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Book: After The Open
Society
Author: Karl Popper
Editors: Jeremy Shearmur and Piers
Norris Turner
Publisher: Routledge Classics
Place: London and New York
Year: 2012
ISBN: 978-0-415-61023-0 (pbk)
Reader: Mr. Marquard Dirk Pienaar
CONTENTS
31 January 2014
"Those
who like myself wish to dissent from pragmatism or
instrumentalism admit, as a matter of course, that most
scientific theories are instruments. What we deny is that
they are nothing but
instruments -- more precisely, that they cannot have value
as pure theoretical knowledge. And we shall assert the
old-fashioned thesis that the pure scientist searches for
truth, and not merely for usefulness.
... I think
that the theory of truth developed by Alfred Tarski has
dispelled many sceptical misgivings about the idea of truth.
What Tarski did was to show there was no reason to give up
the commonsense view according to which a statement or a
theory is true if it corresponds to the facts. ...
...
I
agree with the pragmatists that we have to seek for a third
position between optimism and pessimism. But it is clear
that our new 'third position' will have to be, in
contradistinction to the 'third position' of the
pragmatists, much further from pessimism than from optimism." (Shearmur,
Turner 2012: 6).
[Popper wrote about Plato's conception of truth
when Popper referred to Plato's program of procreation
whereby the rulers influenced young people with deceit.
Popper opined Plato's conception of ruling class "communism", included
sharing of the class' women and children, and children were
not supposed to know who their real parents were. (Shearmur,
Turner 2012:189,225).
It implies that Plato's conception of truth was
his subjective "coherent" theory of truth, which did not
prioritize correspondences, in order to reach truer
coherencies, based on corresponding realities, which
precedes coherence, like Kant promoted. Kant's conception of
coherencies, as result of, correspondences, promoted a
belief, whereby different subjective coherencies, are
combined, to form larger wholes in minds, to reach fuller
conceptions of coherence. Fuller conceptions of coherence
can be reached, by combining corresponding communication
about subjective individual coherencies, when individuals
have the same reference point for their correspondences. The
common reference point is actuality, not functional and
instrumental truths, but the real world. This stable
reference point, which is the world, will cause, with
belief, successful societies. That is why honesties are
important, to cause, fuller conceptions of coherence. It
could be argued that this theory of truths is a type of
materialism, because coherence is derived from matter. I
however opine it is not materialism because only belief can
keep people honest enough to correspond reasonably, when
devils start to interfere with honesties. Fuller conceptions
of coherence will benefit the creational effect of humans on
the world. Effecting changes in the world will happen more
efficiently with less negative side effects than currently.]
[Popper wrote in 1992 with reference to not
only Friedrich August von Hayek's book: "The road
to serfdom leads to the disappearance of free and rational
discussion; or if you prefer, of the free market in ideas.
But this has the most devastating effect on everybody, the
so-called leaders included. It leads to a society in which
empty verbiage rules the day; verbiage consisting very
largely of lies issued by the leaders mainly for no purpose
other than self-confirmation and self-glorification. But
this marks the end of their ability to think. They
themselves become the slaves of their lies, like everybody
else. It is also the end of their ability to rule. They
disappear, even as despots. ... Gorbachev was the first
general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
to pay several personal visits to the West. ... He somehow
noticed, probably subconsciously, that his own empire was
suffering from a kind of suppressed mental disease; as
indeed it was, together with all its leaders. It was the
rule of lies." (Shearmur, Turner 2012:405).
I do not agree with Popper about "the free market of
ideas". Popper did not realize that imparting of
ideas in free markets of ideas, as supported by utilitarian
constitutions necessitates lies. This "rule of lies" can be seen
in Caiaphas syndromes when the deceivers accuse honest
people of thinking they are each "God himself" or the
"Mother of God". The accusation is dependent on monotheistic
belief systems.]
[Popper made a clear distinction in his thought
between "dogmatic" and "critical". Dogmatic
people according to him had not the ability to adjust,
whilst critical people could change their views and adjust
to survive. This leads to a situation whereby tools of
societies improve best methods of survival, which do not
relate to "biggest or
the most powerful ones." Marx's "most convincing way" of describing
the difference was referring to "a war between means of
production... This,
however, would be a war between dogmatic and critical ways
of thinking, or between less and more mental flexibility. In
history, the less flexible were usually in the majority.
And, like Louis XIV, or Napoleon, or Kaiser Wilhelm, or
Hitler, they usually had a monolithic and highly centralized
organization." (Shearmur, Turner
2012:332-333)
"The
critical attitude may be described as the conscious attempt
to make our theories, our conjectures, suffer in our stead
in the struggle for survival of the fittest. It gives us a
chance to survive the elimination of an inadequate
hypothesis--when a more dogmatic attitude would eliminate it
by eliminating us. (There is a touching story of an Indian
community which disappeared because of its belief in the
holiness of life, including that of tigers.) We thus obtain
the fittest theory within our reach by the elimination of
those which are less fit. (By 'fitness' I do not mean merely
'usefulness' but truth; see chapters 3 and 10, below.) I do
not think that this procedure is irrational or in need of
any further rational justification."[1]]
["Honesty – granted that this is our virtue, from
which we cannot get free, we free spirits – well, let us labour at it with
all love and malice and not weary of 'perfecting' ourselves
in our virtue, the only one we have: may its
brightness one day overspread this ageing culture and its
dull, gloomy seriousness like a gilded azure mocking evening
glow! And if our honesty should one day none the less grow
weary, and sigh, and stretch its limbs, and find us too
hard, and like to have things better, easier, gentler, like
an agreeable vice: let us remain hard, we last of
the Stoics! And let us send to the aid of our honesty
whatever we have of devilry in us – our disgust at the
clumsy and casual, our 'nimitur in vetitum', our
adventurer's courage, our sharp and fastidious curiosity,
our subtlest, most disguised, most spiritual will to power
and world-overcoming which wanders avidly through all the
realms of the future – let us go to the aid of our 'god'
with all our 'devils'! It is probable that we shall be
misunderstood and taken for what we are not: but what of
that! People will say: 'Their “honesty” - is their devilry
and nothing more!' But what of that! And even if they were
right! Have all gods hitherto not been such devils grown
holy and been rebaptized? And what do we know ourselves,
when all's said and done? And what the spirit which leads us
on would like to be called (it is a question of
names)? And how many spirits we harbour? Our honesty, we free spirits – let us see to it
that our honesty does not become our vanity, our pomp and
finery, our limitation, our stupidity! Every virtue tends
towards stupidity, every stupidity towards virtue; 'stupid
to the point of saintliness' they say in Russia – let us see
to it that through honesty we do not finally become saints
and bores! Is life not a hundred times too short to be –
bored in it? One would have to believe in eternal life too" (Nietzsche, 2003: section
227;p.156)
"nimitur in vetitum" - [Google translation: "too much in the forbidden"]]
Popper wrote: "The position between
optimism and pessimism which I am trying to establish may be
briefly described as follows.
I
agree with the pessimists that there is no
justification for the claim of any particular theory or
assertion to be true. Thus there is no justification of
any claim to know, including the claims of scientific
knowledge. But this merely means that all knowledge,
including scientific knowledge, is hypothetical or
conjectural: it is uncertain, fallible. This certainly does
not mean that every assertion is as good as any other,
competing, assertion. For we can discuss our various
competing assertions, our conjectures, critically; and the
result of the critical discussion is that we find out why
some among the competing conjectures are better than others." (Shearmur,
Turner 2012: 10).
Popper with reference to The Laws[2]
of Plato took a position in favour of altruistic
individualism against Plato's opinion. Popper wrote: "This is clearly
individualism -- altruistic individualism, of course. It
leads to the demand that the State is to exist for the sake of individuals
and not (as Plato demanded, in common with the fascists) the individual for the
sake of the State." (Shearmur, Turner 2012:66). Popper regarded "group egoism", which is
usually "taken for
granted" as evil. (Shearmur, Turner 2012:66,78).
1 February 2014
Popper wrote to
Carnap in 1947: "It is this
aesthetic-Utopianist-Messianist element in Socialism which
is its main danger, and which drives it so easily into a
totalitarian direction." (Shearmur,
Turner 2012:104).
The danger Popper identified i regard to be the
sacrifice of creativities, with the false functionalist
belief in the return of a messias, which cannot exist due to
the weakness of singularity. Individuals with power received
their power from many people. The result is that
creativities are sacrificed in socialist systems and
eventually such territories are colonized. Popper also
referred to Hayek's book The road to serfdom,
which could promote the same realization. Hayek promoted
denationalization of printing money. Whether he promoted a
wider monetary system, for example the current European
Union or whether he promoted narrower printing of currency,
i do not know currently. Previously i thought without
considering a wider than national monetary system that Hayek
wanted a narrower system. I then started to doubt my
thoughts about Hayek but after reading Wikipedia[3]
just now my previous thoughts were enforced, particularly
because at Wikipedia it was written that Hayek thought a
centralized reserve bank could not have the required
knowledge to efficiently control volumes of new currency.
Popper wrote: "As
a step towards the solution of this problem of the agenda and non-agenda of
public policy I suggest that we distinguish between what may
be roughly called 'positive values' and 'negative values',
or, for simplicity's sake, goods and evils. And my
contention -- that misery should be considered a matter for
public policy while happiness should not be so considered --
could be perhaps re-stated in this way: the fight against
avoidable concrete evils such as avoidable misery should be
considered a public duty while the realization of comparably
concrete positive goods should not be considered a public
duty." (Shearmur, Turner 2012:118).
Popper thought: "I
found that Plato and Hitler were exponents of a reaction to
the same social phenomenon: social change. Both
represented an attempt to get over the strain caused by the
breakdown of the closed society, both are exponents of The Strain of
Civilization, and of The Fear of Change.
This explained to me why the equation was valid: it was not
valid because of any similarity in the two persons, however
faint, but because both answered a similar challenge." (Shearmur, Turner 2012:176-177).
Popper opposed the idea of the "Messias (sic), the wise king, the
philosopher king" in The
Open Society and its Enemies. (Shearmur, Turner
2012:177).
Popper thought: "In my book [The Open
Society and its Enemies], I
mention explicitly the points of Platonism which, in my
opinion, were pernicious. They are:
(1) Utopianism,
Aestheticism.
(Let us first agree on the ideal society we want.)
(2) The
question 'who should rule'. (Which leads to the answer 'the
best', i.e. to aristocracy.)
(3) Education
as a class prerogative and a class attribute. (Another
emphasis on aristocracy.)
(4) The use of
white lies in politics. The belief that the people have to
be told [such lies], and that they cannot be as wise as the
rulers
(5) The
equation: individualism = egoism" (Shearmur, Turner 2012:178).
Is Popper's reference to "white lies" to
Socrates's opinion? "Socrates: 'And
surely
we must value truthfulness highly. For if we were right when
we said just now that falsehood is no use to the gods and
only useful to men as a kind of medicine,
it's clearly a kind of medicine that should be entrusted to
doctors and not to laymen. . . It will be for the rulers of
our city, then, if anyone, to use falsehood in dealing with
citizen or enemy for the good of the State; no one else must
do so. And if any citizen lies to our
rulers, we shall regard it as a still graver offence than it
is for a patient to lie to his doctor, or for any athlete to
lie to his trainer about his physical condition, or for a
sailor to misrepresent to his captain any matter concerning
the ship or crew, or the state of himself or his
fellow-sailors.' " (Plato, The
Republic, 389a)
Popper wrote: "True
the Republic and
the Laws are very
pretentious too -- and the Laws, more
especially, are vicious and full of lies: but again and
again the sun manages to break through the clouds, and there
are insights of immeasurable value."
(Shearmur,
Turner 2012:217).
Popper with
reference to closed societies and totalitarianism emphasized
negative impacts on individuals who are treated as "scapegoats" with postulates of " 'preventive
terror' ". (Shearmur,
Turner 2012:244).
Popper wrote: "I have given the name
'historicism' to the view that history is predictable, and
that it is the task of the social sciences to predict it. I
have criticized this view and, I believe, refuted it. Its
refutation demolishes not only all claims of the Marxists
that history is on their side, but also of course all claims
that it is on our side.
All
such appeals to history are, one might say, religious
heresies, heretical forms of Western monotheism. This can be
shown by comparing them with an earlier heresy, one which
replaced the God of Christianity by Nature. This earlier,
naturalistic, revolution against God simply replaced the
name 'God' by the name 'Nature'." Popper had for example, "Natural Selection" and "Science" in mind when he wrote this. (Shearmur,
Turner 2012:245,462).
Popper's book The Open Society and
its Enemies, is a direct result of the circumstances,
which caused the 2nd World War and opposes "historicism
(historical prophecy), collectivism and irrationalism". (Shearmur,
Turner 2012:179). Popper opposed the idea of the "Messias (sic), the wise
king, the philosopher king". (Shearmur,
Turner 2012:177). Popper wrote to
Carnap in 1947: "It is this
aesthetic-Utopianist-Messianist element in Socialism which
is its main danger, and which drives it so easily into a
totalitarian direction." (Shearmur,
Turner 2012:104). Popper with
reference to closed societies and totalitarianism emphasized
negative impacts on individuals who are treated as "scapegoats" with postulates of " 'preventive
terror' ". (Shearmur,
Turner 2012:244). Popper wrote: "I have
given the name 'historicism' to the view that history is
predictable, and that it is the task of the social sciences
to predict it. I have criticized this view and, I believe,
refuted it. Its refutation demolishes not only all claims of
the Marxists that history is on their side, but also of
course all claims that it is on our side.
All
such appeals to history are, one might say, religious
heresies, heretical forms of Western monotheism." (Shearmur,
Turner 2012:245).
The idea of the "Messiah" is irrational because
the weakness of singularity implies one man cannot have the
power of God, not even if he is given power by a group, who
always have power to take the given power away, whether by
murder or by statute.
Popper's three evils, identified in his book
can therefore be traced back to one origin, which is
Caiaphas syndrome. "Historicism" and "irrationalism" relates
to the predictions of a 2nd coming of Christ and
"collectivism" relates to scapegoating and "preventive
terror". The question arises how Caiaphas syndrome affected
Germany before the 2nd World War in relation to the Jewish
and German communities. Which community were more ill with
Caiaphas syndrome? Was it the Jewish community, the German
community or was both communities equally affected?
"Radical transcendence as alterity"[4]
is a countercultural movement relating to
authenticities due to notions attached to ulterior motives,
identified in authenticities according to Charles Taylor in
his book The Malaise
of modernity. Westphal
emphasized, with reference to Niebuhr[5],
that the "return of Christ"
and by implication creators' activities should be seen as
threats, which require restrictions.[6]
Intelligence agencies during recent times have broken the
balances between securities and privacies by using modern
technology irresponsibly.[7]
CCTV News reported that the National Security Agency of the
USA accessed computers of civilians with radio wave
technology even whilst the computers were not connected to
the Internet.[8]
Aljazeera News reported that text messages were intercepted
because the messages were regarded a "goldmine to exploit".[9]
"Sin, the opposite of
trusting obedience, is the desire for autonomy, not merely
as being responsible for my own actions, but also as being
the one who defines my identity and sets my own agenda. The
same is true when the ‘I’ is expanded to the ‘We’, the self
to society." [10]
From these quotations it can be questioned whether
Westphal's views about creativities are dangerous to
societies' independence as creative units. Sometimes theodicies are regarded as
bureaucratic necessity.[11]
Westphal's theism acknowledges "God as creator"; God can exist without
the world but the world cannot exist without God. He wrote
Pantheism and atheism, which are basically the same,
postulate interdependence; God cannot exist without the
world and vice versa. Atheism and pantheism do not recognize
"God, as personal,
purposive creator".[12]
11 February 2014
Popper wrote about
the victory of the "Great
Alliance" over "National
Socialism" during the 2nd World
War. (Shearmur, Turner 2012:245).
Elsewhere in the book i recall Popper wrote
about bringing liberalists and socialists together. It seems
then that Popper was an internationalist liberalist with
socialist leanings. His socialist leanings were however
limited due to his arguments against collectivism. The
"National" in National Socialism could refer to Caiaphas
Syndrome because of the Nationalist ideas in the book of
Revelation.
"From
Plato to Karl Marx and beyond, the fundamental problem has
always been: who should rule the state? (One of my points
will be that this problem must be replaced by a totally
different one.) Plato's answer was simple and naïve: 'the
best' should rule. If possible, 'the best of all', alone.
Next choice: the best few, the aristocrats. But certainly
not the many, the rabble, the demos.
The Athenian practice had
been, even before Plato's birth, precisely the opposite: the
people, the demos, should rule. All important political
decisions -- such as war and peace -- were made by the
assembly of all full citizens. This is now called 'direct
democracy'; but we must never forget that the citizens
formed a minority of the inhabitants -- even of the natives.
From the point of view here adopted, the important thing is
that, in practice, the Athenian democrats regarded their
democracy as the alternative to tyranny -- to arbitrary
rule; in fact, they knew well that a popular leader might be
invested with tyrannical powers by a popular vote.
So they knew that a popular
vote may be wrongheaded, even in the most important matters.
(The institution of ostracism recognized this: the
ostracized person was banned as a matter of precaution only;
he was neither tried nor regarded as guilty.)" (Shearmur, Turner 2012:361).
Popper wrote that
Plato "recommended concentration camps" due to Plato's ideology, which worked "in
terms of classes". (Shearmur,
Turner 2012:395).
With reference to
Friedrich von Hayek's book The Road to Serfdom
Popper explained Von Hayek's "enslavement
theorem" as follows: "The
road to serfdom leads to the disappearance of free and
rational discussion; or, if you prefer, of the free market
in ideas. But this has the most devastating effect on
everybody, the so-called leaders included. It leads to a
society in which empty verbiage rules the day; verbiage
consisting very largely of lies issued by the leaders mainly
for no purpose other than self-confirmation and
self-glorification. But this marks the end of their ability
to think. They themselves become the slaves of their lies,
like everybody else. It is also the end of their ability to
rule. They disappear even as despots.
Of course, these are also,
partly, matters of individual personal talents. But I
suggest that they are mainly dependent upon the temporal
length of the enslavement. The acceptance of lies as the
universal intellectual currency drives out truth -- just as
bad money drives out good money." Popper wrote about Gorbachev who visited the
West several times personally and was aware of the societal
mental illness in Russia: "the
rule of lies". (Shearmur,
Turner 2012:405).
Just after the 2nd World War, Von Hayek started
the Mont Pèlerin Society on the 'mont' at the southern
shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland to counter the effect
of the many "intellectuals" who opted for
fashionable socialism at the time. (Shearmur, Turner
2012:403).
NIETZSCHE, F. 2003. Beyond good and
evil: prelude to a philosophy of the future. (London:
Penguin, 3rd Penguin edition)
PLATO. 2007c. The
Republic.
(London,
England: Penguin, 2nd edition)
POPPER, K.R. 1963. Chapter 1 -
Science: Conjectures and Refutations. (In Conjectures and
refutations: the growth of scientific knowledge, pp.
33-59. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul)
[1] POPPER,
K.R. 1963. Chapter 1 -
Science: Conjectures and, 52.
[2] " 'but the whole does not exist for the sake
of the part. ... You yourself are created for the sake
of the whole, and not the whole for the sake of you'.
... [Plato, Laws, 903 c.]"
(Shearmur, Turner 2012:67,435)
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek
on 1 February 2014
[4]
Westphal, M. 2012. Dimensions of divine, 135.
[5]
"Niebuhr, H.R., 1951. Christ
and culture. New York, NY: Harper &
Brothers." (Westphal, 2012: 136)
[6]
Westphal, M. 2012. Dimensions of divine, 135.
[7]
Interview on France 24 news channel, 17 November
2013, 10h10 (South Africa time) with Elmar Brok, German
member of the European parliament and current chairman
of the European parliament committee on foreign affairs.
The interview was about spying by intelligence agencies,
which caused the necessity of new agreements between the
USA and Europe due to infringements on the European
populace's privacies.
[8]
Channel 403, CCTV News on Top TV. 16 January
2014, 18h15, South Africa time.
[9]
Channel 401, Aljazeera News on Top TV. 17 January
2014, 18h00, South Africa time.
[10]
Westphal. M. 2012. Dimensions of divine, 128.
[11]
Trakakis, N. The end of philosophy of religion, 25.
[12]
Westphal. M. 2012. Dimensions of divine, 126-127.