test

Popper’s methodological recommendations and criticisms concerning the study and understanding of society are largely inspired by what he refers to as ‘the attitude of rationality’,[1]“the basis of my teaching; that the theory of knowledge is at the very heart of philosophy and that the awareness of our fallibility, and the attitude and practice of criticism, is at the very heart of the theory of knowledge.”[2] It is the purpose here to briefly evaluate Popper’s epistemology in so far as this informs and guides his political philosophy. A difficulty in achieving this aim is largely because Popper’s philosophy spreads its wings over so many fields of inquiry so that any examination of Popper’s views is not likely to retain the subtlety and depth of the original. Thus, it has been necessary to provide signposts along the way which point to issues beyond the scope of this thesis. The disclaimer should be issued that although criticism of Popper’s theories on epistemology are largely confined to matters relating to Popper’s political recommendations, this does not imply acceptance without reservation of areas of Popper’s theories on knowledge which escape criticism herein.

Popper refers in his essay ‘Science: Conjectures and Refutations’[3] to the circumstances in 1919-1920 which led him to consider ‘the problem of demarcation’:

The problem which troubled me at the time was neither, ‘When is a theory true?’ nor, ‘When is a theory acceptable?’ My problem was different. I wished to distinguish between science and pseudo-science; knowing very well that science often errs, and that pseudo-science may happen to stumble on the truth.^[4]

During this time, Popper was interested in Freud’s theories of psycho-analysis, Adler’s ‘individual psychology’ and Marxism.[5] The apparent virtue of those theories was their irrefutability: ‘the world was full of verifications of each theory.[6] Popper was also interested in Einstein’s theory of relativity; and in 1919 the event of Eddington’s eclipse observations, as Popper emphasizes, “brought the first important confirmation of Einstein’s theory of gravitation. It was a great experience for us, the one which had a lasting influence on my intellectual development.”[7] What characterised Einstein’s theory was that critical tests could be (and were) devised which could refute the deductive consequences of the theory. On the other hand, the psycho-analytic theories were non-testable, non-falsifiable, whereas Marx’s theory of history dealing with the character of the coming revolution was testable and refuted.[8] But Popper notes that:

Yet instead of accepting the refutations, the followers of Marx re-interpreted both the theory and the evidence to make them agree. In this way they rescued the theory from refutation; but they did so at the price of adopting a device which made it irrefutable.[9] 

In brief, Popper stresses that “the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability.”[10] Popper also wishes to banish the evils of ‘inductivism’ and ‘the assumption of certainty’ from the temple of science. He argues that the principle of induction – the derivation of universal statements about reality from experience – is misconceived: “For the belief in inductive logic is largely due to a confusion of psychological problems with epistemological ones.”[11]

That is to say, the principal error of inductivism is the assumption that one can infer universal statements from singular statements. There is the presumption, for example, that because (to our knowledge) night has always followed day that this process always continues in the future. This idea, however, is psychologically induced, not a logical derivation.[12] Moreover, the argument that we can derive universal statements from knowledge of experience leads to an infinite regress:

For the principle of induction must be a universal statement in its turn. Thus, if we try to regard its truth as known from experience, then the very same problems which occasioned its introduction [the infinite regress concerning our knowledge of the past] will arise all over again. To justify it, we should have to employ inductive inferences; and to justify these we should have to assume an inductive principle of a higher order; and so on.[13]

In place of induction, Popper proffers “the theory of the deductive method of testing, or … the view that a hypothesis can only be empirically tested – and only after it has been advanced.”[14] This recommendation compliments Popper’s idea of fallibilism – “the belief in scientific certainty and in the authority of science is just wishful thinking:  science is fallible, because science is human.”[15]:

For us, therefore, science has nothing to do with the quest for certainty or probability or reliability. We are not interested in establishing scientific theories as secure, or certain, or probable. Conscious of our fallibility we are only interested in criticizing them and testing them, hoping to find out where we are mistaken; of learning from our mistakes; and, if we are lucky, of proceeding to better theories.[16]

Popper’s philosophy of science may be outlined according to these rubrics:

i.     a hypothesis or theory is a conjecture in response to a problem about an aspect of our knowledge of the world;

ii.   conjecture and (attempted) refutation is the modus operandi of scientific progress: “The main thing is to be conscious of one’s point of view, and critical, that is to say, to avoid, as far as possible, unconscious and therefore uncritical bias in the presentation of the facts.”;[17] 

iii.   the importance of falsifiability:  a theory, on logical grounds, can never be established as proven by the accumulation of corroborating evidence – which may be infinite in number or, at least, indefinitely large.  Now as, on the other hand, only one contrary instance is required to falsify a theory, it follows that, if a theory is false, conclusive falsification or disproof is possible; therefore, no amount of supporting empirical evidence can ‘prove’ a theory as absolutely correct;[18]

iv.   a theory to be scientifically worthwhile (rationally criticizable) must, in principle, be falsifiable.  It follows that ‘irrefutability is not a virtue. It is a vice.’

Popper’s arguments concerning the advance of knowledge are not simply limited to scientific thinking: the attitude of rationality and openness to criticism, of course, is important for all theories. It should be noted that Popper’s usage of the term ‘science’ denotes the process of critically testing theories; this does not mean, however, that non-science or metaphysics is worthless:

For our criterion of falsifiablility distinguishes with sufficient precision the theoretical systems of the empirical sciences from those of metaphysics (and from conventionalist and tautological systems), without asserting the meaninglessness of metaphysics (which from a historical point of view can be seen to be the source from which the theories of the empirical sciences spring.)[19] 

Popper states that the critical elimination of errors may be described:

The whole process can be represented by a simplified schema which I may call the tetradic schema:

P1 → TT → CD → P2

We may start from some problem P1 – whether theoretical or historical – we proceed to a tentative theory [TT] – which is submitted to critical discussion [CD] in the light of evidence, if available, with the result that new problems, P2, arise.[20] 

This development from initial problems to further problems and the consequent refinement of theories raises the issue concerning the differentiation between competing theories and the nature of truth. Preference between theories might be based on:

(a)     the relative predictive potential of each theory;

(b)     the relationship between a theory and the facts which it purports to explain; and,

(c)     the fertility of each theory (for example, theory T1 preferred over theory T2 because T1 can explain much more than T2) 

To clearly differentiate between competing theories, Popper speaks of degrees of truthlikeness or verisimilitude (defined in terms of truth and empirical content). Verisimilitude may be defined: the logical content of a theory amounts to the class of statements which follow logically from it; the empirical content of the theory is the class of all basic statements[21] which contradict it.[22]  If a theory is ‘true’ then its logical content can only be the class of true statements derived from it. If it is false, its logical content is a mixture of true and false statements: “Thus whether a statement is true or false, there may be more truth, or less truth, in what it says, according to whether its content consists of a greater or a lesser number of true statements.”[23] 

There is the further distinction between the truth-content and falsity-content of the theory according to the number of true and false statements which are derivable from it. Therefore:

Assuming that the truth-content and the falsity-content of two theories t1 and t2 are comparable, we can say that t2 is more closely similar to the truth, or corresponds better to the facts, than t1, if and only if either:

(a)     the truth-content but not the falsity-content of t2 exceeds that of t1.

(b)    the falisity-content of t1, but not its truth-content, exceeds that of t2.[24] 

Accepting that the empirical and truth contents of a theory are measurable, verisimilitude can be defined thus:

Vs (a)  = Ct_T (a) –  Ct_F (a)

Where Ct_T (a) is a measure of the truth-content of [a theory] a, and Ct_F (a) is a measure of the falsity-content of a.[25] 

Popper stresses that the demand for a criterion of Truth according to a precise definition is methodologically mistaken:

…the absence of a criterion of truth does not render the notion of truth non-significant any more than the absence of a criterion of health renders the notion of health non-significant.  A sick man may seek health even though he has no criterion for it.  An erring man may seek truth even though he has no criterion for it.[26]

Popper’s notion of truth, following Tarski, is that “truth is correspondence with the facts (or reality); or, more precisely, that a theory is true if and only if it corresponds to the facts.”[27]⁰   To say this is not, of course, to assert that the search for ‘truth’ is illusory. The claim ‘Sir Walter Scott is the author of Waverley’, for example, is obviously true if and only if Scott is the author of Waverley. What Popper is arguing against is the assumption that Truth, in an essentialist or Platonic sense, must be a logical Form.[28]  (After all, there are no logical reasons for (or against) the assumption of an essence of ‘what is true’).

Popper distinguishes between truth as such and the epistemological issue as to whether a given theory is true. We know what it is to reject a theory – as falsified – and put another in its place, which is better. Questions of truth content and empirical content are relevant here. Truth, as Popper considers it, is regulative, as against constitutive, in the sense that one cannot, in scientific practice, establish the truth of any theory. But it is possible to know what it is for a theory to be closer to or further from the truth.  Mankind certainly aims to discover the truth but without having any guarantees that what is achieved is the truth. As opposed to essentialism, Popper is less ambitious when he speaks about truth; for him, ‘truth’ is a regulative concept: the process of eliminating error from theories, arguments and experiments. This idea is closely related with ‘scientific realism’:

…the procedure we adopt involves (as long as it does not break down, for example because of anti-rational attitudes) success in the sense that our conjectural theories tend progressively to come nearer to the truth; that is, to true descriptions of certain facts, or aspects of reality.[29] 

Popper is committed to a realist interpretation of scientific theories; and in opposition to realism, Popper discusses idealism:[30] 

In its simplest form, idealism says: the world… is just my dream. Now it is clear that this theory (though you will know that it is false) is not refutable: whatever you …might do to convince me of your reality – talking to me, or writing a letter, or perhaps kicking me – it cannot possibly assume the force of a refutation; for I would continue to say that I am dreaming that you are talking to me, or that I received a letter, or felt a kick. (One might say that these answers are all, in various ways, immunizing stratagems. This is so, and it is a strong argument against idealism. But again, that it is a self-immunizing theory does not refute it).[31] 

But despite the irrefutability of both realism and idealism there are arguments which can be drafted in support of each; in this context, it is important to re-stress that Popper considers theories to be problem-oriented:

…every rational theory, no matter whether scientific or philosophical, is rational in so far as it tries to solve certain problems. A theory is comprehensible and reasonable only in its relation to a given problem-situation, and it can be rationally discussed only by discussing this relation.[32] 

Concerning realism and idealism, we can explore the internal-consistency of each theory, examine whether they provide adequate solutions for the problems which they seek to solve, and analyse the relative fecundity of each theory. Popper argues that realism – the doctrine that there is an objective reality apart from our consciousness – is an essential component of common sense. Popper considers this relationship to be “[p]erhaps the strongest argument” in favour of realism.[33]  But it seems here that ‘common sense’ is an extremely nebulous concept (“it denotes a vague and changing thing – the often adequate or true and often inadequate or false instincts or opinions of many men”[34]) which hardly bears the importance that Popper places on it.

Indeed, it seems that Popper adopts a double-edged approach concerning ‘common sense’. Although Popper is extremely skeptical of common sense theories, rejecting the ‘common sense theory of knowledge’ as mistaken (this is further discussed below), he also appeals to ‘common sense’ to support his understanding of realism. In this respect, it seems odd that Popper places so much importance on the relationship between realism and common sense. At any rate, to assert that realism is part of our common sense is to beg the whole issue of how we interpret and understand the world. Popper seems to overstate the arguments for realism and unfairly deprecate idealism. Consider, for example, the following: “all the alleged arguments against [realism] are …only philosophical in the most derogatory sense of this term”[35]  (whatever this means), and, “[d]enying realism amounts to megalomania (the most widespread occupational disease of the professional philosopher).”[36]  Unfortunately these excesses only serve to mar Popper’s discussion. The fewer epistemological problems of realism in comparison with idealism, as elaborated below, provides the rationale for favouring the former theory over the latter. The idealist claim that ‘my world is my dream’ generates problems and solutions which reek of ad hocery.[37] 

To counter the objections concerning communication between two minds, possibly two dreamworlds, the idealist can simply assert that the other mind is merely part of his dream. He can go further and argue that all knowledge is part of his dream and, following from this, all theories are irrefutable. For the idealist, the claim “Eddington’s eclipse observations corroborated Einstein’s theory of relativity” is the stuff of imagination. This is very close to the conventionalist theory of knowledge:  theories cannot be disproved, for they are no more than constructs of our understanding; ‘reality’ in itself does not yield theories – these are the property of the mind and cannot be disproved by resort to empirical evidence. On this understanding, it therefore becomes impossible to rationally analyse the growth of knowledge – theories become the attraction of caprice, not understanding.  Admittedly, idealism is not (logically) demonstrably false, but it seems an extremely narrow approach to epistemology. On the other hand, epistemological realism leads to the conclusion that theories can be ‘tested’ according to the evidence that is brought to bear, that the growth of knowledge can be understood. These merits do not amount to logical proof,[38]  but they do suggest that realism is a superior epistemological approach to idealism.

Popper distinguishes between three worlds of existence[39] : ‘World 1’: the world of physical objects or states; ‘World 2’: “the world of states of consciousness, or mental states, or perhaps of behavioural dispositions to act”;[40]  ‘World 3’: “the world of objective contents of thought”[41]  whose contents are the creations of mankind:  works of art, music ideas, critical argument and language.

Popper’s arguments for the existence of an objective and autonomous third world are designed to establish the possibility and superiority of an objective approach compared with a subjective approach to knowledge. He states:

One of the main reasons for the mistaken subjective approach to knowledge is the feeling that a book is nothing without a reader: only if it is understood does it really become a book; otherwise, it is just paper with black spots on it.[42] 

Popper wishes to distinguish between the objective entity ‘the book’ (the contents of which have been produced by a reasoning mind) and ‘the potentiality of the contents of the book being understood’ or deciphered (which does not, however, imply the realization of such understanding – the book might be unread or misinterpreted). In this manner, Popper can utilize the idea of objectivity.[43]   The contents of the third world are objective in the sense that they exist independently of any person who seeks to understand and appreciate them. As opposed to the relativist, subjective approach, ‘objectivity’ can be employed as referring to the third world and, in a related sense, as a methodological approach concerning the verisimilitude and reliability of theories. Popper also speaks of theories as searchlights towards knowledge: theories suggest problems and methods of examining reality, and this process partially describes the manner whereby knowledge accrues.[44]  In contra-distinction to ‘the searchlight theory of knowledge’ Popper refers to ‘the bucket theory of the mind’:

The starting point of this theory is the persuasive doctrine that before we can know or say anything about the world, we must first have had perceptions – sense experiences. It is supposed to follow from this doctrine that our knowledge, our experience, consists either of accumulated perceptions (naive empiricism) or else of assimilated, sorted and classified perceptions (view held by Bacon and, in a more radical form, by Kant).[45] 

The bucket theory of the mind, however, is overly simplistic and cannot account for the growth or nature of knowledge. Perceptions, for example, cannot be divorced from the theories which guide them: “all observation involves interpretation in the light of our theoretical knowledge.”[46] 

For we learn only from our hypotheses what kind of observations we ought to make: whereto we ought to direct our attention; wherein to take an interest. Thus, it is the hypothesis which becomes our guide, and which leads us to new observational results.[47] 

This method, Popper describes as the searchlight theory of knowledge.[48]  Popper’s theories on knowledge, which span the issues concerning the idea of science and methaphysics, and the problem of the advance of human understanding, provide a methodological basis for the understanding of society.  The purpose in following Chapters is to demonstrate the relationship between Popper’s epistemology and theory of politics – especially dealing with Popper’s examination of ‘historicism’. But before tackling this matter, consideration will be given to various objections to Popper’s philosophy of knowledge and science.

Popper’s philosophy of science is widely criticised,[49]  and these criticisms largely centre upon:

(a)     Popper’s criterion of falsifiability, and,

(b)     Popper’s ‘naïve’ conception of scientific knowledge

Taking the last issue first, Kuhn has attacked Popper’s conception of the scientific process as historically and methodologically naive.[50]  Most scientists are merely ‘problem solvers’ working within the confines of the reigning scientific paradigm or set of paradigms.[51]  There is nothing in Popper’s claim that scientific theories are constantly being subjected to rigorous tests.[52] The sceptic is virtually an outsider, an unwanted intruder in the mainstream of scientific inquiry.  This argument, however, far from disproving Popper’s theory of scientific knowledge only proffers a psychological and sociological description of many practising scientists and their scientific practice. Popper’s point is that his understanding of science provides a normative methodology for scientific inquiry. Popper’s normative, scientific methodology implies a certain procedure that a scientific practitioner should follow; for example, to critically challenge existing scientific theories by the means of ‘falsifying tests’. The procedural consequence of this method is the searching and discovery of errors contained in theories and the generation of new problems, which challenge the existing paradigms of science. This might not be the practice of most scientists, but it is the path of scientific development.

Imre Lakatos, perhaps the most persuasive of Popper’s critics, has appraised Popperian methodology thus:

The great attraction of Popperian methodology lies in its clarity and force. Popper’s deductive model of scientific criticism contains empirically falsifiable spatio-temporally universal propositions, initial conditions and their consequences. The weapon of criticism is the modus tollens: neither inductive logic nor intuitive simplicity complicate the picture.[53]

But the major difficulties with Popper’s epistemology concern his narrow idea of ‘falsifiability’ and problems concerning the pigeon-holing of science and non-science; the main epistemological weakness of Popper’s theory of scientific knowledge is its failure to cope with metaphysical conceptions which help to shape the development of theories. (This criticism – the scope beyond the confines of this Thesis – demands a detailed study of the historical developments of science and philosophy – an historical analysis of how theories are produced and improved). Lakatos points out:  “…if the game of science had been played according to Popper’s rule book, Bohr’s 1913 paper would never have been published, in as much as it was inconsistently drafted on to Maxwell’s theory…”[54]

Lakatos’ argument rests on the view that a theory which is inconsistently transcribed from or deduced from another (and no matter what the content of this ‘theoretical hybrid’) is, in Popper’s view, ipso facto non-scientific. Lakatos argues that this methodological constraint unnecessarily restricts the confines of scientific endeavour and, in its place, Lakatos argues for the idea of ‘research programme’ theories of scientific development.[55]

The old rationalist dream of a mechanical, semi-mechanical or at least fast-acting method for showing up falsehood, unprovenness, meaningless rubbish or even irrational choice has to be given up. It takes a long time to appraise a research programme: Minerva’s owl flies at dusk.  But this new appraisal is also more strict in that it demands not only that a research programme should successfully predict novel facts, but also that the protective belt of its auxiliary hypotheses should be largely built according to a preconceived unifying idea, laid down in advance in the positive heuristic of the research programme.[56]

A research programme consists of a ‘hard core’ of basic (irrefutable) premises and a ‘positive heuristic’[57] “which defines problems, outlines the construction of a belt of auxiliary hypotheses, foresees anomalies and turns them victoriously into examples, all according to a preconceived plan.”[58] Lakatos further states:

But when should a particular theory, or a whole research programme, be rejected? I claim, only if there is a better one to replace it. Thus, I separate Popperian ‘falsification’ and ‘rejection’, the conflation of which turned out to be the main weakness of his ‘naive falsificationism’. One learns not by accepting or rejecting one single theory but by comparing one research programme with another for theoretical, empirical and heuristic progress.[59]

Although the many extensions and ramifications of Lakatos’ methodology,[60] are not explored here, it can be acknowledged that the theory of ‘research programmes’ is in response to the unsolved problems of Popper’s theory-saturated and largely ahistorical demarcation between science and pseudo-science.[61]  Already noted is that, for Popper, ‘science’ denotes a process of critically testing theories. Although this is logically impeccable, it is not sufficient for explaining the generation of such theories. Popper’s methodological recommendations depreciate the results of certain theories (even if laden with contradictions and anomalies) which produce interesting explanations which can be useful for their perspicacity. This last point has special importance for an analysis of Marxism: even if Marx’s claim for the scientific status of his analysis of the development of capitalist societies is refutable, the variety of explanations and perspectives which flow from Marxist theories are sufficient raison d’etre for its continuing to influence social science. Popper only grudgingly acknowledges this, and it is this matter that is dealt with in more detail later in this Thesis.

---

Popper’s epistemological theories, as demonstrated earlier, throw their light upon the fields of political philosophy. Much of Popper’s writings are devoted to awakening the social sciences from the slumber of historicism, which is described as:

…an approach to the social sciences which assumes that historical prediction is their principal aim, and which assumes that this aim is attainable by discovering the ‘rhythms’ or the ‘patterns’, the ‘laws’ or the ‘trends’ that underlie the evolution of history. ^[1]

Popper distinguishes between two ideal-types of historicism, and these may be outlined:[2]

(i)   anti-naturalist historicism, the view that a physics-like social science is impossible because periods in history are conditioned by their cultural and social context, and not subject to or predictable according to universal laws of development; and,

(ii)   pro-naturalist historicism which asserts that the aim of social science is the discovery and utilisation of universal laws of historical development.

This Chapter critically examines Popper’s exposition and analysis of historicism.

Before examining in detail Popper’s outline and critique of historicist doctrines, one should take note of the controversy concerning Popper’s use of the term ‘historicism’.[3]

Popper has been accused of not clearly distinguishing between his idea of ‘historicism’ and the German doctrine Historismus (which, to add some confusion, has been generally translated as ‘historicism’).[4]  Without exhausting its subtleties, the German term can be understood thus:

Historicism consists in the attempt to take seriously (in a philosophic sense) the fact of change.  It sees behind every particular fact the one ultimate fact of change: every particular is treated with relation to the process of change out of which it arises, and this process is seen as immanent in it.[5]

Two aspects of Historismus should be distinguished

(a)       the historicity of values, that every set of cultural values is relevant only to the age in which it appears; and,

(b)       historicism of knowledge, which claims that:  no statement can be considered true or false without reference to the time at which it was formulated; for it, like every other entity, must be understood in the light of the ever-changing process of history.[6]

Alan Donagan argues that the criticism of Popper’s employment of the term ‘historicism’ as confused with meanings of Historismus is fatuous, for Popper distinguished between historism[7] and historicism. Indeed, in Popper’s monograph, The Poverty of Historicism, he refers to ‘historism’ as the methodology that suggests:

…the possibility of analysing and explaining the differences between the various sociological doctrines and schools, by referring either to their connection with the predilections and interests prevailing in a particular historical period.[8]

But this controversy is more than a mere quibble about terminology, as is made clear below. Donagan, in defence of Popper, points out:

It is true that, since Popper wrote and published The Poverty of Historicism, the word ‘historicism’ has replaced ‘historism’ as the usual rendering of ‘Historismus’: Friedrich Engle-Janosi’s The Growth of German Historicism (1944) was perhaps the turning point. But Popper cannot be blamed for lacking second sight.[9]

But this is not enough to establish Donagan’s case. After all, in Popper’s review of Engel-Janosi’s work – which Donagan cites as concerned with Historismus as distinct from Popper’s meaning of historicism – Popper states:

Historicism, as the author defines it (and I have no quarrel with his definition since I have used the term in a similar sense) has an importance far beyond the problems of historiography.[10]

Such remarks suggest that Popper does not always clearly distinguish between historicism (or more precisely, anti-naturalist historicism) and Historismus.[11] This is somewhat understandable since both theories are similarly relativist, stressing that historical events are uniquely characterised or determined by the context of other events, and that we should therefore concentrate on examining the cultural or social milieu of an historical event. This does not, however, imply that we should seek the ‘patterns’ or ‘rhythms’ of the development of history. Noteworthy is that the two sorts of historicist doctrines that Popper distinguishes seem to differ on the issue of relativism; anti-naturalism is committed to the necessary uniqueness of historical events and to the impossibility of general laws governing kinds of events, whereas pro-naturalism is not. Furthermore, Popper’s discussion of ‘universal laws of development’ and historicism allows for ambiguity; one sense being that of laws governing the developmental structure of the whole historical process – so that universal laws are now laws governing everything or the totality; this view of universal law Popper denounces as epistemologically inappropriate for social science. Where so-called universal laws are said to ‘link up’ certain periods, this sense of universal law in Popper’s view, is historicist.  

Moreover, as outlined later in this Chapter, Popper’s own view is that historical events are as much subject to scientific law as anything else, that historical events are explained by ‘covering-law’ explanations. Now a problem crops up in saying what the pro-naturalist and anti-naturalist views could be: if each refer to ‘patterns, laws and trends’, and they are found in a unique total process, they will seem indistinguishable. But, as Popper points out, both views rest upon a mistaken idea of the methods of science but differ concerning the applicability of such methods for social inquiry. It is the purpose, in the following pages, to establish that Popper’s analysis of historicism, especially the anti-naturalist variety, is sometimes confused and inconsistent.

Unfortunately, Popper’s discussion of historicism is weakened by his saddling each variety of historicism with a range of philosophical assumptions which by no means logically follow from his definition of the term. This confusion is especially marked throughout Popper’s discussion concerning the ‘unholy alliance’ between holism and historicism. He argues that:

…a method capable of understanding the meaning of social events must go far beyond causal explanation.  It must be holistic in character; it must aim at determining the role played by the event within a complex structure – within a whole which comprises not only contemporaneous parts but also the successive stages of a temporal development.[12]

Popper divides the meaning of ‘holism’ into two strands:

There is a fundamental ambiguity in the use of the word ‘whole’ in recent holistic literature.  It is used to denote,

(a)   the totality of all the properties or aspects of a thing, and especially of all the relations holding between its constituent parts, and,

(b)   certain special properties or aspects of the thing in question, namely those which make it appear an organised structure rather than a ‘mere heap’.[13]

Now the ambiguity that Popper refers to may be understood on two levels:

(i)   the distinction between the fact of the organised total structure and the principles of that structure or the most conspicuous, perhaps explanatory, features of that structure; holists, in this sense, would accept the fact as a matter of faith and the principles as a matter of demonstration; and,

(ii)   the distinction between a holist theory encompassing all aspects of a thing, and a holist theory concerned only with some aspects of a thing.  We shall denote the argument dealing with “the totality of all the properties or aspects of a thing” as totalist Holism, and denote the argument concerning “certain special qualities or aspects of the thing in question” as ‘structuralist holism’.[14]

The following discussion will concentrate upon the ‘totalist’ and ‘structuralist’ variants of holism.

Popper is very unclear as to the exact link between holism and historicism; in different places in The Poverty Popper proposes that historicism seeks to discover the future evolution of the whole of society, yet elsewhere states, in relation to social engineering (more on this in the next Chapter), that “[i]t is this holism which distinguishes historicism most radically from any piecemeal technology, and which makes possible its alliance with certain types of holist or Utopian social engineering.”[15] At the one time, Popper argues that historicism entails the holist approach, yet also claims that there is merely an alliance (not a ‘unity’) between historicism and holism. Furthermore, Popper’s discussion concerning meanings of the concept ‘holism’ is extremely uneven. Whereas Popper is devastating in his arguments against totalist Holism, his counter-assertions against structuralist holism are mostly unclear. He states that we must be selective in our presentation of factors pertaining to a certain event: “…not even the smallest whole piece [of nature] may be so described [holistically] since all description is necessarily selective”.[16]  Therefore there is the latent danger that an historical interpretation or prediction could ignore evidence which might be important for analysis:

Not one example of scientific description of a whole, concrete social situation is ever cited.  And it cannot be cited, since in every such case it would always be easy to point out aspects which have been neglected; aspects that may nevertheless be most important in some context or other.[17]

The logical status of totalist Holism, “the rock on which we are encouraged to build a new world”[18] is exploded: no person can provide a description or prediction of an aspect of social life which explains everything. Structuralist holism, however, is a different matter. This sense of holism would seem to escape the strictures laid against totalist Holism, for it seeks to claim no more than the commonplace that in order to understand society there is the merit of distinguishing between the various institutions and structures within society as well as studying the interaction and influences vis-a-vis these and individuals. Popper, however, attributes to structuralist holism the claim “the whole is more than the sum of its parts”[19] and he goes on to point out the vagueness and triviality of such a claim; to cite an example of three apples on a plate, they are more than a ‘mere sum’ for there are spatial relations and differences between them; for similar reasons, any society is more than the sum of its components. But this ‘criticism’ would seem more applicable to totalist Holism and not to structuralist holism.  Demonstrated in the next Chapter is the point that conflating totalist Holism with structuralist holism enables Popper to trade on an ambiguity when he discusses various methods of social experimentation and ‘social engineering’.

In the introduction to The Poverty Popper states:

I have tried hard to make a case in favour of historicism in order to give point to my subsequent criticism. I have tried to present historicism as a well-considered and close-knit philosophy. And I have not hesitated to construct arguments in its support which have never, to my knowledge, been brought forward by historicists themselves. I hope that, in this way, I have succeeded in building up a position really worth attacking.[20]

This methodological approach has been attacked because the construction of the historicist argument (‘to build up a position really worth attacking and then to attack it’)[21] could be wrong-headed from the start and therefore easily demolished. Popper is caught in a double-bind situation: the more devastating his critique of historicist arguments, the prima facie charge that historicism was crippled with anomalies to begin with finds plausibility. To assess this objection to Popper’s formulation of historicist arguments requires consideration, in detail, of Popper’s exposition of the ideal-types of historicism.

Anti-naturalist historicism denies the possibility of a physics-like social science, and this because of the following reasons:

(i)    in contradistinction to the general uniformity of ‘nature’, “there is no long-run uniformity in society on which long-term generalisations could be based”.[22] We cannot, as in natural science, develop universal laws of social life;

(ii)    human activity is the motor-force behind social change, and this factor is not reducible to an element in a scientific formula concerning society;

(iii)    whereas experiments in physics are performed in artificial isolation, this procedure is not open to social science:

…artificial isolation would eliminate precisely those factors in sociology which are most important. Robinson Crusoe and his isolated individual economy can never be a valuable model of an economy whose problems arise precisely from the interaction of individuals and groups.[23]

Experiments in social science are instigated to achieve political success and “their very performance changes the conditions of society”;[24]

(iv)    the science of physics apply to a law-governed natural world whereby “nothing can happen that is truly and intrinsically new.  A new engine may be invented, but we can always analyse it as a re-arrangement of elements which are anything but new.”[25]

Anti-naturalist historicism holds that the emergence of novelty in social life – the advancement and creation of institutions and traditions within society – distinguishes social life from physical reality and therefore social science from natural science. Following from this, Popper argues that historicism asserts that social life is more complicated than physical phenomena and thereby unable to be explained according to the methods of natural science. According to anti-naturalist historicism, an understanding of society can be advanced through ‘intuitive understanding’,[26] a method not pertinent to physics. Distinguishable are three variants of emphatic or intuitive understanding:

(a)   social event should be understood with consideration to its genesis:

The method of sociology is here thought of as an imaginative reconstruction of either rational or irrational activities, directed towards certain ends.[27]

(b)    combined with the teleological (goal directed) analysis of intuitive understanding variety, ‘a’ person should examine the ‘situational value’ of an historical event:

Thus, in order to understand social life, we must go beyond the mere analysis of factual causes and reactions caused by actions:  we have to understand every event as playing a certain characteristic part within the whole.[28]

(c)    besides adopting the recommendations of the first and second variants of intuitive understanding,

…it is necessary to analyse objective underlying historical trends and tendencies (such as the growth and decline of certain traditions or powers) prevailing at the period in question, and to analyse the contribution of the event in question to the historical process by which such trends become manifest.[29]

Popper continues this discussion by stating:

…the method of intuitive understanding does not only fit in with the ideas of holism.  It also agrees very well with the historicist’s emphasis on novelty; for novelty cannot be causally or rationally explained, but only intuitively grasped.[30]

Popper, as outlined, strings together a number of propositions which, collectively, represent the bare bones of anti-naturalist historicism.[31] On the contrary, however, Popper has not successfully provided an ‘adequate’ definition of this ideal-type of historicism. Following on what is argued earlier in this Chapter, Popper merges meanings of anti-naturalist historicism with Historismus, and this severely limits the effectiveness of his argument.[32] Indeed, the stodginess of his analysis defeats his programme for clearly discerning distinct brands of historicism.[33]

Popper cannot demonstrate the link between the relativist view that knowledge and society is conditioned by its own time with the assertion that the ‘rhythms’ or ‘trends’ of human history should be ‘uncovered’ to understand social life.  Popper’s idea of anti-naturalist historicism seems ‘workable’ only if its scope is reducible to

(i)    an argument concerning the non-applicability of the practices and procedures of the natural sciences to social science;

(ii)    intuitive understanding variant ‘c’, which as distinct from the first and second variants of intuitive understanding, refers to “underlying historical trends and tendencies” as important for achieving an understanding of a social or historical event; and,

(iii)    the argument that the task of social inquiry is to make predictions based on the understanding of ‘historical trends and tendencies’ of society.

Moreover, Popper’s choice of words concerning his claim that intuitive understanding “fits in with” holism, and “agrees very well” with the historicist emphasis on novelty, serve to highlight the tenuousness of those relations.

Before turning to Popper’s attack on what he describes as the mistaken historicist understanding of the scientific method, it is worth pausing to examine the method of pro-naturalist historicism.

Popper states: “Although historicism is fundamentally anti-naturalistic” this does not rule out the argument that natural and social science share “a common element”.[34] But this is surely unsatisfactory for Popper’s exegesis of historicism: the word ‘fundamentally’ befogs the analysis, glossing over the precise nature of the historicist method. Before embarking on an analysis of pro-naturalist historicism, it is necessary to clear up several aspects of Popper’s construction of his argument. Surmisable about what Popper means by claiming that there is a ‘fundamental’ nature of historicism is the claim that both ideal-types of historicism share the idea that the course of human history can be divided or ‘periodised’ into certain ‘eras’, ‘ages’ or ‘times’; so that in order to understand a particular society or event, account must be taken of the peculiar historical forces shaping and influencing that society. Such a belief, as already outlined, is not peculiar to historicism, for it is also a tenet of Historismus. Furthermore, despite the differing interpretations concerning the applicability of the methods of physics to social science, both methods of historicism share a similar understanding of natural science (this is further elaborated below). Also needing disentangling are several strands of Popper’s attack on the historicist method. Unfortunately, Popper, in The Poverty, jumbles up the historicist doctrine of the social sciences with the historicist doctrine of politics (“The idea that it is the task of politics to lessen the birth-pangs of impending political developments”.[35]) Without keeping this distinction in mind, Popper’s analysis might seem to be burdened with the assumption that the historicist understanding of society necessarily leads to a political programme based on historicist beliefs concerning the future development of society.

Pro-naturalist historicism adopts the following tenets:

(i)    the method of explaining and predicting events with the aid of theories concerning universal laws is common to social and physical science; and,

(ii)    “… the events [historicism] explains and predicts are observable facts, and … observation is the basis for the acceptance or rejection of any propounded theory,”[36] thus the sine qua non of historicist social science can be summarised:

To analyse, to disentangle this thicket of conflicting tendencies and forces and to penetrate to its roots, to the universal driving forces and laws of social change – this is the task of the social sciences, as seen by historicism.  Only in this way can we develop a theoretical science on which to base those large-scale forecasts whose confirmation would mean the success of social theory.[37]

This much of Popper’s exegesis of pro-naturalist historicism is clear enough, but Popper’s discussion of historical laws needs some refining. Popper states that for the historicist, “the method of generalization is inapplicable to social science”[38]  (Ideas, culture and the meaning of events within societies are relative to their social context.) Therefore, “the only universally valid laws of society must be laws which link up the successive periods. They must be laws of historical development which determine the transition from one period to another”.[39]  This formulation, however, is contradictory: generalisations are read out of court, but laws of development remain. Yet these laws in themselves must be generalisations concerning social development (“real social laws would have to be ‘generally’ valid”).[40]  The problem here concerns the compatibility between the division and understanding of the development of society according to certain ‘periods’, and arguments dealing with laws of development, seemingly superseding such historical periods.  

In fairness to Popper, it is worth pointing out that it is impossible to construct such a theory, which is supposed to be erroneous, without some measure of its wrong-headed character showing through. Even so, it is difficult to reconcile the empiricist contention that the events historicism explains are observable facts with a theory of periodization which has so much implicit about historical facts. Appropriate in that context, therefore, is an elaboration of Popper’s criticism of the historicist understanding of science. This now follows.

Popper argues that a common empiricist understanding of the methods of natural science underlies both versions of historicist arguments concerning social science. According to the historicist, the universal laws of physics are inductively derived from observation statements, and physicists explain and predict events with the aid of such laws. Experiments are conducted in ‘relative isolation’ excluding the influence or effect of certain variables. Without regurgitating too much of the earlier Chapter, it requires pointing out, based on Popper’s philosophy of science, a number of serious problems associated with the historicist understanding of natural science. Induction, on pure epistemological grounds, cannot serve as a tool for the derivation of universal laws or theories. Furthermore, those laws and theories are never beyond reproach:  they are falsifiable conjectures concerning problems about an aspect of the world. Predictions based on the laws and theories of science are conditional, according to the model ‘if X, and excluding variables a, b, c …., then Y’. The path of scientific progress is through the means of experiment, the rigorous testing of theories. Popper’s criticism of the historicist understanding of social science proceeds along several levels:

(i)    an argument demonstrating that the methods of physics are sometimes appropriate for the understanding of society (hence refuting the anti-naturalist historicist contention that the methods of natural science are inappropriate for social science) and,

(ii)    a critique of (pro-naturalist) historicism as adopting a misguided notion of scientific method.

Concerning anti-naturalist historicism, Popper points out:

The social sciences have developed very largely through the criticism of proposals for social improvements or, more precisely, through attempts to find out whether or not some particular economic or political action is likely to produce an expected, or desired, result.[41]

Following from this, Popper refers to ‘technological problems’ of society, such as “the possibility of controlling trade cycles”[42] or investigations dealing with the effects of prison reform, which are the concern of social science.

In response to these problems, interpretations and proposals can be proffered which can be empirically tested and improved upon.[43] This procedure is analogous to the methods of natural science, as Popper has outlined them, and therefore furnishes a major objection to the anti-naturalist position of historicism.  

Popper states that historical events are subject to universal laws, and that such events are explained by ‘covering-law’ explanations:

…any explanation [of an historical event] that utilizes… singular initial conditions alone would be incomplete, … [for] at least one universal law is needed besides, even though this law is, in some cases, so well-known that it is omitted as if it were redundant.

To sum up this point. We have found that an explanation is a deduction of the following kind:[44]

[45]

The explicandum is deduced from the explicans – which contains, besides a statement of initial conditions, one or more universal laws ‘covering’ the event to be explained. There has been some controversy as to whether the universal law of the ‘covering-law’ thesis is an example of an historical law or merely a law from natural science.[46] For example, Popper cites as an example of a ‘covering-law’ the following:

If we say that the cause of the death of Giordano Bruno was being burnt at the stake, we do not need to mention the universal law that all living things die when exposed to intense heat.  But such a law was tacitly assumed in our causal explanation.[47]

But our explanation of Bruno’s death is deduced from a biological not historical law. It is sufficient for present purposes, however, simply to point out that explanations of historical facts are theoretically deducible from universal laws and that such laws might include historical laws.[48]

The pro-naturalist assumption that universal laws of history can be derived from an understanding of historical developments commits the inductivist error (as previously outlined) and can therefore be rebutted, on Popperian grounds, as non-scientific. To his discredit, Popper also raises the bogey of holism concerning pro-naturalist historicism; he claims that pro-naturalist historicism is “influenced by holist thinking”[49] and therefore pseudo-scientific. This follows, according to Popper, because the subject matter of pro-naturalist, holist historicism is the development of the whole of human society, which is a unique historical process.[50]

But we cannot hope to test a universal hypothesis nor to find a natural law acceptable to science if we are forever confined to the observation of one unique process. Nor can the observation of one unique process [the development of human society] help us to foresee its future development.[51]

But this argument, asserting that social development is unique (so that generalizations are inappropriate) thereby rules out the possibility of social science. Such a contention, however, sits uneasily with Popper’s outline of the technological approach to social science, which follows the critical (scientific) procedure of conjecture and attempted refutation. As is elaborated in the next Chapter, the piecemeal social engineer proceeds cautiously, ever mindful of possible unforeseen events, possible errors and modifications required concerning his political plans.  Implicit with this approach is the idea that the development of society is a series of stages and processes, which may be compared, and that social theories may be tested – thereby either corroborated or falsified. Popper cannot consistently argue for a scientific theory of social development and at the same time deny that we can construct scientific theories about the development of society for this is claimed to be one unique process. Thus, it would seem that Popper’s error is to refer to the development of society as one unique process, rather than as a plurality of forces and processes. Popper extends his criticism concerning the historicist notion of science arguing: “…there are good reasons, not only for the belief that social science is less complicated than physics, but also for the belief that concrete social situations are in general less complicated than concrete physical situations.”[52]

But this is not clear, especially since Popper notes that the problem of constructing “comparative simple models” of the “actions and inter-actions” of individuals is compounded by the fact that human beings rarely act entirely rationally.[53] Moreover, if a rational act can be defined according to the means adopted towards certain goals, one can say that human beings can act rationally but with different ‘ends’ or ‘values’ in mind.[54] Hence, the problem of constructing models of human behaviour becomes even more complicated by the plurality of goals that are sought-after by individuals. Popper argues that the problem of formulating models of human behaviour, compared with physical phenomena, points to the most important difference between natural and social science.

Other differences in their practices and procedures, such as specific difficulties pertaining to the conduct of experiments and the limit applicability of quantative methods, are “differences of degree rather than of kind”.[55] This chapter has provided a brief analysis of Popper’s exegesis and critique of historicism, has attempted to clear up a number of confusing aspects concerning the construction of Popper’s arguments, and has evaluated the merits of the anti-naturalist and pro-naturalist ideal-types of historicism. Arising from that critique, the next Chapter elaborates upon the historicist doctrine of politics.

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