Abstract
“Science does not rest on a rockbed. Its towering edifice, an amazingly bold structure of theories, rises over a swamp,” wrote Karl Popper (1902–1994) in the fall of 1932. “The foundations are piers going down into the swamp from above. They do not reach a natural base, but ... one resolves to be satisfied with their firmness, hoping they will carry the structure. ... The objectivity of science can be bought only at the cost of relativity.1 The tower over the swamp represented the end of foundationist philosophy. Objectivity no longer rested on a rockbed but on the turns of scientific experimentation and criticism, as much a matter of vagary and luck as of talent and method. Surely, historians should have written Popper into the hall of fame of nonfoundationist philosophers. They did not. In fact, recent scholarship on the Vienna Circle, especially on Otto Neurath, represents Popper as the foundationist philosopher par-excellence. Some of his followers seem to miss his nonfoundationism, too. A House Built on Sand is the title Popperian philosopher Noretta Koertge chose for a spirited collection of essays that takes aim at the follies of science studies.2 Alas, Popper describes science itself as built on sand (so whatever is wrong with science studies, it cannot be their choice of bedrock). But, then, why should historians and philosophers care about misreadings of Popper? Because they create a distorted picture of interwar Viennese philosophy that obscures, rather than reveals its contemporary relevance. This essay, focusing on the Neurath-Popper debate, attempts to redraw the picture and set the record straight.
This essay draws on my intellectual biography: Karl Popper — The Formative Years, 1902–1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
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Notes
Popper, Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie [1930–33] (Tubingen: Mohr, 1979), p. 136. (Henceforth: Grundprobleme.) Revised, the first half of the quotation (to ‘they will carry the structure“) concluded section 30 of Logik der Forschung: Zur Erkenntnistheorie moderner Naturwissenschaft (Vienna: Julius Springer, 1935), pp. 66–67. (Henceforth: Logik. The English edition, The Logic of Scientific Discovery,trans. Karl Popper [London: Hutchinson, 1959] is quoted as LSD.)
Noretta Koertge, ed., A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths About Science ( New York: Oxford University Press, 1998 ).
Nancy Cartwright, Jordi Cat, Lola Fleck, and Thomas Uebel, Otto Neurath: Philosophy between Science and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Jordi Cat, “The PopperNeurath Debate and Neurath’s Attack on Scientific Method,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 26 (1995): 219–250; Malachi Hacohen, “The Making of the Open Society” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1993), chap. 6; Thomas Uebel, Overcoming Logical Positivism From Within (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1992 ); Danilo Zolo, Reflexive Epistemology: The Philosophical Legacy of Otto Neurath ( Boston: Reidel, 1989 ).
Yet, they swim against the current, and I find this admirable.
The term “modified conventionalism” belongs to Joseph Agassi: Science in Flux (Boston: Reidel, 1975), pp. 365–403. The notions of “foundation” and “basis” were used in the 1930s, but the terms “foundationism” and “nonfoundationism” are of recent vintage.
Neurath, “Protokollsätze,” Erkenntnis, III (1932): 205.
Camap, “Ober Protokollsätze,” Erkenntnis, III (1932): 223–28.
At issue was who recognized first the relativity of basic statements or protocols, i.e., that they were not final, but subject to revision and overthrow. Carnap to Popper, 18 October and 28 October, 1932; Popper to Carnap, 22 October and I November 1932; Neurath to Carnap, 26 October 1932, all in Carnap Collection. Neurath objected to the circle “going hand in hand with Popper,” but he did not question Popper’s independence. It is surprising that Carnap reported such a challenge to Popper.
almost appear as a good student of Neurath,“ he complained. Popper to Julius Kraft, c. 2 November 1932 (316, 24).
Popper, “Memories of Otto Neurath,” p. 52.
Neurath and I had disagreed deeply on many and important matters, historical, political, and philosophical; in fact on almost all matters.“ Ibid., p. 56.
John Wettersten, in his The Roots of Critical Rationalism (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1992), chap. 8, noted the peculiarities of section 11 of Grundprobleme,containing the new Kant critique. It is fifty-six page long, by far the longest section, about a fifth of the manuscript. It seems to stand on its own, the transition to the succeeding section abrupt. It includes terminology (empirical basis; basic statement; observation statement) absent elsewhere in Grundprobleme I (and standard in Logik). Its nonfoundationism conflicts with statements in other sections that accept “singular reality statements” as final. Wettersten concluded that this was the last section to be written, and I agree. The correspondence between Popper and Julius Kraft corroborates his view. Trots Eggers Hansen disagrees. He examined all of Popper’s cross-references to section 11 in the other sections of the manuscript. He counted eight typed references, and twelve inserted in red ink. He concludes that there must have been an earlier version of section 11. (Hansen to author, 20 December 1998 and 31 January 1999.) I concur. However, with the exception of the reference in section 2 (which was rewritten sometime between the late spring and the fall of 1932), none of the typed references touch on testing, or falsification, or the empirical basis, i.e., the epistemological revolution of the fall of 1932. Could Popper have coined the term “empirical basis” and written on it prior to his August meeting with Carnap in the Alps? I doubt that, but his fury when Neurath denied him priority over nonfoundationism would then become comprehensible.
Popper, Logik der Forschung,sections 25–26, 30, note 4.
Ein Kriterium des empirischen Charakters theoretischer Systeme,“ Erkenntnis, III (1933): 4267. (English: ”A Criterion of the Empirical Character of Theoretical Systems,“ The Logic of Scientific Discovery,pp. 312–14.) The note was first written in July 1932 and slightly revised for publication in Erkenntnis. It therefore did not reflect the epistemological revolution of the fall of 1932.
Moritz Schlick, “Über das Fundament der Erkenntnis,” Erkenntnis,IV (1934): 79–99. (English: “On the Foundation of Knowledge,” Philosophical Papers [Boston: Reidel, 1979], 11:370–87.) Neurath, “Radikaler Physikalismus und `wirkliche Welt’,” Erkenntnis,IV (1934): 346–362; Hempel, “On the Logical Positivists’ Theory of Truth,” Analysis,2 (1935): 49–59. The Carnap-Schlick correspondence March-June 1934, Carnap Collection, Archives of Scientific Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh. For an account of the early stages of the debate, see Thomas Uebel’s informative Overcoming Logical Positivism,chaps. 3–6 and my own rendering in Karl Popper,pp. 224–27.
See my Karl Popper,chaps. 5–6.
Popper to Neurath, 28 February 1935, Neurath Nachlaß, Philosophisches Archiv, University of Constance. (Original at the Wiener-Kreis Archiv, Haarlem, NL.) “Popper und der Wiener Kreis - Gespräch,” in Friedrich Stadler, Studien zum Wiener Kreis ( Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1997 ), p. 536.
Schlick to Carnap, 1 November 1934, Schlick Nachlaß, Philosophisches Archiv, University of Constance. (Original at the Wiener-Kreis Archiv, Haarlem, NL. )
This is actually Popper, Logik,p. 233, section 30, note. 4 (LSD,p. 111), quoting Robert Reininger, Das psycho physische Problem (Vienna: Braumüller, 1916), p. 291: “Spricht die Seele, so spricht, ach! schon die Seele nicht mehr.” Schlick made the same point: “Über das Fundament der Erkenntnis,” 97–99.
Schlick, “Fundament,” 93, 99, respectively.
Fundament,“ 83.
Neurath, “Radikaler Physikalismus,” 346–362.
Protocols were not, as Camap thought, “primitive.” Popper showed that universal, law-like concepts, such as “glass,” could not be reduced to singular “experience.” Neurath concurred. But, for him, the problem was linguistic imprecision. Everyday language contained conceptual clusters (Ballungen),lacking the precision of axiomatized theories. To Popper, growing precision would never overcome the gap between concepts and experience. Neurath seemed to entertain the hope of eventually closing the gap through linguistic reform.
Jordi Cat, “The Popper-Neurath Debate,” 234.
Uebel argues (Overcoming,pp. 214–17) that, since affirmations stood outside the system of scientific statements, their importance was not logical and epistemic, but psychological and motivational. “To call them `foundations’ is to court serious misunderstanding.” I share this misunderstanding. Schlick’s argument is not only foundationist, but psychologistic and subjectivist. Uebel’s efforts to exonerate the circle from foundationism stand in marked contrast to his easy dismissal of Popper as a foundationist. Critics’ impatience is understandable: Joseph Agassi, “To Salvage Neurath,” Philosophy of the Social Sciences,28 (1998): 83–101.
Popper, Logik,p. 16; LSD,p. 44.
Grundprobleme,pp. 429–32, 438–39; Logik,section 26.
Thomas Uebel, Overcoming,pp. 265–67. Jordi Cat, “The Popper-Neurath Debate,” suggests the same, in a more nuanced fashion.
Carnap to Neurath, 13 February 1935, Carnap Collection, Archives of Scientific Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh.
Neurath, “Radikaler Physikalismus,” 347–48.
When Carnap and Popper resisted, Neurath could only say that psychologism was not a bad word. Neurath to Popper, 22 January 1935, Neurath Nachlaß; Neurath to Carnap, 18 January and 28 January 1935, Carnap Collection.
Thomas Uebel, Overcoming,esp. pp. 2–3, 226–28.
Nancy Cartwright et al., Otto Neurath,p. 201. (Jordi Cat co-authored the chapter quoted.)
Jordi Cat, “The Popper-Neurath Debate,” proposes that not Malachi’s brain stimuli, or speech-thinking, were subject to test, but his observation. Entitlement was not part of the statement. This would make protocols testable, but entitlement irrelevant.
Popper insisted that “observation” was a psychological event, but `observability“ a logical concept. Not observation’s psychology was significant, but its intersubjectivity. I find the distinction persuasive, as do most Popperians. But to Victor Kraft (”Popper and the Vienna Circle,“ The Philosophy of Karl Popper,ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp, 2 vols. [La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1974], I:195–96), the concept remained problematic. Psychological experience convinced people that statements were true. Was the refusal of psychology not question-begging? ”When do we see experience as conforming to our expectations (our theory), and when do we see it as conflicting?“ ask William Berkson and John Wettersten. `In other words, what is the psychological correlate of the contradiction (between a basic statement and a theory) which Popper describes?” (Berkson and Wettersten, Learning From Error [La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1984, p. 20].) These questions had to remain unanswered, if Popper was to solve epistemology’s problems. An attempt to reformulate the relationship between logic and psychology would have resurrected the problems that ran his dissertation aground (“Zur Methodenfrage der Denkpsychologie” [Ph.D. diss., University of Vienna, 1928]).
Otto Neurath, “Pseudorationalismus der Falsifikation,” Erkenntnis,V (1935): 353–365. (English: “Pseudorationalism of `Falsification’,” Philosophical Papers,pp. 121–31.)
Neurath’s “anti-system” rhetoric in Prague began the encyclopedic turn (“Einheit der Wissenschaft als Aufgabe,” Erkenntnis,V [1935]: 16–22), but it became clear only in his review of Logik.
Pseudorationalismus,“ 354. Popper, too, recognized that scientific theories rarely approached axiomatization, but he insisted that scientists aim for the greatest possible clarity and cogency, so as to facilitate the operation of methodological rules guiding negotiation over basic statements. In contrast, Neurath maintained that science remained ambiguous on every level: concepts had rough edges; clean statements did not exist; systems of statements were loose; fields were separate.
Einheit der Wissenschaft als Aufgabe,“ 17. Popper’s and Neurath’s scientific metaphors mirrored their intellectual and political life. Neurath took lightly personal risks, cared little about appearance and conditions of life, was talkative, warm, and open. Spreading over disciplines with little patience for detail, he wrote with ease, but not clarity. Popper had little trust in people or the world, led a structured and secluded life, and incessantly rewrote his manuscripts to diminish the prospect of being misunderstood. He wrote with difficulty but achieved incomparable clarity.
Pseudorationalismus,“ p. 365.
Carnap-Neurath correspondence, 1935–37, 1942–45, Carnap Collection.
Jordi Cat, “The Popper - Neurath Debate,” 227.
Thomas Uebel, Overcoming,chap. 11.
Nancy Cartwright, Otto Neurath,p. 205; Jordi Cat, “The Popper - Neurath Debate,” 245.
Cartwright, Otto Neurath,p. 195, quoting Neurath’s “Besprechung Über Physikalismus,” 4 March 1931, Carnap Collection (RC 029–17–03).
Cat, “The Popper-Neurath Debate,” 243.
Cartwright, Otto Neurath,p. 222. Cartwright thinks Popper disagreed. She is wrong.
Popper to Herbert Feigl, 4 November 1969, Feigl Collection, Archives of Scientific Philosophy.
Admittedly, the system metaphor may not best describe science. But Popper focused on competing theories within particular fields rather than on relationships among disciplines. His system of theories was ever changing, not a stable body of knowledge.
Ibid., 234.
Ibid., 246.
Loc. cit.
More correctly: Neurath collapsed together falsification and falsifiability, spoke of falsification as a demarcation criterion, and rejected it.
Cat suggests that Neurath’s linguistic “warrant for theoretical beliefs” was more liberal than Popper’s testability. But Popper required no warrant for “theoretical belief.” None existed. Theory construction was not subject to scientific control. Who was more liberal?
Logik, p. 10; LSD,p. 37.
In Logik,Popper claimed metaphysical neutrality. In postwar years, he claimed to have always been a realist. Having demonstrated, by the mid-1950s, that metaphysical theories were criticizable, he validated inquiries into the nature of the universe, previously excluded as a tactical move against positivism.
Neurath could also be dogmatic. Against critics of the circle’s left wing, he asserted, loud and clear, a party line.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, ed. G.E.M. Anscombe and Rush Rhees ( London: Macmillan, 1958 ).
If the structure proves too heavy, and begins tottering, it sometimes does not help to drive the piers further down. It may be necessary to have a new building, which must be constructed on the ruins of the collapsed structure’s piers.“ (Grundprobleme,p. 136) Science studies may consider the structure metaphor insufficiently radical, but the piers going into the swamp constitute no Cartesian First Philosophy. In my Karl Popper pp. 233–35, I review some of the debates among Popperians on foundationist traces in critical rationalism.
Ian Jarvie, The Republic of Science (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001); Jeremy Shearmur, The Political Thought of Karl Popper (London: Routledge, 1996 ). Shearmur’s view that a libertarian polity would be the most conducive to a Popperian public sphere conflicts, however, with my own view.
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Hacohen, M. (2002). Critical Rationalism, Logical Positivism, and the Poststructuralist Conundrum: Reconsidering the Neurath-Popper Debate. In: Heidelberger, M., Stadler, F. (eds) History of Philosophy of Science. Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook [2001], vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1785-4_24
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