Journal of Philosophical Investigations

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Professor at Université Paris-Sorbonne. France

Abstract

One may say that The Open Society and Its Enemies (OS) offered in 1945 the first complete elaboration of the general approach proposed by Karl Popper, namely his ‘critical rationalism’, a bold generalization of the fallibilist falsificationism in the domain of the empirical sciences masterly proposed in Logik der Forschung (1934). The political content of The OS has been critically discussed. Nevertheless, not all people insist on the equally important moral dimension of the book, giving it its unity, I submit. Without morality, no critical discussion, no reason, no open society, let us say in a nutshell. I would argue that according to Popper, a strictly Christian morality of love would not be the appropriate emotional companion of critical rationalism, but that the less demanding moral emotion of sympathy or compassion is perhaps necessary to give it its force against violence. I give some support to this line of argument. In my view, Popper proposed a somewhat unarticulated critical rationalist ‘emotivism’ of sorts. The emotion of compassion is necessary for triggering our moral decisions and values, which are the ultimate basis of the choice for a reason against violence.

Keywords

Eccles, J. & Popper, K. (1977). The Self and Its Brain, Springer. 
Hobbes, T. (2008). Leviathan, 1st ed. 1651, Oxford University Press. 
Hume, D. (1985). Treatise on Human Nature, 1st ed 1740, Penguin.  
Kiesewetter, H. (1995). Ethical Foundations of Popper’s Philosophy, in A. O’Hear (ed.) Karl Popper: Philosophy and Problems, Cambridge University Press, pp. 275-88. 
Miller, D. W. (1994). Critical Rationalism. A Restatement and Defence, Open Court. 
Popper, K. R. (1957). The Poverty of Historicism, Routledge.  
Popper, K. R. (2003). The Open Society and Its Enemies (OS), 2 Vols. 1st ed. 1945, Routledge.  
Popper, K. R. (1934). The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Routledge, Translation (with new material) of Logik der Forschung, Springer. 
Popper, K. R. (1963). Conjectures and Refutations (CR), Routledge, 
Popper, K. R. (1972). Objective Knowledge (OK), Oxford University Press. 
Popper, K. R. (1976). Unended Quest, Routledge, 
Popper. K. R. (2011). After the Open Society (posthumous), Piers Norris Turner and Jeremy Shearmur (eds.) Routledge. 
Rawls, J. (1999). A Theory of Justice, 1st ed. 1971, Harvard University Press. 
Schmitt, C. (2007). The Concept of the Political, German ed. 1932, Chicago University Press.
CAPTCHA Image