I never met Bill Bartley and I count this as one of the great disappointments of my life. We had so many ideas in common, I imagine that we would have communicated effectively in half-sentences. There were so many thoughts to exchange, so much that I wanted to know about the background of his ideas, so much to say about the implications of Popper’s work, and of his own.
I first encountered Bartley in 1969, not in person, of course, and not even in his own words. He turned up in a wry footnote to an amusing paper by Ernest Gellner in a book named The Crisis in the Humanities (Pelican 1962, Ed Plumb). The main theme of Gellner’s contribution was the strange fads and fashions of modern Anglo Saxon philosophy, especially the obsessed with driving metaphysics out of polite society. As an example of the topsy turvey world of modern philosohy he wrote ‘In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries atheism was taught by rationalists, but now it seems mainly the province of theologians’ with a reference to The Retreat to Commitment. At the time I described myself as a humanist pamphleteer and I very much wanted to read this book, to find what a theologian might contribute to the cause of secular humanism. Unfortunately The Retreat was not available in the library of The University of Sydney, arguably the premier university library of the nation. It is still not there in 1999 but some time after that it appeared, possibly as a result of my suggestion on the “suggestion box” on the Library website.
Fortunately the university bookshop did have a copy of the festschrift for Popper’s 60th birthday [The Critical Approach to Science and Philosophy, Free Press, 1964, ed Bunge]. Bill’s paper in that volume is immensely helpful in explaining the non-authoritarian thrust of Popper’s theory of knowledge, spelling out the simple but radical insight that there are numerous sources of knowledge, but no authorities.
Years Realism and the Aim of Science [ed Bartley] appeared, thanks in large part to the reconcilliation of Popper and Bartley . The footnotes and references led to Bill’s uncompleted Philosophia series of review articles on the Popper volume in the Library of Living Philosophers series. The restatement of non-justificationism in the language of positions, contexts and metacontexts made a strong impact. At this time I had the immense good fortune to contact Popper’s friend from New Zealand, Colin Simkin, recently retired from a chair in Economics, who was in touch with Bill and gave me his address. I wrote a letter of thanks to Bill and received a copy of the new edition of The Retreat in return.
We exchanged some letters (this was before email) and we should have met at the Mont Pelerin conference in Christchurch in 1989 but he was too ill to attend and he died a few weeks later.
I picked up a copy of Bartley’s Wittgenstein bio in a Sydney secondhand bookstore in Sydney a couple of months back (actually the sort of thing I’d usually have done with you Rafe, but I needed to spend time with a friend who’s been unwell). I’ve read it twice already. Bartley is criminally underrated.
I don’t yet have Wittgenstein, but I’ve got Retreat and Unfathomed Knowledge. I knew of him in the 1980s, but never actually read him until I came across Evolutionary Epistemology at a bookstore. I read his defence of CCR and was electrified. His work actually introduced me to Popper. If David Miller was (and is still) Popper’s great champion in the UK, Bartley was no less his champion in the US. Why, then, is he not taken more seriously?
One of the reasons is that the positivists who came to the US to escape Hitler came to dominate the philosophy of science in the US to the point where an academic can spend a lifetime with an interest in philosophy but without meeting single person who can give a straight feed on Popper’s ideas. Deirdre McCloskey is an example. http://www.criticalrationalism.net/2011/05/28/deirdre-mcclosky-on-popper-and-rhetoric/
Popper pursued four “turns” which are completely “in the face” of most other schools, especially the positivists – you can read about them at this link
http://www.the-rathouse.com/Pop-Schol/PopperTurns.html
And then there is the way that Popper is not cited, slighted, and misrepresented, you can find any number of examples if you run back over the posts on this blog for a few months or a year. As Bartley pointed out if CR is on the right track and a lot of people find out, then the mass of philosophers have got some explaining to do. And they don’t want that to happen.
Should have mentioned that there are some papers and extracts of Bartley work on line http://www.the-rathouse.com/writingsonbartley.html
Did Bartley every complete and publish Parts IV and V of his examination of Schilpp’s The Philosophy of Karl Popper?
Unfortunately he did not Dan. That is really frustrating, the last two would be particularly interesting, at least for me, given my interest in the social sciences.
Thanks Rafe.
That is indeed unfortunate. I wonder why not…perhaps he started to become sick? I must admit, I’m familiar with Bartley and his work only in bits and pieces. Would you suggest any particular essay as an introduction to his particular thinking? Likewise, is there any extensive biographical info on him?
Best wishes, and thanks for your help.
-Dan
Sorry for such a late reply Dan, there is a bibliography of Bartley stuff on a site by Antoni Diller http://www.cantab.net/users/antoni.diller/rationalism/bib.html
People are supposed to find that kind of thing by looking at my list of CR Resources but it was hard to find when I looked there myself!
http://www.the-rathouse.com/2013/CR-Resources.html
For an introduction to his thinking, look at my Bartley page and see what you can find that is helpful. It is hard to suggest an introduction because it needs to be something that connects with your interests and I don’t know what they are.
http://www.the-rathouse.com/writingsonbartley.html