Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Encouraging Openness pp 493–510Cite as

To Transcend the Popper-Agassi Impasse

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

  • 334 Accesses

Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science ((BSPS,volume 325))

Abstract

Agassi is an independent philosopher who shows basic trust in individuals given their inclination for progress, thus espousing eudaimony in matters cognitive and ethical. He rejected Popper’s view of human nature as inherently regressive, which led to the recommendation of the disciplining character and the promotion of hope through ethical injunction. The paper presents this Popper-Agassi intellectual conflict as an impasse, among others, due to the participants’ lack of critical rationalist pedagogical developmental theory and technology to advance critical minds and resilient identities, containing and operating both friendly openness and critical boldness vis-à-vis a reality in flux.

A: I dreamt I was a butterfly, said Chuang Tzu.

B: I dreamt I was human, said I.

A: I dreamt the world was my oyster, said Falstaff.

B: We do the best we can, anyway, whatever it is.

A: I wish I were more human, say we all.

B: I wish I were a butterfly, said Borges. (Agassi 2008, p. 312)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

References

  • Agassi, Joseph. 1966. Sensationalism. Mind 75: 1–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1974. Postscript: The futility of fighting the philistines. Philosophia 4: 163–201.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1975. Science in flux. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Pub. Co..

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1977. Towards a rational philosophical anthropology. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1981 [1973]. Standards to live by. In Science and Society. 491–501. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1982. In search of rationality—A personal report. In: In Pursuit of Truth, ed. Paul Levinson, 237–248. Atlantic Heights: Humanities.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1985. Technology: Philosophical and social aspects. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Pub. Co..

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2008 [1994]. A philosopher’s apprentice: In Karl Popper’s workshop (2nd). Amsterdam: Rodopi

    Google Scholar 

  • Artigas, Mariano. 1999. The ethical nature of Karl Popper’s theory of knowledge. Bern: P. Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bartley, William W. III. 1962. The retreat to commitment. New York: Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1982. A Popperian harvest. In In Pursuit of truth, ed. Paul Levinson, 249–289. Atlantic Heights: Humanities.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berkson, William, and John Wettersten. 1984. Learning from error. La Salle: Open Court Publishing Co..

    Google Scholar 

  • Deutsch, Helene. 1973. Confrontations with myself: An epilogue. Oxford: W. W. Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fried, Yehuda, and Joseph Agassi. 1976. Paranoia: A study in diagnosis. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co..

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Fuller, Steve. 2011. Philosophy as failed patricide. The European Legacy 16: 977–980.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gattei, Stefano. 2002. The ethical nature of Karl Popper’s solution to the problem of rationality. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 32 (2): 240–266.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gellner, Ernest. 1985. The psychoanalytic movement: The cunning of unreason. London: Paladin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jarvie, Ian C. 1972. Concepts and society. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2005. Workshop rationality, dogmatism, and models of the mind. In: The Mind as a Scientific Object, ed. David M. Johnson and Christina E. Erneling, 471–486. Oxford: Oxford UP.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2016. Popper’s philosophy and the methodology of social science. In: The Cambridge Companion to Popper, ed. Geoffrey Stokes and Jeremy Shearmur, 284–317. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jarvie, I.C., and N. Laor, eds. 1994. Critical rationalism, the social sciences and the humanities. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laor, Nathaniel. 1994. Religion and rational philosophy: Coming of age. In: Critical Rationalism, Metaphysics and Science: Essays for Joseph Agassi, vol. I, ed. Ian. C. Jarvie, and Nathaniel Laor, 91–129. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Loewald, Hans W. 1980. The waning of the Oedipus complex. In Papers on Psychoanalysis, 384–404. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Polanyi, Michael. 1958. Personal knowledge. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Popper Karl, R. 1945. The open society and its enemies. London: Routledge & Sons.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1972. Objective knowledge: An evolutionary approach. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1963. Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge. London: Routledge and Keagan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1994. The myth of the framework: In Defence of science and rationality. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1998 [1958–1959]. Back to the presocratics. In The World of Parmenides: Essays on the Presocratic Enlightenment, 7–32. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roazen, Paul. 1969. Brother animal: The story of Freud and Tausk. New York: A.A. Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1985. Helene Deutsch: A psychoanalyst’s life. New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rokeach, Milton. 1964. The three christs of Ypsilanti. New York: Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Szasz, Thomas S. 1958. Psycho-analytic training. A socio-psychological analysis of its history and present status. The International Journal of Psycho-analysis 39: 598–613.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1963. The concept of transference. The International Journal of Psycho-analysis 44: 432–443.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wisdom, John O. 1984. What is left of psychoanalytic theory? International Review of Psycho-analysis 11: 313–326.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Medical Education and Psychiatry, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Nathaniel Laor

  2. Department of Philosophy, Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities; and Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Nathaniel Laor

Authors
  1. Nathaniel Laor
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nathaniel Laor .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Communication and Mass Media Department, Sapir College, Shaar Hanegev, Israel

    Nimrod Bar-Am

  2. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

    Stefano Gattei

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Laor, N. (2017). To Transcend the Popper-Agassi Impasse. In: Bar-Am, N., Gattei, S. (eds) Encouraging Openness. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 325. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57669-5_38

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation