Karl Popper's "Critical Rationalism": The way to freedom and democracy
Abstract
In the history of science, there are known cases when people come into life whose vocation is to make a series of discoveries, which then change the scientific views of entire generations. The name of the philosopher Karl Popper became world-famous during his lifetime, because the achievements of this scientist impress with the originality and boldness of ideas, a high level of scientific knowledge and the scale of world perception. The article is devoted to the analysis of the life and activities of the outstanding philosopher and sociologist of the 20th century. Karl Raimund Popper, who was best known for his scientific works on the methodology and philosophy of science, as well as social and political philosophy. It is shown that his logical concept of the growth of scientific knowledge, which he began to develop in the 20s of the 20th century became the basis for the creation of the principle of falsification, which he proposed as a criterion for demarcation between science and pseudoscience. It is noted that in the following logical and methodological works of the scientist, a transition is observed in the field of scientific research of the scientist from logical and methodological problems of epistemology or the theory of scientific knowledge to the general theory of knowledge and evolutionary epistemology, as well as a transition from already obtained results to socio-political problems. The process of formation of the theory of critical rationalism was highlighted, which was that any theory, hypothesis, scientific knowledge should be as objective as possible and not depend on the opinion of individual people or communities. An analysis of the scientist's works in the field of social philosophy was carried out, which were based on the concepts of scientific knowledge and cognition developed by him. It has been studied that such a concept as "historicism" takes an important part in the formation of a totalitarian society, and the utopian ideas of Marxism, socialism and communism only lead to the inhibition of the development of any society. K. Popper's position on this issue is highlighted. The difference between an open and a closed society, which is traced in the scientist's scientific heritage, is reflected. And the impact of K. Popper's scientific heritage on the modern realities of Ukraine and the entire democratic world in the conditions of an international armed conflict is also determined.
Downloads
References
Agassi, J. (2014). Popper and His Popular Critics: Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend and Imre Lakatos. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06587-8
Derksen, M. (2019). Putting popper to work. Theory and Psychology, 29(4), 449‒465. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354319838343
Duerr, P. M. (2023). Popper: Critical rationalist, conventionalist, and virtue epistemologist. HOPOS, 13(1), 54‒90. https://doi.org/10.1086/724046
Duggan, M. F. (2021). Looking for black swans: Critical elimination and history. Symposion, 8(1), 45‒77. https://doi.org/10.5840/SYMPOSION2021812
Jewish press. (1938, March 11). Evreyskaya gazeta – Jewish press.
Haig, B. D. (2024). Should psychology adopt Bhaskar’s critical realist philosophy of science? Theory & Psychology, 34(5), 585‒590. https://doi.org/10.1177/09593543241265727
Hawkins, S. (2022). "Good translating is very hard work" Karl Popper, translation theorist in spite of himself. Target, 34(1), 3‒36. https://doi.org/10.1075/target.20042.haw
Kierstead, J. (2019). Karl Popper's' the open society and its enemies', and its enemies. Journal of New Zealand Studies, (28), 2-28. https://doi.org/10.26686/jnzs.v0iNS28.5418
Lisovyi, V. S. (1994). Karl Raimund Popper ta yoho tvir «Zlydennist istorytsyzmu» / Popper K. Zlydennist istorytsyzmu [Karl Raimund Popper and his work "The Poverty of Historicism" / Popper K. The Poverty of Historicism]. Kyiv: Abris.
Mansouri, A. (2024). The moral agent: A critical rationalist perspective. Philosophia, 52, 623–641. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-024-00747-z
Merritt, D. (2017). Cosmology and convention. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B – Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 57, 41‒52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsb.2016.12.002
Mohammadi Alamuti, M. (2022). Chapter 1. Karl Popper. From critical rationalism to the idea of an open society. In Towards a sociology of the open society: Critical rationalism and the open society (Vol. II, pp. 9‒32). London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003027119
Popper, K. R. (1966). The poverty of historicism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Popper, K. R. (1979). Objective knowledge: An evolutionary approach (Vol. 49). Oxford: Clarendon press.
Popper, K. (2002). Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203994252
Popper, K. (2013a). All Life is Problem Solving. Vol. 1. London; New York: Routledge.
Popper, K. (2013b). All Life is Problem Solving. Vol. 2. London; New York: Routledge.
Popper, K. (2014). Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge. New York; London: Basic Books. Retrieved from http://www.paulrosenfels.org/Popper.pdf
Popper, K. R. (2020). The open society and its enemies (Vol. 119). Princeton University Press.
Pylypchuk, O. O., & Strelko, O. H. (2020). Count A. P. Bobrinsky (1826–1894), the third minister-reformer of railway management in the russian empire. Analele Universitatii Din Craiova – Seria Istorie, 25(1), 7–20. Retrieved from http://www.istoriecraiova.ro/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/2020_1_ANALE.pdf
Pylypchuk, O. Ya., Strelko, О. H., & Pylypchuk, O. O. (2021). Academician V. I. Vernadsky about the originality of life in Space (To the 100th anniversary of his work “The Beginning and Eternity of Life”). Space Science and Technology, 27(2), 85‒92. https://doi.org/10.15407/knit2021.02.085
Pylypchuk, O. Ya., Strelko, О. H., & Pylypchuk, O. O. (2022). S. A. Podolinskyi in the energetic interpretation of the evolution of nature and society. Space Science and Technology, 28(6), 74‒84. https://doi.org/10.15407/knit2022.06.074
Reynolds, I. (2023). The sociologist of knowledge in the positivism dispute. Distinktion, 24(1), 133‒155. https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2021.1991420
Scruton, R. (1994). Sexual desire: A philosophical investigation. London: Phoenix.
Sepetyi, D. (2024). Rationalism critical and pancritical: What did Popper and Bartley disagree about? Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, 14(2), 572-602. https://doi.org/10.1086/730948
Strelko, О. H., Pylypchuk, O. Ya., & Pylypchuk, O. O. (2024). The Kyiv Society of Naturalists and its importance in the development of zoology. West Bohemian Historical Review, 14(1), 105‒121. Retrieved from https://wbhr.cz/images/issues/WBHR_2024_1.pdf
Uygun Tunç, D., Tunç, M. N., & Lakens, D. (2023). The epistemic and pragmatic function of dichotomous claims based on statistical hypothesis tests. Theory & Psychology, 33(3), 403-423. https://doi.org/10.1177/09593543231160112
von Mises, L. (1999). Human action. A treatise on economics. Auburn, Alabam: The Ludwig von Mises Institute. Retrieved from https://cdn.mises.org/Human%20Action_3.pdf
Walker, C. (2019). Karl Jaspers and Karl Popper: The shared legacy. History of Psychiatry, 30(2), 172‒188. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X19826473
Zweig, S. (1970). Yesterday’s World – Memories of a European. Frankfurt: Fisher.
Abstract views: 1332 PDF Downloads: 476
Copyright (c) 2024 History of science and technology
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
License terms: authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License International CC-BY that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
The scanned copy of the "Agreement” on the authors" copyright transfer on the manuscript publication and the subsequent posting of the paper on the Internet (in * .pdf or * .jpg format) is to be attached to the manuscript of the paper.
By this agreement the author certifies that the submitted material:
- does not infringe the copyright of other persons or organizations;
- was not previously published in other publishing houses and has not been submitted for publication in other editions.
The author passes the editorial board of the journal "History of science and technology" rights to:
- publication of the article in Ukrainian (English and Russian) language and distribution of its printed copy;
- translation of the article into English language (for articles in Ukrainian and Russian language) and distribution of its translated printed copy;
- distribution of the article electronic copy, as well as electronic copy of the article English translation (for articles in Ukrainian and Russian), via any electronic means (placing on the official web-site of the journal, electronic databases, repositories, etc.) printed copy of the translation.
The author reserves the right without the consent of the editorial board and founders:
- Use the materials of the article in whole or in part for educational purposes.
- Use the materials of the article in whole or in part to write their own dissertations.
- Use the materials of the article for the preparation of abstracts, conference reports, as well as oral presentations.
- Place electronic copies of the article (including the final electronic copy downloaded from the official web-site of the journal) to:
- personal web-resources of all authors (web-sites, web-pages, blogs, etc.);
- web-resources of institutions where authors work (including electronic institutional repositories);
- non-commercial web-resources of open access (for example, arXiv.org).
In all cases, the availability of a bibliographic link to an article or hyperlink to its electronic copy on the official website of the journal is compulsory.
