Popper: The Great Philosophers

I forgot to take my hypertension pill the day I got this book. Living in Saint Paul, Minnesota, under constant pressure to be disguised as a normal person, I usually forget how easy it is to hop on a bus over to Minneapolis, where the University of Minnesota pretends to be a major university. Not every bookstore in that area is limited to literature that is considered suitable for students to study at the highest levels of philosophical discourse. The copy of POPPER I found was published by Routledge (1999) with a credit to the 1997 Orion House edition and had a subtitle: Historicism and Its Poverty. This is an area of Karl Popper's thought that I find extremely interesting, the book was small and cheap, and I was not as concerned about understanding Karl Popper as much as a great philosopher as I was interested in the thoughts of someone who had witnessed stupendous times and tried to analyze them at a level of abstraction that might be useful in the present situation. In a topic called HISTORICISM AND SOCIETY, there is a sufficient quotation from page 23 of THE POVERTY OF HISTORICISM which is sufficient to show the nature of Karl Popper's thinking: the method of historical understanding does not only fit in with the ideas of holism. It also agrees very well with the historicist's emphasis on novelty; for novelty cannot be causally or rationally explained, but only intuitively grasped. Rhetoric consists of the manipulation of worlds, and descriptions of situations carry the kind of weight which is implied by any understanding of Plato. The negative nature of Popper's understanding of Plato is clear, as is my negative view of the current situation when I call it the monetary mulch of America.

I love this book with the kind of feelings I get when I am not a highly medicated individual. I forgot to take my hypertension pill the day I got this book. Living in Saint Paul, Minnesota, under constant pressure to be disguised as a normal person, I usually forget how easy it is to hop on a bus over to Minneapolis, where the University of Minnesota pretends to be a major university. Not every bookstore in that area is limited to literature that is considered suitable for students to study at the highest levels of philosophical discourse. The copy of POPPER I found was published by Routledge (1999) with a credit to the 1997 Orion House edition and had a subtitle: Historicism and Its Poverty. This is an area of Karl Popper's thought that I find extremely interesting, the book was small and cheap, and I was not as concerned about understanding Karl Popper as much as a great philosopher as I was interested in the thoughts of someone who had witnessed stupendous times and tried to analyze them at a level of abstraction that might be useful in the present situation. In a topic called HISTORICISM AND SOCIETY, there is a sufficient quotation from page 23 of THE POVERTY OF HISTORICISM which is sufficient to show the nature of Karl Popper's thinking: the method of historical understanding does not only fit in with the ideas of holism. It also agrees very well with the historicist's emphasis on novelty; for novelty cannot be causally or rationally explained, but only intuitively grasped. Rhetoric consists of the manipulation of worlds, and descriptions of situations carry the kind of weight which is implied by any understanding of Plato. The negative nature of Popper's understanding of Plato is clear, as is my negative view of the current situation when I call it the monetary mulch of America.

This small book deals only with the political and not the scientific part of Popper's work, thus mainly with 'The open society and its enemies' and 'The poverty of historicism'.It is an excellent introduction for this part of Popper's work.The author clearly explains that improvement or self-correction through freedom of speech (criticism) is only possible in democracies and not in dictatorial (fascist) or pseudo-scientific (marxist) systems of government.For me, he correctly recognizes the possible limits of Popper's proposition of 'piecemeal engineering' of political, social or environmental problems: "Is piecemeal engineering grand enough to deal with global pollution, genocidal oppression of minorities and pandemics such as AIDS?"He also sees clearly the actual dangers for democracies: "How are major corporations, with transnational funds and managements, to be controlled by democratic authorities whose writs run only to their frontiers?"Also some interesting facts (rare) about Popper's personal life.A very worth-while read.

I will ditto the previous review... an outstanding short summary. Raphael does an outstanding survey and treatment. He grandly collapses pages of Popper into individual "magic paragraphs". My only complaint is that Raphael often uses a past and almost passive tense, which really saps some of his sentences' potential electricity. I would dearly love to see a full Raphael treatment of the entire Popper library.

I purchased this small book of only fifty-nine pages regarding the twentieth century philosophical giant Karl Popper with a certain degree of pessimism. Could the author truly succeed in doing justice to the person and thoughts of this great man in such a brief manner? The adamant and unhesitating answer is in the affirmative. Raphael brilliantly outlines the impact of Popper's thinking upon both the political and scientific spheres of human investigation. Popper thoroughly demolished the philosophical underpinnings of totalitarianism. It is an utter disgrace, I might add, that Popper's brilliant attack on the error of historicism is rarely discussed in today's academic circles. Much horror and blood shed could have been avoided in the previous century had the Austrian born philosopher received the attention he had overwhelmingly earned.The blunt side of Popper's character often irritated those around him. Karl Popper and Ludwig Wittgenstein, for example, on one occasion almost came to blows. Was Popper a pleasant man to know on a personal basis? He may very well have been inclined to treat disagreement in an unfair manner. Nonetheless, this possible character fault should not blind us to the value of Popper's philosophical insights. After all, since when has philosophical inquiry been about winning a popularity contest? I wholeheartedly recommend this book. Even someone already familiar with Karl Popper's thinking will find it of value. This is the first book I have ordered in "The Great Philosophers" series put together by Frederic Raphael and Ray Monk. It most certainly will not be the last!