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KarlPopper:Reason withoutRevolution

Rajeev Bhargava

Popper will be remembered as one of the great philosophers of science in

the 20th century. On the other hand, his place as a political philosopher is

far less secure. Why ?

TWENTY years ago radical students at

university in India were enraged at the very

mention of Karl Popper, the influential

philosopher who died last month at the age

of 92. His was a household name to be

scorned at. Wasn't Popper's rationalism

too pure to be anything but suffocating?

Hadn't Kuhn and Feyerabend, by showing

the virtual impossibility of demarcating

science from non-science, irreparablydamaged his reputation as an eminent

philosopher of science? And, in the early

days of the cold war, had he not taken an

obdurate anti-Soviet stance? Wasn't he the

self-proclaimed enemy of socialism, a

Marx-baiter, a liberal status-quoist who

would not admit to differences between

fascism and socialism?

The collapse of the Soviet system and

the gradual erosion of the popular

legitimacy of science might force upon us

the imprudent conclusion that while

Popper's stature as a political philosopherwill grow, his reputation as a philosopher

of science will decline steadily. Nothing

could be further from the truth. Twenty

years hence Popper will still be remembered

as one of the great philosophers of science

in the 20th century. On the other hand, his

place as a political philosopher is far less

secure. Why?

All things considered, the plain truth

about Popper's political philosophy is that

it is a child of its times in a manner that

stifles its relevance in other contexts. The

political values he instinctively defendedwill endure but the formulation that he

deployed in their defence, motivated by

partisan ideological considerations

grounded curiously in the most abstract

metaphysical premises, will not. Indeed,

its strength was entirely derivative; drawn

from the intellectual power of its enemy.

Looking back at it, one finds it rather thin

and unilluminating on precisely those

values of liberal democracy that formed

the lynchpin of his attack on socialist

systems. Besides, it is plagued with other

problems. It notoriously misreads Hegeland Marx, the two principal 'enemies of

the open society'. Its anti-authoritarian

polemic is useful but unlikely to attract

those who do not share his metaphysical

concerns. True, it draws attention to the

dangers of utopianism and extreme

perfectionism, but compared to other works

in this genre of writing, its apocalyptic,

hysterical tone will always be a liability.

Let me not be unfair. Popper's general

point that mass violence and terror in all

forms and under all contexts is a crimeagainst humanity had contextual relevance.

He said it precisely when it required urgent

statement and with characteristic passion.

But intensity of feeling cannot be confused

with depth of insight. To have lasting value,

a treatise on violence must not only record

the horror of slaughter but also tell us why

violence continues to be deployed in the

defence of the most despicable and

exploitative social orders as well as for

their overthrow Failure here binds his work

to evanescent ideologies rather than to great

philosophies that stand the test of time.Similar ideological single-mindedness

muddled Popper's thinking on methodology

in Social Science where he in holism and

political totalitarianism or between

individualism and political liberalism. How

such a complex and subtle thinker could

have established strong, intermeshing

connections between politics and-

methodology has been a source of perennial

puzzlement to me. But ideological issues

aside, was his defence of methodological

individualism justified?

Now, methodological individualism isthe view that all social phenomena such as

class and caste must be explained wholly

and exhaustively in terms of attributes such

as beliefs, desires, intentions and actions

and more importantly, that such attributes

can only be individualistically construed.

Which is why rather than explain the social

in terms of other social-entities, we must,

the individualist suggests, look for their

explanation in terms of individual

phenomena. Popper uncritically accepted

this controversial individualist assumption

and went on to defend an individualistmethodology in the social sciences. But

better philosophical sense suggests that

equally good if not better arguments exist

for the view that beliefs, desires, intentions

and actions are inescapably social, so that

an explanation couched in their terms is

still social rather than individualist. To

give explanatory importance to human

action is one thing, to believe that this

entails a commitment to individualism is

quite another. Popper did not appear to

distinguish these two issues.So, what made Popper famous? I doubt

if the philosophical story of the nature and

function of science and an understanding

of the features that distinguish it from other

human activities can be adequate or

complete without a proper grasp of Popper's

role in its illumination. Popper's project

was to help focus on the internal specificity

of science, to demarcate itfromnon-science.

He sought to do so without undermining

the role of judgment and imagination in the

formation of scientific hypothesis, without

relying on a full-blooded, uncompromisingnotion of truth, and with the help of a non-

traditional view of rational, scientific

method. Contrary to popular belief and

against the grain of what he himself stated

in some of his writings, he also granted a

fairly prominent role to, both history and

value in the understanding of scientific

activity.

Let me elaborate briefly, Before Popper,

the nature of scientific method was

understood in inductivist terms. The

controlled observation of particular

instances led to the formation of ahypothesis that required further positive

tests for confirmation. A hypothesis is true

when supported by positive tests. The goal

of scientific activity was the accretion of

such true hypotheses. But at the heart of

this understanding lay the unsolved problem

of induction that generated anxiety and

scepticism among scientists and often led

them towards mysticism and even

irrationalism.

What is the problem of induction?

Quite simply that no matter how long

the list of confirmatory instances, auniversal claim can never be derived

from it. This means that strictly

speaking no scientific hypothesis is ever

proven to be true. Even after a million

white swans are witnessed it cannot be

concluded, for example, that all swans

are white. Popper's unique solution was to

change track here by suggesting that rather

than look for further confirmatory instances,

the scientist, who may form a hypothesis

any which way she pleases, must seek

its falsification. His solution rested on

a simple logical point, namely, thatwhile no amount of confirmatory

instances can fully establish a law, a

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single counter-example can fa lsi fy a law-

like claim.

It follows that a scientific community

must seek to falsify hypothesis, failing

which it should conclude that the hypothesis

in question is closer to truth than others

- Popper called this versimilitude. Popper

believed that the history of any mature

sc i e nce con s i s t ed in the g ra dua l

accumulation of theories, each succeeding

one somehow getting nearer to the truth

than its predecessor. Popper also believed

that although a scientist uses his powers

of imagination and instinct to form the

wildest of hypothesis - here no method of

discovery exists, a rational scientific method

exists to adju dicat e betw een com peti ng

hypot heses . In othe r word s, scien tist s

employ a perfectly legitimate logic of

valida tion: successive fai lur e to fal sif y a

hypothesis increases the degree of i ts

versimilitude.

Let me repeat. Popper never gave up the

belief that the world out there had an

essential structure waiti ng to be disco vered.

He also believed that although the actual

process of discovery has no fixed and

determinate procedure, there existed a

form alis able , rule-s ensitiv e method on

which scientists had to rely to know that

what they believed to have discovered was

really a structural feature of the world.

One other move distinguishes Popper's

view fro m traditional concep tion s roo ted

in empiri cism. Popper insisted that only

publicly observable statements of a certainkind - what he called basic stateme nts -

could fal sify a hypot hesis. Thi s enab led

him to take the empirical base of science

away from the emba rras sing subj ectiv ism

in which it was caught. For Popper

observat ion was not simple sensory

experience but a public event to bo tested

and modified. Observations such as Here

are the sixteen moons of Jupiter are not

infallibly given in perceptual experiences,

in private sensations. Rather, they are

publicly recorded. This made Science a

public activity. Bv making critical puhlic

tests integral lo science. Popper brought

philosophy of science closer to the practice

of the scientific community.

These views of Popper are ridden with

prob lems . For a start, it is simp ly imp oss ible

to test all strongly falsifiable theories. The

number of theories we actually select to

test is much smaller than the set of all

possible theories that are falsifiable. No

scientific method determines this prior

selection of theories which we bother to

test. Philosophers of science like Hilary

Putnam have long insisted that to seekformal rules here is impossible or self-

def eat ing . Coul d Pop per accept this

criticism, and mod ify his position by saying

that the requirement of a formal method

is only a necessary condition for scientific

rationality and that in part we must rely

on intuition and inarticulable insight. The

trouble is that even this conception of

scientific method as a mixture of informal

insight and formal rules is inappropriate

for scie nce. As Pop per hims elf later

admitted, this broadened conception docs

not apply to one of the most influential

theorie s of modern sc ience, i e, Dar wins

theory of evolution by natural selection.

Critics have pointed out that our reasons

for accepting Da rwin 's theory is not becaus e

it has passed a Popperian test but because

it makes sense of a lot of data and therefore

gives us its plausible explanation. It is

con sis ten t with what ph ilo so phe rs of

scie nce have calle d infer enc e to the best-

explanation, grounded precisely in the kind

of logic thai Popper found completely

unpalatable . If we attempt to make Popp er' s

scientific method comp atible with this logic

then it becomes so diffused that one begins

lo wonder why it is called a method at all.

At any rate, this is far too inconsistent with

anythingthat Popperhad in mind or implied.

One has to conclude, therefore , that

Popper's scientific method has at best

restricted validity and can find no general

application.

Secondly, once Popper had rejected all

inductive arguments, he wtis left with no

ju sti f ic at io n fo r di sal low in g any th eo ry .

Indeed Popper did not have any reason forthinking that his method of conjecture and

refutation will tend to produce theories

having greater versimilitude. The clear

implication is that even on his terms, for

Popper science was an irrational activity.

Two reasons can be adduced in favour of

the claim that Popper was not really a

rationalist even on his terms. First, the

Popper i an sys t em res t ed on bas i s

statements, the acceptance of which can

never be rationally justified, Second, even

if we disregard this problem, we must

conf ront the fact that our scien tific pr acticeis wholly at odds with the prescription that

we abandon theories simply because they

mismatch observations. To be sure. Popper

adm it s this. But he fail s wit hin his

framework to spell out those conditions

und er which a theo ry out of tune w ith

observations may still be retained. Again,

his admission that basic statements are

ungrounded can be read in two ways. One

brings it fully within a certain kind of

decisionism. The second takes it out of a

foundationalist framework opening up a

space between a solid bedrock and a wholly

mushy ground where anything goes. The

trouble is that Popper does not much

theorise this space and tends to move in

a wholly conventionalist direction. This is

not the place to make an argument but there

are times when Popper's account of theory

choice resembles more and more the kind

of strong relativist position that is much

despised by his followers. One might say

then that to get rid of the problems of

inductivism, Popper landed straight in the

lap of an equally pernicious deductivism.

When in turn, he tried to rid himself of the

pro ble ms inher ent in this posi t ion he

slipped into an utterly indefensible and

unreasonable irrationalism. Popper never

adopted this second strategy explicitly.

Indeed, through his life he resisted these

moves, often holding stubbornly on to

mistaken views but never renouncing his

faith in science as a worthwhile and rational

human ^activity.

But critics were quick to employ this

tension in his philosophy. By finding Haws

in his philosophy, Feycrabend could argue,for exa mp le, against the possibility of

rational scientific change and progress, and

claim that neither inductive nor deductive

logic permits the re ject ion of any

hypothesis. In other words, in science just

about anything goes. Drawing upon

Popper's own ideas against truth and

exploiting the implausibilily of the notion

of versimilitude. philosophers discarded

the very distinction between true and false,

paving the way for strong relativism,

The history of human endeavour is replete

with instances of people idealising theirpractices - far, far removed from what they

actually do. Scientists and philosophers of

science too have succumbed to this

temptation. Popper look the first faltering

steps towards amending and improving

this picture, later rectified by a chastened

Thomas Kuhn but lambasted beyond

recognition by Feycrabend. It w^is important

to make science look recognisably human

but philosophers such as Feycrabend were

carr ied away so far that they made sc ienc e

look exactly like any ot he r hum an activity.

In an attempt to bring it down to earth, theyfinished with a picture of science where the

very point and internal differentia of

science was completely lost. Popper played

an important role, without yielding to

Fcyenibendian temptations, in this transition

f r o m a n i d e a l i s e d t o a m o d e s t ,

un pr et en ti ou s view of science. This may

well be because he was too deeply trapped

in the very idealisation that he sought lo

dismantle. But it was also because he had

the courage to defend science as an

imp or t an t pa r t o f gene ra l huma n

flouris hing. Philosop hers and scientists willcontinue to learn as much from his insights

as from his errors.

3314 Economic and Political Weekly December 31, 1994