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"One of the main tasks for human reason is to make the universe we live in understandable to ourselves. This is the task of science. There are two different components of about equal importance in this enterprise. The first is poetic inventiveness ..."
– Karl Popper
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Category Archives: ethics
Scientism vs Liberalism
In his book, “The Counter-Revolution of Science”, Hayek argued against scientism – attempts by the social sciences to ape the methods of the natural sciences by ignoring the subjectivity of economic value. I will apply these ideas to criticise of some current ideas that the government should use force to make people happier. Continue reading
Posted in epistemology, ethics, open society
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Popper on Schools and Universities
It has been said, only too truly, that Plato was the inventor of both our secondary schools and our universities. I do not know a better argument for the optimistic view of mankind than the fact that this devastating system of education has not utterly ruined them. Continue reading
Posted in epistemology, ethics, open society, quote
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Who Should Decide?
Popper points out that it is difficult to find a government on whose goodness and wisdom we can rely and so that we should set up our institutions to allow us to prevent bad government from doing too much damage. Many people seem unaware of this argument and its implications for political and moral philosophy. Continue reading
Posted in ethics, open society
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The Myth of the Framework
The Myth of the Framework is an essay Popper wrote that was published in the book of the same title. The point of the essay is that relativists tend to set excessively high standards for making progress. I would add that this is not just a problem for relativists: it is is a very widespread and extremely damaging obstacle to intellectual and moral progress. Continue reading
Posted in epistemology, ethics
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Essentialism vs freedom
Michael Sandel gives an interesting TED Talk on democracy, saying that we should talk more about the deep moral convictions people have to raise the level of debate in democracy. This may be a good idea, but unfortunately his argument … Continue reading
Posted in essentialism, ethics, open society
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Karl Popper on scientific ethics
The hope of getting some argument or theory to share our responsibilities is, I believe, one of the basic motives of ‘scientific’ ethics. ‘Scientific’ ethics is in its absolute barrenness one of the most amazing of social phenomena. What does … Continue reading
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Karl Popper on moral decision making
As we have seen before (in chapter 5), and now again in our analysis of the uncritical version of rationalism, arguments cannot determine such a fundamental moral decision. But this does not imply that our choice cannot be helped by … Continue reading
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