ABOUT POPPER: ANOTHER VIEW

Feb 14, 2023 Letters

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Dear Editor,

In one of his more recent ‘Ian on Sunday’ columns headlined: ‘The Uncertainty Principle’ published in S/N January, 22, 2023, Mr. Ian McDonald was bold enough to declare that ‘Karl Raimond Popper (1902-94) (was) one of the greatest thinkers of his, or any age…’

Ian’s column opened the door for those who wished, to engage in an exchange of views on the subject, and generally, to ‘dabble’ briefly in philosophy. In this regard, I take this opportunity to approach Ian’s opinion on Popper from another perspective.

The opinion expressed by Ian as regards Popper’s philosophy, that is, his personal bias and outlook as a philosopher of science, fall into the camp of those who hold the empirical and materialist view that all our information must come from the senses (the scientific realist and critical rationalist approach). This is in contrast to the rationalists and idealists who believe that truth can be arrived at through abstract reasoning.

Popper proposed an extremely difficult standard for the acceptance of any scientific truth. In his ‘The Logic of Scientific Discovery’ He argued that ‘it is humankind’s role and privilege to theorize about laws that may govern the universe.’ He went on further to posit, that ‘We may be physiologically set up to get things wrong much of the time, but nevertheless our ability to think in a vaguely logical way, though reason, makes us unique in the animal world’.

His view was, “Whenever we propose a solution to a problem, we ought to try as hard as we can to overthrow our solution, rather than defend it.” He held that “all scientific knowledge is of a hypothetical character and is subject to error”. He rejected the laws of social development and upheld social reformism.

Popper was born forty- years after the death of Karl Marx ( 1883-1858) and seven years after the death of Fredreich Engels (1820-1895) a close friend and collaborator of Marx.

Since the writings of Frederick Engels would have been fresh in the minds of thinkers and philosophers in Europe in Popper’s time, it is reasonable to conclude that Popper must have been acquainted with the work of Engels.

Just 7 years before Popper’s birth, Engels had already expressed his views on the philosophy and laws of science in his ‘Dialectics of Nature’ (notes of 1873-86), first published in the USSR in 1925. Poppers’ ‘Logic of Scientific Discovery’ was published in 1934, fifty-eight years later.

Writing in the November 7, 1998 edition of the ‘Economic and Political Weekly,’ a publication of the University of Iowa, Ashish Lahiri put it this way; ‘Frederick Engels’ reflections on the non-inductive source of knowledge, their confirmation or refutation through observation and on scope of chance in the philosophy of science, draw attention to the hitherto unacknowledged similarities between Engels and Karl Popper’s.’

I mention Marx and Engels principally because, Popper was heavily involved in left-wing politics and Marxism during his student days at the University of Vienna. It follows that Marxism and left-wing politics continued to be influential in Europe long after Marx’s passing.

Contrast what Ian said about Popper, with what Engels said on occasion of Marx’s burial on March 17, 1858; “His name and work will endure through the ages.” So Popper is not alone in the ‘serene brotherhood of philosophs’ of ‘his age or any other age.’

For reasons than would prove too exhaustive if not exhausting, and just for the sake of philosophy, I would include Kurt Wittgenstein (1889-1951) and Bertrand Russel (1872-1970) amongst the greatest of their time and any other time. Karl Marx should be placed in a totally different category of philosophers.

According to newspaper reports, in 1946, Bertrand Russel, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper met for the first time at the Cambridge Moral Science Club where Popper was the guest speaker.

Authors David Edmonds and John Eidinow attempted to uncover exactly what happened;

“What is clear is that there were vehement exchanges between Popper and Wittgenstein over the fundamental nature of philosophy — whether there were indeed philosophical problems (Popper) or merely puzzles (Wittgenstein). The two engaged in a battle for supremacy.”

“When a question was asked about ‘The Status of Ethics’ Wittgenstein summarily dismissed what Popper described as; ‘The Real Philosophical Problem’ Wittgenstein then challenged Popper to give an example of ‘The Moral Rule.’ Popper’s reply was that he Wittgenstein, appeared to be threatening visiting lecturers. Whereupon Wittgenstein in a rage, stormed out of the gathering only to return moments later.”

According to the two authors; “The details of that evening may be murky. But what we do know is that two of the greatest philosophers of the day both came to that meeting thinking they were saving “philosophy from the mistakes of its past.”

Russell, the mathematician and logician who was 74 at that time had become an older and wiser man mellowed by time and a varied life.

That being said, I return to Marx.

Nowadays, buzzwords like ‘transformational’, ‘globalization and trade liberalization’ can be heard everywhere, suffice it to say that since 1848 Marx was already addressing those concerns.

That Marx’s thoughts were transformative were reflected in his words; ‘Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.’ (1845). Though it has been disputed, his thought helped reshape the world in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Moreover, the shift in financial, economic and military power particularly to Asia, especially China, as well as the silicon boom of America’s West Coast towns was predicted by Marx more than a century before Bill Gates was born. And though it might be disputed, Marx’s ideas are known to have transformed the study of philosophy, economics and history. Above all, his work should be considered more the start of a conversation than its conclusion.

Readers may ask; why view Popper’s life-work through the prism of Marx, who some see as discredited, outmoded and irrelevant in these modern times.

A 2007 Study of ‘The Social and Political views of American Professors’ at American universities and conducted by professors Gross and Simmons from Harvard and Mason universities respectively show that;

‘The highest proportion of Marxist academics can be found in the social sciences, and there they represent less than 185 percent of all professors (sociology contains the most Marxists, at 256.5 percent).

The study went on: ‘It is liberal arts colleges that are home to the highest proportion of Marxists (12.07.5 percent, as compared to 3.05 percent in community colleges, 5.28.3 percent in other BA granting schools, 3.14.4 percent at non-elite, PhD granting institutions, and just 3.02.8 percent in elite, PhD granting schools).’

The findings are more pronounced at European Universities. Research shows that Marxism is more popular in European than at American universities. There they consider it as part of the basic intellectual fabric of modern social sciences. According to one observer, “Leaving Marx out of the social sciences would be almost as monumentally wrong as leaving the Bible out of the history of Western literature.”

Based on Ian’s column, it is reasonable to conclude that he found in Popper, a fairly acceptable account of how science is applied in practice. While that is not questionable, it is reasonable also to accept that in every field of human endeavour, every generation of mankind has learnt from previous generations. In that respect, we can either take knowledge of others from the past, (the universal school) or engage in abstract reasoning in search of truth.

Popper is justly regarded as a key figure in the field of the philosophy of science. He considered Marxism a pseudo-science in the same way he considered Freudian psychoanalysis.

During his university days, Popper held the view that Marxism was initially scientific, in that, it was genuinely predictive. However, as he became more engrossed in his philosophical studies, and as he observed the purges in the USSR under Stalin; the bastard creeds espoused by some who professed to be Marxists and the deviations by politicians on both left and the right, those events led him to conclude that Marxism is unscientific because it was modified to accommodate empirical observations and to justify practical aberrations.

Popper became disillusioned with what he described as ‘the doctrinaire character of Marxism.’ He criticized Marx’s ‘Das Kapital’ stating; ‘One cannot tell whether or not Marx was writing nonsense, since his ‘iron laws’ of capitalist development are as vague and slippery as the quatrains of Nostradamus… they cannot be either be proved or falsified.’

Popper’s ‘Achilles heel’ was his commitment to the ‘primacy of critical rationalism’ counterpointed by hostility towards anything that amounted to less than total acceptance of his own thought. He substituted the principle of falsification for the principle of verification but made an absolute of the principle of falsification from his denial of the objective truth of scientific knowledge. He ended up an isolated figure, though his ideas continued to inspire admiration.

In his seminal work, ‘The Open Society and Its Enemies’ (1962), Popper makes a revealing disclosure; “…Marx, on the other hand, has too often been attacked on personal and moral grounds, so that here the need is, rather, for a severe rational criticism of his theories combined with a sympathetic understanding of their astonishing moral and intellectual appeal. Rightly or wrongly, I felt that my criticism was devastating, and that I could therefore afford to search for Marx’s real contributions, and to give his motives the benefit of the doubt”.

Looking at the PPP through the eyes of Marx and Popper, it would be reasonable to conclude that the PPP never rejected the philosophy that sovereignty rests with the people, nor did it subscribe rigidly to Marxist ideology. Also, did it cling slavishly to the uncertainties of state socialism or utopian ‘Cooperative Socialism.’

In the late 1980’s, the PPP moderated it’s ideological narrative to capitalise on the opportunities that opened up with the end of the Cold War and to compete domestically for cross-over votes. It reoriented its political and ideological messaging based on the United Nations Charter and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the OAS Convention on Human Rights as well as declarations emanating from Conferences of Commonwealth Heads of Government and CARICOM’s Treaty of Chaguaramas. In that way, the party increasingly gravitated towards more nationalist and patriotic policies that were more inclusive and acceptable to all classes and social strata in Guyanese society.

Moreover, the Party championed electoral reforms and supported calls by the international community for free and fair elections. From its inception to this day, the PPP’s strategy and tactics has always been applied creatively in support of workers, farmers and the business community. The party favors political and ideological pluralism, a mixed economy, political and social democracy, cultural diversity and racial equality, political, economic and social reforms, power sharing (as reflected in its civic component) and alliance politics aimed at winning political power through mass struggle and the ballot box.

Yours faithfully,

Clement J. Rohee

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• Clement J. Rohee, Karl Marx, Karl Raimond Popper, Mr. Ian McDonald, The Logic of Scientific Discovery

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