Karl Raimund Popper is one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. Besides, unlike Wittgenstein and Heidegger he was given the privilege of being “schillped,” i.e., of being presented with one of the volumes, in his case the fifteenth, of the “Library of Living Philosophers” (The Philosophy of Karl Raimund Popper, ed. Paul A. Schilpp, New York, 1974—the series has been continued by Peter Caws and has reached volume thirty-two by now). Thirty-five years after, Herbert Keuth, professor of philosophy of science at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, takes up Schilpp’s very same title and provides the most comprehensive introduction to Popper’s thought so far. A mark of the high quality of the book lies moreover in the fact that, having first appeared in German (Die Philosophie Karl Poppers, Tübingen: Mohr, 2000), Keuth’s book is one of the very few philosophy books written on the Continent that have found their way into an English translation (by the author himself). Keuth’s work divides Popper’s philosophy alongside the Stoic metaphors of the fist or of the tree into three parts: philosophy of science, social philosophy, and metaphysics. The first part (9-195) is quite ample and includes detailed accounts of Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie (1979—a collection of papers written in 1930-33) and of Die Logik der Forschung (1934). An astonishing number of issues comes up: induction, demarcation, falsification, scientific method, empirical basis, realism, truth, corroboration, verisimilitude, probability. For each of these problems Keuth gives a complete survey of the arguments laid out by Popper. The same holds also for the second part (193-251), dedicated to The Open Society and its Enemies (1945) and The Poverty of Historicism (1957) and to the issues of responsibility, historicity, openness, positivism, and for the third part (255-330), dedicated to Language and the Body-Mind Problem (1953), Conjectures and Refutations (1963), Objective Knowledge (1972), and Knowledge and the Body-Mind Problem (1994), on necessity, determinism, the body-mind relation, and “world 3”, the last one being a Popperian metaphor for the “world of the products of the human mind,” which mediates between the world of knowledge in the subjective sense and the world of knowledge in the objective sense (295f.). With the above-mentioned impressive list of issues, Keuth’s book is a good example of how to set up an effective “authorial dictionary” for a twentieth-century philosopher. The reader finds for each issue an illuminating and complete exposition. What he will not find, however, are hints on the history of the development, on Popper’s own self-falsification, paradox as it may sound. While Popper’s biography is squeezed into six pages, his theories are laid out as results; they are considered as elements taken out of history, most of times taken out of all historical context. Former Journal of the History of Ideas editor Donald Kelly never tires to point out that philosophy is no more than “a province” within the intellectual realm (“What is Happening to the History of Ideas?” Intellectual News [Autumn 1996]: 36-50). One may not want to go that far; however, some more contextualization also as regards such an important reference work on Popper—which Keuth’s undoubtedly is—would have been welcome.
Herbert Keuth, The Philosophy of Karl Raimund Popper (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)
POZZO, Riccardo
2010-01-01
Abstract
Karl Raimund Popper is one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. Besides, unlike Wittgenstein and Heidegger he was given the privilege of being “schillped,” i.e., of being presented with one of the volumes, in his case the fifteenth, of the “Library of Living Philosophers” (The Philosophy of Karl Raimund Popper, ed. Paul A. Schilpp, New York, 1974—the series has been continued by Peter Caws and has reached volume thirty-two by now). Thirty-five years after, Herbert Keuth, professor of philosophy of science at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, takes up Schilpp’s very same title and provides the most comprehensive introduction to Popper’s thought so far. A mark of the high quality of the book lies moreover in the fact that, having first appeared in German (Die Philosophie Karl Poppers, Tübingen: Mohr, 2000), Keuth’s book is one of the very few philosophy books written on the Continent that have found their way into an English translation (by the author himself). Keuth’s work divides Popper’s philosophy alongside the Stoic metaphors of the fist or of the tree into three parts: philosophy of science, social philosophy, and metaphysics. The first part (9-195) is quite ample and includes detailed accounts of Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie (1979—a collection of papers written in 1930-33) and of Die Logik der Forschung (1934). An astonishing number of issues comes up: induction, demarcation, falsification, scientific method, empirical basis, realism, truth, corroboration, verisimilitude, probability. For each of these problems Keuth gives a complete survey of the arguments laid out by Popper. The same holds also for the second part (193-251), dedicated to The Open Society and its Enemies (1945) and The Poverty of Historicism (1957) and to the issues of responsibility, historicity, openness, positivism, and for the third part (255-330), dedicated to Language and the Body-Mind Problem (1953), Conjectures and Refutations (1963), Objective Knowledge (1972), and Knowledge and the Body-Mind Problem (1994), on necessity, determinism, the body-mind relation, and “world 3”, the last one being a Popperian metaphor for the “world of the products of the human mind,” which mediates between the world of knowledge in the subjective sense and the world of knowledge in the objective sense (295f.). With the above-mentioned impressive list of issues, Keuth’s book is a good example of how to set up an effective “authorial dictionary” for a twentieth-century philosopher. The reader finds for each issue an illuminating and complete exposition. What he will not find, however, are hints on the history of the development, on Popper’s own self-falsification, paradox as it may sound. While Popper’s biography is squeezed into six pages, his theories are laid out as results; they are considered as elements taken out of history, most of times taken out of all historical context. Former Journal of the History of Ideas editor Donald Kelly never tires to point out that philosophy is no more than “a province” within the intellectual realm (“What is Happening to the History of Ideas?” Intellectual News [Autumn 1996]: 36-50). One may not want to go that far; however, some more contextualization also as regards such an important reference work on Popper—which Keuth’s undoubtedly is—would have been welcome.
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