, however, is far removed from that of Gunnar Andersson in ‘The problem of the empirical basis in critical rationalism’ in The Cambridge Companion to Popper, which, in my view, is still too much within the empiricist tradition.

[12] One source of particular frustration in my academic life, is that since I came across ‘Public and Private Values’ in the Popper archive, I have argued on several occasions, from The Political Thought of Karl Popper onwards, that ‘negative utilitarianism’ is not a good way of describing Popper’s ideas. This has made no impression whatever, and while this would be fine if my arguments for this were rebutted—I don’t need any convincing that I am fallible—that they have been simply ignored has been somewhat frustrating!

[13] The interpretation of Popper’s ideas here is a difficult one, just because there are other more Kantian echoes in his work, too—e.g. in his ideas about ‘protectionism’, and in some aspects of his ethics. It seems to me that Popper himself did not produce a systematic view, here.

[14] See my Political Thought of Karl Popper for some misgivings about the ability of democratic politics to perform well in this manner.

[15] Consider, say, those Marxists or libertarians who, while agreeing that child poverty, say, needs to be alleviated, would object to the idea that this should be undertaken as a project by a reformist state. Or consider, say, those who believe in a form of reincarnation. They might admit that current suffering was very sad, but argue that it was necessary, in order that a soul could progress in a satisfactory way through its various incarnations.

[16] A key problem, here, seems constituted by contemporary ideas about rights; but this point will have to be pursued in another paper.

[17] ‘The Myth of the Framework’ is available in The Myth of the Framework, London: Routledge, 1994; ‘On Toleration’ in After the Open Society, London: Routledge, 2008.

[18] A key feature of a ‘Popperian’ approach, here, is that we evaluate the performance of views over time. Here, we can learn much from both Popper and Lakatos (although I don’t favour his approach of ‘scientific research programmes’ at those points where it becomes distinctive). See, for examples of how I would apply such views, my Hayek and After, chapter 1, my ‘Commitment, Scholarship and Classical Liberalism’, The Independent Review 7 (2003): 575-85 and my ‘Why the “Hopeless War”: Approaching Intelligent Design’, Sophia 49 (2010): 475-88.

[19] This is a topic that I have treated at some length in ‘Popper and the Problem of the Public Sphere’, in Andrea Borghini and Stefano Gattei (ed.), Karl Popper Oggi: Una Riflessione Multidisciplinare, Rome: Salomone Belforte & C., 2011, 231-252; ‘Popper, Filosofia y la Esfera Pública’, in Rodrigo López, Carlos Verdugo and Byron Bevensee, eds. El Legado de Karl Popper (1902-1994): Reflexiones a 20 Años de su Muerte, Valparaíso, Chile: Universidad de Valparaíso, 2015, 25-50; ‘Popper, Objectification and the Problem of the Public Sphere’, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, DOI: 10.1177/0048393116639845; July 2016, 46, 392-411; and also in ‘Popper, Toleration and Dialogue’, International Symposium on Karl Popper and Problem of Change, Ankara, Turkey, 18th-20th September, 2015 (a paper which, because of the recent political disturbances in Turkey, may now possibly not be published).

[20] Jürgen Habermas, Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere [1962], Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989.

[21] See for example Nancy Fraser, ‘Actually Existing Democracy’, Social Text, nos. 25/26, 1990, 56-80 and Justice Interruptus, London: Routledge, 1997; Robert Young, ‘Natural Theology, Victorian Periodicals, and the Fragmentation of a Common Context’, in his Darwin’s Metaphor, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995; Robert Darnton, ‘What Is the History of Books?’, Daedalus 111, no. 3 (1982): 65-83; James Secord, Victorian Sensation, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000 and Jonathan Topham, ‘Beyond the “Common Context”’, Isis 89 (1988): 233-262.

[22] Bill Bishop, The Big Sort, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008.

[23] See, in this context, Jane Mayer, Dark Money, New York: Doubleday, 2016. (It is striking that while Mayer is critical, particularly, of the activities of conservative and libertarian-inclined figures, a careful reading of her book brings out the fact that there were frequently ‘liberal’ precursors for what they have done, albeit not on the same scale.)

[24] I say this just because the term seems initially to have been used about those who, while broadly market-orientated classical liberals, wanted to accord a greater role to the state than some others favoured.

[25] See my ‘Popper’s Influence on the Social Sciences’, in Lee McIntyre and Alex Rosenberg, Editors, The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Social Science, London etc: Routledge, 2017, 55-64.

[26] See on this my ‘Popper, Political Philosophy and Social Democracy: Reply to Eidlin’, Critical Review 18, no. 4, 361-76; Karl Popper’s Politics: Liberalism versus Democratic Socialism (CIS Occasional Paper 53), St Leonards, NSW: CIS, 1995, and my Political Thought of Karl Popper, London etc: Routledge, 1996.

[27] See F. A. Hayek (ed.) Collectivist Economic Planning, London: Routledge, 1935. Hayek’s own key contributions to the discussion appear in his Individualism and Economic Order, London: Routledge, 1949.

[28] It is, here, worth noting that Popper stressed the abstract and impersonal character of an Open Society.

[29] It is striking that there was a lot of distrust of Hayek on the part of more strongly libertarian people in the United States, because he was thought to be unsound on this point!

[30] I have discussed this, and the tension between Popper’s ideas, here, and his acceptance of what he (without much enthusiasm) called ‘modified essentialism’ in the physical sciences, in my Political Thought of Karl Popper.

In Books and Book Reviews democratic problem solving, Jeremy Shearmur, Justin Cruickshank, Karl Popper, piecemeal social engineering, Raphael Sassower

On Popper, Problems and Problem-Solving: A Review of Cruickshank and Sassower’s Democratic Problem-Solving, Stephen Kemp

SERRC — June 19, 2017 — 1 Comment

Author Information: Stephen Kemp, University of Edinburgh, S.kemp@ed.ac.uk

Kemp, Stephen. “On Popper, Problems and Problem-Solving: A Review of Cruickshank and Sassower’s Democratic Problem-Solving.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 6, no. 7 (2017): 27-34.

The PDF of the article gives specific page numbers. Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-3DO

Please refer to:

Cruickshank, Justin and Raphael Sassower. Democratic Problem Solving: Dialogues in Social Epistemology. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.
Bacevic, Jana. “Solving the Democratic Problem.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 6, no. 5 (2017): 50-52.

Image credit: Rowman & Littlefield

Democratic Problem-Solving: Dialogues in Social Epistemology (2017), edited by Justin Cruickshank and Raphael Sassower, offers a thought-provoking take on a range of issues of dialogue, democracy and reasoning in the social sciences and beyond. Jana Bacevic (2017) has usefully summed up the orientation of the book in her review, and raises important questions about the relationship between epistemic democracy and liberal democracy that I do not, unfortunately, have any worthwhile answers to.

This review focuses instead on issues the book very helpfully raises about the modes of reasoning in natural science, social science and in society more generally. In particular I want to focus on the core notions of ‘problem’ and ‘problem-solving’ that are discussed in this volume, and will do so from a perspective that, as with some of the contributors, is sympathetic to the approach of Popper.[1] I will be reconstructing aspects of the discussion between Cruickshank, Sassower and Isaac Ariel Reed, and then suggesting one way it could be taken forward in relation to the concept of normativity.

Setting Problems

Let me start, then, with the question of ‘problems’ in the natural sciences and beyond. My initial observation would be that in Democratic Problem-Solving there is discussion of at least three ‘settings’ within which problems could be located—one is within the natural sciences, the second is within the ‘research problems’ of the social sciences, and the third is in society more generally. The general thrust of Cruickshank’s analysis is that the idea of problems and problem solving is applicable in all of these domains. In this respect he is following, and developing, the ideas of Popper and also those of John Holmwood, who has defended the importance of the concept of problem-solving for both natural and social scientific analysis (see e.g. Holmwood, 1996).

Of course the term ‘problem’ could be taken in different ways, and it will be useful to consider how Cruickshank uses it in his fascinating chapter ‘Anti-Authority: Comparing Popper and Rorty on the Dialogic Development of Beliefs and Practices’ which sets the agenda for the book. To explore this, let us start with Cruickshank’s account of Popper’s problem-solving epistemology:

For Popper (1963, 1972, 1999), if it is accepted that knowledge is fallible, then it follows that one should always seek out better interpretations and explanations of reality. To do this, existing solutions to problems in ethics, science, politics, and so on, need to be subject to criticism, with new solutions to the problems found then being subjected to criticism and eventually replaced by new solutions, in a never-ending critical dialogue (6).

What comes through in this quote, as I interpret it, is a focus on problematizing as much as on problems. That is to say, the encouragement here is to be oriented to critique and to perpetual overturning—to making things problematic. And this is consistent with Cruickshank’s orientation throughout the book which focuses very much on questions of critique and how one can avoid wrongly foreclosing criticism.[2] It should certainly be noted that Cruickshank does refer to a more specific usage of Popper’s, referring to the latter’s concern with “practical problems in our environment” such that when we resolve problems we have adapted successfully—temporarily—to this environment (6). However, this usage is rarely discussed beyond the core opening chapter, with the general treatment of problem being a sense of ‘something that has been problematized by certain actors’ (to put it in my own words).

What about the idea of a ‘solution’, or ‘problem-solution’? In Popperian terms, a solution could be seen as a successful ‘adaptation’ but, as mentioned, this idea does not receive extensive treatment by Cruickshank (or indeed other authors) in the book. The same is true of the idea that problem-solving has a connection to the pragmatist concern with ‘usefulness’ (7). The implication of that link seems to be that we will have more useful knowledge once a problem is solved, but this is not really taken further. Rather, the idea that is probably most extensively used in the book is the notion that problem-solving has the potential for ‘alleviating harm’ (xiii).

This provides a broad orientation to the debate insofar as much of the ensuing discussion is about the harms of neo-liberalism and how they might be responded to. However, it is doubtful that this could be used to account for what problem-solving in the natural sciences is about, and should probably be seen as one particularly important kind of problem-solving. It could be said, then, that what a problem-solution involves is left fairly vague in the book. In one sense this chimes in with the orientation of the discussion towards criticism and problematizing. Given the overall focus on open-endedness the very idea of a solution could be considered to be potentially suspect. A solution might be taken to imply a resting place, a stopping place, whereas the orientation that Cruickshank is promoting is precisely the opposite, a form of permanent restlessness.

Although problems and problem-solving are treated in this fairly broad, open-ended way by Cruickshank, Reed nevertheless expresses doubts about the value of these concepts in his well-argued chapter ‘Science, Democracy and the Sociology of Power’. Reed formulates particular concerns about whether it is justified to take the idea of ‘problem solving’ from the natural sciences and apply it elsewhere. In relation to social scientific knowledge, Reed questions whether the problem-solving framework associated with Popper’s thought will be able to cope with certain features of society such as the ‘looping kinds’ discussed by Ian Hacking or the ‘concept dependence’ discussed by Roy Bhaskar.

In relation to social problems, Reed has even greater concerns. For one thing, he points out that there is a large literature on the construction of ‘social problems’ which identifies the importance of selectiveness and framing in defining what is taken to be a problem in society. For another thing, Reed points out that the sort of scientistic orientation one may associate with Popper’s problem-solving can actually contribute to normatively doubtful social outcomes. That is to say, the invocation of the scientific status of expert judgements, e.g. where a psychiatrist’s expertise is used to characterise a type of individual as problematic in legal deliberations, involves a problematic exercise of authority.

Cruickshank’s response to Reed (‘Criticism vs Dogmatism’) is based on the idea that Popper’s thought can be divided into the dogmatic and the critical. For Cruickshank, the dogmatic Popper was inclined to fetishize aspects of science as exemplifying critical rationality and was not prepared to submit these to critical appraisal themselves. By contrast, the critical Popper would allow criticism free rein, including that directed at science and its existing methods. Cruickshank argues that the critical Popper can usefully address the issues raised regarding the distinctiveness of the social world and the framing of problems. We shall now examine each of these in turn.

In relation to the distinctive features of the social world, Cruickshank contends that whereas the dogmatic Popper might insist that a scientific analysis of the social world must involve the use of hypothetico-deductive reasoning, the critical Popper would allow that methodological tools and arguments are also up for criticism and revision. This would mean that for the critical Popper it could be perfectly appropriate to question the value of hypthetico-deductive reasoning in relation to the social sciences and replace this with other alternatives as appropriate, such as a focus on the qualitative investigation of meaning.

I would like to briefly mention here an alternative response that could be made to Reed’s critique, based in the work of John Holmwood and Alexander Stewart (1991). Their Explanation and Social Theory (1991) is a rich book which discusses many facets of sociological thought, but one of the key arguments is that the idea of a fundamental difference between natural and social science is based on a problematic understanding of the role of meaning and practical activity in each activity. Once this understanding is rejected, there are much greater continuities than notions like ‘concept-dependence’ or the ‘double-hermeneutic’ might suggest. For Holmwood and Stewart, problem-solving can be undertaken perfectly consistently across the social and natural sciences. I do not have space to say more about it here, but the approach of Explanation and Social Theory is certainly worthy of attention.

Normative Framing

Let’s move on, then, to Cruickshank’s response to the issue of social problems and their framing. Cruickshank’s key move is to clarify that his approach to problem-solving is entirely consistent with the idea that problems are normatively framed. Indeed, Popper himself, in his critical mode, admitted this. Cruickshank states that:

…any proper recognition of the role of intersubjective norms entails the need to study how intersubjective norms have, and will, shape what are perceived as problems and what are perceived as solutions (86).

This emphasis on the importance of framing and normativity in relation to problems and solutions also seems to be accepted by Sassower who, in a later chapter, discusses their importance:

The reason to focus on frames of reference has already been fully articulated by sociologists, behavioural economists and psychologists: the way a problem is framed predetermines the range of possibilities for its solution (197).

Thus, Cruickshank’s response to Reed’s challenge is to readily admit that problems and solutions are normatively framed, and Sassower seems to agree with this.[3]

Cruickshank’s responses to Reed allow him to defend the idea that ‘problem-solving’ can be usefully retained across the domains of natural science, social science and wider social life, because it has shed narrowly scientistic connotations, instead being connected with permanent open-ended critique and an up-front (rather than concealed) normative orientation. I find these arguments valuable and persuasive, but it seems to me that the idea of normativity can be analysed further in a way that articulates with, and develops a little further, what a Popperian orientation to problem-solving might entail. This is the approach that I want to follow in the remainder of this review.

A typical sociological concern with normative framing involves an argument that we need to identify cases where this has been concealed and naturalized, with the intention of showing that other framings are possible. And, indeed, this kind of point is explored in Democratic Problem-Solving (e.g. 87). However, a somewhat trickier issue is to then analyse how to decide between one framing and another, once the range of possibilities is before us. One way to treat this—which could be seen as Weberian—is to see the choice of frame as a commitment in some fundamental sense.

On this approach there is no way to assess normative frames, there can be no reasoned argument for one rather than another—rather, one just has to commit to a frame and work on this basis. It’s not obvious to me that any of the participants of this volume accept this view and I would say that there are good reasons for not doing so. After all, if what a person takes to be a problem is a matter of commitment then it’s not at all obvious why anyone else should be moved by it. What is a problem in my framing can be a boon in your framing and there is nowhere further to go in the discussion. This view gets even less appealing if we take it through to the question of problem solutions. It suggests that even if we share a view of the problem, our normative commitments may operate such that what seems a very good solution to me seems a very bad solution to you with there being no way for reasonable discussion to impact upon the disagreement.

As already mentioned, I don’t see the authors of Democratic Problem-Solving explicitly adopting the ‘commitment’ view of the normative framing of problems and solutions. But is there an alternative expressed? I think Cruickshank does put forward another way of looking at this issue. He states:

The terms used to define problems—which will always be normative with those norms always having traction—will need to be assessed through the democratic co-production of knowledge, taking time, to work with many agents to change values and reframe problems (88-89).

Although there is disagreement between Cruickshank and Sassower in the volume about whether the latter’s views have elements that stifle a democratic orientation, at least in parts of his argument Sassower also seems committed to such a view. He states the following of the Popperian approach:

Perhaps the main lessons from this way of thinking about solving problems are that we should listen as much as we talk, that we should read more than we write and that we should consider global options when choosing local policies (238).

I agree with both writers that the democratic co-production of knowledge is a laudable idea and is valuable to pursue. However, I wonder if it can be usefully supplemented by a further sense of what is involved in debating about problems and problem-solutions. One reason for doing this is to try to think about what engaging with others might involve. After all, even though democratic, open discussion is surely welcome, there is a question of how to engage in this discussion in a way that neither unreasonably imposes on others nor simply submits to their framings. The contributors to this volume clearly all have views about what is problematic and not problematic in contemporary society. Assuming that they are not all speaking for democratic co-produced collectives it could be useful to think about how they formulate what they see as problematic and how that can be related to the views of others.

In a debate with others, how can we think about engaging with different framings without either imposing a perspective or resorting back to the notion that the choice of framings is a matter of commitment? Take for example a topic which is debated in a very interesting way within the volume, neo-liberalism. How can there be a reasonable discussion between a critic of neo-liberalism who sees the problem of people in poverty as one of a failure of the state to intervene sufficiently and an enthusiast for neo-liberalism who sees the problem as the failure of the state to get out of the way and let people look after themselves?

Popperian Problems and Problem-Solving

I want to suggest that there is a broadly Popperian way to expand on the notion of problems and problem-solving which can make a useful contribution to thinking about engagement with those who have different framings to us. To begin with, as Cruickshank points out (13), for Popper and his followers contact with the world is not direct, rather we interact with it through a theory/set of understandings. ‘Framings’ will be a crucial part of these understandings. The question is, then, how to have a reasonable engagement with those who do not start from the same set of understandings/framings as we do.

This is where the concept of problem is useful, in my view. Within the work of Popper and his followers there is a strong emphasis on the way in which no attempt to understand and frame the world is able to produce a fully consistent account of all known relevant evidence. In other words, there is a strong focus on anomalies, on that which does not fit with a particular framing of the world. Although it would be questionable to argue that this is the only meaning that Popper gives to the idea of a ‘problem’, it is, in my view a core meaning, that is central to The Logic of Scientific Discovery (2005 [1934]) and is also taken up by writers like Lakatos (1970) in analysing the natural sciences and Holmwood (1996) in analysing the social sciences. Furthermore, this can also provide us with one way of thinking about what a ‘problem solution’ involves—the reconstruction of a particular framing/set of understandings of the world to remove an anomaly and produce a more coherent[4] take on the subject-matter. Of course, in keeping with Cruickshank’s remarks about continuous criticism, the removal of an anomaly is not a final resting point for the defender of a framing/set of understandings. There will always be new anomalies to reflect on and wrestle with.

In my view, these Popperian ideas of problems as anomalies and solutions as coherence-expanding reconstructions give us one helpful way of thinking about how to have a critical but non-impositional dialogue with those who frame social (and other) problems in different ways (for further discussion see Kemp, 2012). This is to engage with the framings of others and try to identify what is anomalous from within the way the other is presenting it rather than attempting to simply impose a contrary framing. Taking this further, a participant in the dialogue might also argue that the identified anomaly could be resolved if the person whose views they are critiquing reconstructed their framing in a way that was consistent with the first participant’s own views. To give an example of this kind of approach, a critic of neo-liberalism might argue that poverty cannot be avoided simply by the state getting out of the way because there are countries where the state offers very little if any support and yet there is still grinding poverty. In such an argumentative move, these examples are being presented as an anomaly to the neo-liberal viewpoint. The critic could go on to argue that there have been cases where impoverished groups were supported by the state in a way that actually provided them with the capacity to then look after themselves. This would cast doubt on the opponent’s views and suggest another way to look at the issue.

It would be foolish of me to suggest that any politically engaged actor would be quickly won over by such arguments. In that respect, I find Cruickshank’s concept of ‘critical slow dialogues’ a very persuasive one. As Cruickshank usefully observes:

People may be emotionally, ethically and politically committed to their ideas, as well as under political or institutional pressure to support certain sets of ideas (36).

As such, change may well take time. Of course, dialogues are also two way, and an interlocutor is likely to hit back that the critic’s own position contains anomalies, laying down a—reasonable—challenge that these need to be addressed. In this way, engagements of this kind are two-way and provide challenges to both parties.

Although we cannot expect speedy results, this way of thinking about problems and problem solutions may contribute to understanding how to have a critical engagement without this involving either an under-motivated choice between framings or the imposition of an alternative viewpoint. It is worth noting, I think, that in using the ideas of problem/anomaly and problem-solution in this way I am not denying the normativity of the framings of actors. What I am denying, though, is that normativity involves a commitment that is untouchable by reasoning processes. Normatively-shaped claims generate anomalies which can be critiqued.

This review has surely gone on long enough, so I will just briefly recap the main thrust of it to conclude. The animating issue of the review was how the notions of ‘problems’ and ‘problem-solving’ were addressed and debated within Democratic Problem-Solving. I was sympathetic to Cruickshank’s view that these notions can usefully be applied in the natural sciences, the social sciences and to wider social issues as long as the role of normativity is admitted. However, I argued that the idea of normativity could usefully be further explored to help think through the character of dialogue and criticism. I made some initial arguments in this direction, including the suggestion that connecting problems with the idea of anomalies provides a ground for critical appraisal of normative framings. This allows us to avoid seeing such framings as either commitments outside the realm of reason or impositions on others. I see the arguments made in this review as sketching out a further way to extend the kind of Popperian orientation that Cruickshank and Sassower defend very nicely in Democratic Problem-Solving.

References

Bacevic, Jana. “Solving the Democratic Problem.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 6, no. 5 (2017): 50-52.

Cruickshank, Justin and Raphael Sassower, eds. Democratic Problem-Solving: Dialogues in Social Epistemology. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.

Holmwood, John. Founding Sociology? Talcott Parsons and the Idea of General Theory, London, Longman, 1996.

Holmwood, John and Alexander Stewart. Explanation and Social Theory, London: Houndmills, 1991.

Kemp, Stephen. ‘Evaluating Interests in Social Science: Beyond Objectivist Evaluation and the Non-judgemental Stance’, Sociology, 46, no. 4 (2012): 664-679

Kemp, Stephen. ‘Transformational Fallibilism and the Development of Understanding’, Social Epistemology, 31, no. 2 (2017): 192-209.

Lakatos, Imre. ‘Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes.’, In Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, edited by Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, 170-196. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.

Popper, Karl. The Logic of Scientific Discovery, London: Routledge, 2005 [1934].

[1] Perhaps this sympathy arose, in part, because I grew up in New Zealand ‘of all places’ (Sassower, 28).

[2] For Cruickshank, criticism can be foreclosed in various ways including the treatment of knowledge as ‘justified’, the invocation of ‘authority’ to support a knowledge-claim, and the presentation of solutions as ‘technocratically’ necessary.

[3] Insisting that normative framing is made clear is also a way to stop the kind of unproblematized reliance on expertise that Reed discusses drawing on Foucault’s work.

[4] There are some important challenges in spelling out what a more coherent response involves, and I have doubts about the way that Popper and Lakatos deal with this issue. I have a go at an alternative in Kemp (2017).

In Books and Book Reviews democratic problem solving, Justin Cruickshank, Karl Popper, neo-liberalism, problem solving in science, problems and problem-solving, Raphael Sassower

Solving the Democratic Problem, Jana Bacevic

SERRC — May 26, 2017 — 2 Comments

Author Information: Jana Bacevic, University of Cambridge, jb906@cam.ac.uk

Bacevic, Jana. “Solving the Democratic Problem.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 6, no. 5 (2017): 50-52.

The PDF of the article gives specific page numbers. Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-3Bl

Please refer to:

Cruickshank, Justin and Raphael Sassower. Democratic Problem Solving: Dialogues in Social Epistemology. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.

Image credit: Rowman & Littlefield

It is a testament to the lasting influence of Karl Popper and Richard Rorty that their work continues to provide inspiration for debates concerning the role and purpose of knowledge, democracy, and intellectuals in society. Alternatively, it is a testament to the recurrence of the problem that continues to lurk under the glossy analytical surface or occasional normative consensus of these debates: the impossibility to reconcile the concepts of liberal and epistemic democracy. Essays collected under the title Democratic Problem-Solving (Cruickshank and Sassower 2017) offer grounds for both assumptions, so this is what my review will focus on.

Boundaries of Rational Discussion

Democratic Problem-Solving is a thorough and comprehensive (if at times seemingly meandering) meditation on the implications of Popper’s and Rorty’s ideas for the social nature of knowledge and truth in contemporary Angloamerican context. This context is characterised by combined forces of neoliberalism and populism, growing social inequalities, and what has for a while now been dubbed, perhaps euphemistically, the crisis of democracy. Cruickshank’s (in other contexts almost certainly heretical) opening that questions the tenability of distinctions between Popper and Rorty, then, serves to remind us that both were devoted to the purpose of defining the criteria for and setting the boundaries of rational discussion, seen as the road to problem-solving. Jürgen Habermas, whose name also resonates throughout this volume, elevated communicative rationality to the foundational principle of Western democracies, as the unifying/normalizing ground from which to ensure the participation of the greatest number of members in the public sphere.

Intellectuals were, in this view, positioned as guardians—epistemic police, of sorts—of this discursive space. Popper’s take on epistemic ‘policing’ (see DPS, 42) was to use the standards of scientific inquiry as exemplars for maintaining a high level, and, more importantly, neutrality of public debates. Rorty saw it as the minimal instrument that ensured civility without questioning, or at least without implicitly dismissing, others’ cultural premises, or even ontological assumptions. The assumption they and authors in this volume have in common is that rational dialogue is, indeed, both possible and necessary: possible because standards of rationality were shared across humanity, and necessary because it was the best way to ensure consensus around the basic functioning principles of democracy. This also ensured the pairing of knowledge and politics: by rendering visible the normative (or political) commitments of knowledge claims, sociology of knowledge (as Reed shows) contributed to affirming the link between the epistemic and the political. As Agassi’s syllogism succinctly demonstrates, this link quickly morphed from signifying correlation (knowledge and power are related) to causation (the more knowledge, the more power), suggesting that epistemic democracy was if not a precursor, then certainly a correlate of liberal democracy.

This is why Democratic Problem-Solving cannot avoid running up against the issue of public intellectuals (qua epistemic police), and, obviously, their relationship to ‘Other minds’ (communities being policed). In the current political context, however, to the well-exercised questions Sassower raises such as—

should public intellectuals retain their Socratic gadfly motto and remain on the sidelines, or must they become more organically engaged (Gramsci 2011) in the political affairs of their local communities? Can some academics translate their intellectual capital into a socio-political one? Must they be outrageous or only witty when they do so? Do they see themselves as leaders or rather as critics of the leaders they find around them (149)?

—we might need to add the following: “And what if none of this matters?”

After all, differences in vocabularies of debate matter only if access to it depends on their convergence to a minimal common denominator. The problem for the guardians of public sphere today is not whom to include in these debates and how, but rather what to do when those ‘others’ refuse, metaphorically speaking, to share the same table. Populist right-wing politicians have at their disposal the wealth of ‘alternative’ outlets (Breitbart, Fox News, and increasingly, it seems, even the BBC), not to mention ‘fake news’ or the ubiquitous social media. The public sphere, in this sense, resembles less a (however cacophonous) town hall meeting than a series of disparate village tribunals. Of course, as Fraser (1990) noted, fragmentation of the public sphere has been inherent since its inception within the Western bourgeois liberal order.

The problem, however, is less what happens when other modes of arguing emerge and demand to be recognized, and more what happens when they aspire for redistribution of political power that threatens to overturn the very principles that gave rise to them in the first place. We are used to these terms denoting progressive politics, but there is little that prevents them from being appropriated for more problematic ideologies: after all, a substantial portion of the current conservative critique of the ‘culture of political correctness’, especially on campuses in the US, rests on the argument that ‘alternative’ political ideologies have been ‘repressed’, sometimes justifying this through appeals to the freedom of speech.

Dialogic Knowledge

In assuming a relatively benevolent reception of scientific knowledge, then, appeals such as Chis and Cruickshank’s to engage with different publics—whether as academics, intellectuals, workers, or activists—remain faithful to Popper’s normative ideal concerning the relationship between reasoning and decision-making: ‘the people’ would see the truth, if only we were allowed to explain it a bit better. Obviously, in arguing for dialogical, co-produced modes of knowledge, we are disavowing the assumption of a privileged position from which to do so; but, all too often, we let in through the back door the implicit assumption of the normative force of our arguments. It rarely, if ever, occurs to us that those we wish to persuade may have nothing to say to us, may be immune or impervious to our logic, or, worse, that we might not want to argue with them.

For if social studies of science taught us anything, it is that scientific knowledge is, among other things, a culture. An epistemic democracy of the Rortian type would mean that it’s a culture like any other, and thus not automatically entitled to a privileged status among other epistemic cultures, particularly not if its political correlates are weakened—or missing (cf. Hart 2016). Populist politics certainly has no use for critical slow dialogue, but it is increasingly questionable whether it has use for dialogue at all (at the time of writing of this piece, in the period leading up to the 2017 UK General Election, the Prime Minister is refusing to debate the Leader of the Opposition). Sassower’s suggestion that neoliberalism exhibits a penchant for justification may hold a promise, but, as Cruickshank and Chis (among others) show on the example of UK higher education, ‘evidence’ can be adjusted to suit a number of policies, and political actors are all too happy to do that.

Does this mean that we should, as Steve Fuller suggested in another SERRC article (http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-3nx) see in ‘post-truth’ the STS symmetry principle? I am skeptical. After all, judgments of validity are the privilege of those who can still exert a degree of control over access to the debate. In this context, I believe that questions of epistemic democracy, such as who has the right to make authoritative knowledge claims, in what context, and how, need to, at least temporarily, come second in relation to questions of liberal democracy. This is not to be teary-eyed about liberal democracy: if anything, my political positions lie closer to Cruickshank and Chis’ anarchism. But it is the only system that can—hopefully—be preserved without a massive cost in human lives, and perhaps repurposed so as to make them more bearable.

In this sense, I wish the essays in the volume confronted head-on questions such as whether we should defend epistemic democracy (and what versions of it) if its principles are mutually exclusive with liberal democracy, or, conversely, would we uphold liberal democracy if it threatened to suppress epistemic democracy. For the question of standards of public discourse is going to keep coming up, but it may decreasingly have the character of an academic debate, and increasingly concern the possibility to have one at all. This may turn out to be, so to speak, a problem that precedes all other problems. Essays in this volume have opened up important venues for thinking about it, and I look forward to seeing them discussed in the future.

References

Cruickshank, Justin and Raphael Sassower. Democratic Problem Solving: Dialogues in Social Epistemology. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.

Fraser, Nancy. “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy.” Social Text 25/26 (1990): 56-80.

Fuller, Steve. “Embrace the Inner Fox: Post-Truth as the STS Symmetry Principle Universalized.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, December 25, 2016. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-3nx

Hart, Randle J. “Is a Rortian Sociology Desirable? Will It Help Us Use Words Like ‘Cruelty’?” Humanity and Society, 40, no. 3 (2016): 229-241.

In Books and Book Reviews democratic problem solving, dialogue, Jana Bacevic, Justin Cruickshank, Karl Popper, Raphael Sassower, Richard Rorty

The Problem of Demarcation Isn’t Going Away: On the Legitimation of the Social Sciences in Light of Popper, Cruickshank, and Reed, Raphael Sassower and Seif Jensen

SERRC — February 19, 2016 — Leave a comment

Author Information: Raphael Sassower, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, rsassowe@uccs.edu; Seif Jensen, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, sjensen4@uccs.edu

Sassower, Raphael and Seif Jensen. “The Problem of Demarcation Isn’t Going Away: On the Legitimation of the Social Sciences in Light of Popper, Cruickshank, and Reed.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 5, no. 2 (2016): 69-84.

The PDF of the article gives specific page numbers. Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-2CT

Editors Note:

[1]

Image credit: blinking idiot, via flickr

The period between the two World Wars unsettled intellectuals as if they suffered an intellectual trauma. Their belief in reason and rationality, human dignity and tolerance, was shattered; instead, they found themselves in a world permeated by fear and irrationality, where romantic nostalgia vanished, and where Soviet communism deteriorated into totalitarian Statism unseen before. The human spirit—as envisioned by the Enlightenment Movement of the 18^th century—was at a loss if not completely lost to the vagaries of an inhumane, cruel, and ugly political realities. European nation-states displayed an increasing thirst for hero-warship and charismatic leaders quenched by Benito Mussolini in Italy, Adolf Hitler in Germany, and Generalissimo Franco in Spain. Continue Reading…

In Critical Replies demarcation problem, Isaac Ariail Reed, Justin Cruickshank, Karl Popper, piecemeal engineering, Raphael Sassower, Seif Jensen

Norms and Faith: Comments on the Business of People, Raphael Sassower

SERRC — September 3, 2015 — Leave a comment

Author Information: Raphael Sassower, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, rsassowe@uccs.edu

Sassower, Raphael. “Norms and Faith: Comments on the Business of People.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 4, no. 9 (2015): 1-10.

The PDF of the article gives specific page numbers. Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-2fY

Editors Note:

[1]

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

As much as Karl Popper’s legacy is strewn with misconceptions about his neoconservative biases and his narrow scientific prejudices in regards to the social science—from his dismissal of Marxism as pseudo-science, psychoanalysis as beyond the pale, and the general explanatory/predictive models of all the social sciences as self-fulfilling prophecies—there is something interesting in his intellectual corpus that deserves rethinking. This is where Justin Cruickshank is in full agreement with my views regarding the value to be distilled, decades later, from Popper’s approach. The Popperian approach has fascinated me for years because of several features that may be reasonably overlooked by his disciples and critics. After listing some of them, I wish to illustrate their significance in the 21^st century. Continue Reading…

In Critical Replies Justin Cruickshank, Karl Marx, Karl Popper, neoliberal university, Popper’s legacy, Raphael Sassower

Neoliberalism, the ‘Scientific Enterprise’ and the ‘Business of People’: Comments on the Sociology and Politics of Knowledge Production, Justin Cruickshank

SERRC — August 14, 2015 — 4 Comments

Author Information: Justin Cruickshank, University of Birmingham, UK, j.cruickshank@bham.ac.uk

Cruickshank, Justin. “Neoliberalism, the ‘Scientific Enterprise’ and the ‘Business of People’: Comments on the Sociology and Politics of Knowledge Production.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 4, no. 8 (2015): 53-65.

The PDF of the article gives specific page numbers. Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-2f0

Editors Note:

[1]

Image credit: Michael D Beckwith, via flickr

In his latest reply (2015a), and in his recent ‘Compromising the Ideals of Science’ (2015b), Raphael Sassower draws together concerns with the natural sciences and political economy. For Sassower (2015a, 2015b) the conception of the natural sciences has changed over time as cultural assumptions, influenced in part by the sociological ‘demystification’ of science, have changed alongside developments in the political economy of science, with much research now being funded by non-scientific bodies (the state and corporations), who seek to regulate or manipulate the outcomes of research. Continue Reading…

In Critical Replies Justin Cruickshank, natural sciences and political economy, neoliberal university, neoliberalism, Raphael Sassower

Beyond Hubris: Desiderata of the Future of Political Economy, Raphael Sassower

SERRC — July 20, 2015 — 3 Comments

Author Information: Raphael Sassower, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, rsassowe@uccs.edu

Sassower, Raphael. “Beyond Hubris: Desiderata of the Future of Political Economy.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 4, no. 7 (2015): 38-50.

The PDF of the article gives specific page numbers. Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-2bL

Please refer to:

Cruickshank, Justin. “Anti-Authority: Comparing Popper and Rorty on the Dialogic Development of Beliefs and Practices.” Social Epistemology, 2013. DOI: 10.1080/02691728.2013.782589.
Reed, Isaac Ariail. “Science, Democracy and Sociology in the 21st Century: Response to Cruickshank’s ‘Anti-authority’.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 2, no. 12 (2013): 40-45.
Cruickshank, Justin. “Problem-Solving And The Social Production Of Knowledge: A Reply to Isaac Reed.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no.2 (2014): 24-33.
Sassower, Raphael. “A Bridge Over Turbulent Waters: A Reply to Justin Cruickshank on Comparing Popper and Rorty.” Social Epistemology 3, no. 3 (2014): 57-59.
Cruickshank, Justin. ” From Ex Cathedra Legislators to Dialogic Exemplars? Popper, Rorty and the Politics and Sociology of Knowledge.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 5 (2014): 1-12.
Sassower, Raphael. “Problem-Solving Critical Contingencies: Popper and Rorty According to Cruickshank.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 6 (2014): 30-32.
Cruickshank, Justin. “Public Intellectuals, Education and the Need for Dissatisfaction: Comments on Raphael Sassower’s Discussion of Popper, Rorty and Democracy.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 7 (2014): 1-4.
Sassower, Raphael. “Beyond Lamentations: Comments on Justin Cruickshank’s Public Intellectuals, Education and the Need for Dissatisfaction.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 7 (2014): 50-54.
Cruickshank, Justin and Ioana Cerasella Chis. “Exit, Voice and Loyalty in the Public Sphere: On the Hollowing Out of Universities and the ‘Trojan Horse’ Attack on the Muslim Community in the UK.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 9 (2014): 57-71.
Sassower, Raphael. “Appealing to Academics to Become Public Intellectuals: A Reply to Justin Cruickshank and Ioana Cerasella Chis.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 11 (2014): 42-45.
Chis, Ioana Cerasella and Justin Cruickshank. “The Cost of Public Intellectuals: Reflections On Raphael Sassower’s Call for Intellectuals To Influence Elites and Their Publics.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 4, no. 1 (2014): 16-26.
Sassower, Raphael. “Radical Public Intellectuals.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 4, no. 1 (2014): 57-63.
Cruickshank, Justin and Ioana Cerasella Chis. “Big Data, TTIP and the Hubris of Techno-Capitalism.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 4, no. 3 (2015): 45-55.

Image credit: Sarunas Mikalauskas, via flickr

In my latest Compromising the Ideals of Science (2015), it has dawned on me that when we provide a critique, any critical analysis of the state of affairs, radical or immanent, or both, we are in fact engaged indirectly in a comparison between an idealized state of affairs—of science, the scientific community, or political economy—and an existing set of circumstances under which such ideals are practiced. This is known as a heuristic, an aid of sorts, with which to approach a complex problem or set of facts; this is also known as the appeal to an “ideal type” in Max Weber’s sense of the term. The intent is to compare the here and now with an ideal to which it may approximate or strive to achieve. Or not. Continue Reading…

In Critical Replies critique of science, Ioana Cerasella Chis, Justin Cruickshank, political economy, Raphael Sassower, scientific ideals, shared economy

Big Data, TTIP and the Hubris of Techno-Capitalism, Justin Cruickshank and Ioana Cerasella Chis

SERRC — February 21, 2015 — 5 Comments

Author Information: Justin Cruickshank, University of Birmingham, j.cruickshank@bham.ac.uk and Ioana Cerasella Chis, University of Birmingham, icc108@student.bham.ac.uk

Cruickshank, Justin and Ioana Cerasella Chis. “Big Data, TTIP and the Hubris of Techno-Capitalism.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 4, no. 3 (2015): 45-55.

The PDF of the article gives specific page numbers. Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-1WL

Please refer to:

Cruickshank, Justin. “Anti-Authority: Comparing Popper and Rorty on the Dialogic Development of Beliefs and Practices.” Social Epistemology, 2013. DOI: 10.1080/02691728.2013.782589.
Reed, Isaac Ariail. “Science, Democracy and Sociology in the 21st Century: Response to Cruickshank’s ‘Anti-authority’.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 2, no. 12 (2013): 40-45.
Cruickshank, Justin. “Problem-Solving And The Social Production Of Knowledge: A Reply to Isaac Reed.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no.2 (2014): 24-33.
Sassower, Raphael. “A Bridge Over Turbulent Waters: A Reply to Justin Cruickshank on Comparing Popper and Rorty.” Social Epistemology 3, no. 3 (2014): 57-59.
Cruickshank, Justin. ” From Ex Cathedra Legislators to Dialogic Exemplars? Popper, Rorty and the Politics and Sociology of Knowledge.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 5 (2014): 1-12.
Sassower, Raphael. “Problem-Solving Critical Contingencies: Popper and Rorty According to Cruickshank.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 6 (2014): 30-32.
Cruickshank, Justin. “Public Intellectuals, Education and the Need for Dissatisfaction: Comments on Raphael Sassower’s Discussion of Popper, Rorty and Democracy.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 7 (2014): 1-4.
Sassower, Raphael. “Beyond Lamentations: Comments on Justin Cruickshank’s Public Intellectuals, Education and the Need for Dissatisfaction.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 7 (2014): 50-54.
Cruickshank, Justin and Ioana Cerasella Chis. “Exit, Voice and Loyalty in the Public Sphere: On the Hollowing Out of Universities and the ‘Trojan Horse’ Attack on the Muslim Community in the UK.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 9 (2014): 57-71.
Sassower, Raphael. “Appealing to Academics to Become Public Intellectuals: A Reply to Justin Cruickshank and Ioana Cerasella Chis.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 11 (2014): 42-45.
Chis, Ioana Cerasella and Justin Cruickshank. “The Cost of Public Intellectuals: Reflections On Raphael Sassower’s Call for Intellectuals To Influence Elites and Their Publics.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 4, no. 1 (2014): 16-26.
Sassower, Raphael. “Radical Public Intellectuals.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 4, no. 1 (2014): 57-63.

Image credit: Tobias Higbie, via flickr

For Raphael Sassower (2014), public intellectuals need to play a key role in enhancing the quality of debate in dialogic democracies. Political radicalism, he holds, denigrates this, neglecting the real possibilities for an intellectual (and socio-economic) elite to enhance democracy, and for technology, in the ‘Digital Age’, radically to undermine nefarious social relations by creating a ‘Postcapitalist’ society. In a previous essay (Chis and Cruickshank 2014) we rejected the concept of public intellectuals and held that a dialogic democracy was antithetical to the elitist privileging of certain interlocutors. Continue Reading…

In Critical Replies big data, democracy, Ioana Cerasella Chis, Justin Cruickshank, political radicalism, postcapitalism, Raphael Sassower, Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

Radical Public Intellectuals, Raphael Sassower

SERRC — December 30, 2014 — 5 Comments

Author Information: Raphael Sassower, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, rsassowe@uccs.edu

Sassower, Raphael. “Radical Public Intellectuals.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 4, no. 1 (2014): 57-63.

The PDF of the article gives specific page numbers. Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-1Rn

Please refer to:

Cruickshank, Justin. “Anti-Authority: Comparing Popper and Rorty on the Dialogic Development of Beliefs and Practices.” Social Epistemology, 2013. DOI: 10.1080/02691728.2013.782589.
Reed, Isaac Ariail. “Science, Democracy and Sociology in the 21st Century: Response to Cruickshank’s ‘Anti-authority’.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 2, no. 12 (2013): 40-45.
Cruickshank, Justin. “Problem-Solving And The Social Production Of Knowledge: A Reply to Isaac Reed.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no.2 (2014): 24-33.
Sassower, Raphael. “A Bridge Over Turbulent Waters: A Reply to Justin Cruickshank on Comparing Popper and Rorty.” Social Epistemology 3, no. 3 (2014): 57-59.
Cruickshank, Justin. ” From Ex Cathedra Legislators to Dialogic Exemplars? Popper, Rorty and the Politics and Sociology of Knowledge.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 5 (2014): 1-12.
Sassower, Raphael. “Problem-Solving Critical Contingencies: Popper and Rorty According to Cruickshank.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 6 (2014): 30-32.
Cruickshank, Justin. “Public Intellectuals, Education and the Need for Dissatisfaction: Comments on Raphael Sassower’s Discussion of Popper, Rorty and Democracy.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 7 (2014): 1-4.
Sassower, Raphael. “Beyond Lamentations: Comments on Justin Cruickshank’s Public Intellectuals, Education and the Need for Dissatisfaction.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 7 (2014): 50-54.
Cruickshank, Justin and Ioana Cerasella Chis. “Exit, Voice and Loyalty in the Public Sphere: On the Hollowing Out of Universities and the ‘Trojan Horse’ Attack on the Muslim Community in the UK.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 9 (2014): 57-71.
Sassower, Raphael. “Appealing to Academics to Become Public Intellectuals: A Reply to Justin Cruickshank and Ioana Cerasella Chis.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 11 (2014): 42-45.
Chis, Ioana Cerasella and Justin Cruickshank. “The Cost of Public Intellectuals: Reflections On Raphael Sassower’s Call for Intellectuals To Influence Elites and Their Publics.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 4, no. 1 (2014): 16-26.

Image credit: Occupy Global, via flickr

In their latest installment, Ioana Cerasella Chis and Justin Cruickshank (2014) were extremely generous in their praise for my work and my views, but only up to a point. Their concern over my “liberal conception of dialogue” and the elitist posture that would necessarily privilege the reproduction of power relations is couched in a demand for radicalism in and outside the university system. They end their essay with four questions they ask me to answer. So, I have my homework assignment, reminiscent of a comment a colleague of mine made to me decades ago that our reading lists are now dictated by colleagues instead of our professors. I’m grateful for the opportunity to respond, but before I move to their questions, let me say something about radicalism rather than intellectuals. I feel, perhaps wrongly, that I have provided an exhaustive enough list of putative public intellectuals in my book (2014) that it allows interested parties to pick and choose among them; so, I refrain from rehearsing this list here. Continue Reading…

In Critical Replies academics, Ioana Cerasella Chis, Justin Cruickshank, public intellectuals, radicalism, radicals, Raphael Sassower

Popper as a Socratic Public Intellectual, Raphael Sassower

SERRC — December 12, 2014 — Leave a comment

Author Information: Raphael Sassower, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, rsassowe@uccs.edu

Sassower, Raphael. “Popper as a Socratic Public Intellectual.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 4, no. 1 (2014): 35-37.

The PDF of the article gives specific page numbers. Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-1Ps

Please refer to:

Benesch, Philip. The Viennese Socrates. New York: Peter Lang, 2014.

Philip Benesch’s The Viennese Socrates indeed does justice to its subtitle: “Karl Popper and the Reconstruction of Progressive Politics” (2012). On one level, this is a most audacious battle-cry against right-wing apologists who claim Popper’s legacy as their own; on the other, it’s an outrageous response to decades of Left-wing dismissal of Popper as a reactionary crusader against Marxism. Perhaps that’s why I like it so much: it outlines a critically rational argument on behalf of a reinterpretation of Popper’s thought in politically progressive terms. This isn’t simply finding a comfortable middle ground for the legacy of Popper’s thought, but a search for the useful intellectual tools left for us by Popper, tools with which we should approach our own frustrations and lamentations concerning contemporary political debates. Continue Reading…

In Books and Book Reviews Karl Popper, public intellectuals, Raphael Sassower, Socrates, The Viennese Socrates

Archives For Raphael Sassower

On Popper, Problems and Problem-Solving: A Review of Cruickshank and Sassower’s Democratic Problem-Solving, Stephen Kemp

Solving the Democratic Problem, Jana Bacevic

The Problem of Demarcation Isn’t Going Away: On the Legitimation of the Social Sciences in Light of Popper, Cruickshank, and Reed, Raphael Sassower and Seif Jensen

Norms and Faith: Comments on the Business of People, Raphael Sassower

Neoliberalism, the ‘Scientific Enterprise’ and the ‘Business of People’: Comments on the Sociology and Politics of Knowledge Production, Justin Cruickshank

Beyond Hubris: Desiderata of the Future of Political Economy, Raphael Sassower

Big Data, TTIP and the Hubris of Techno-Capitalism, Justin Cruickshank and Ioana Cerasella Chis

Radical Public Intellectuals, Raphael Sassower

Popper as a Socratic Public Intellectual, Raphael Sassower

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