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Karl
Raimund Popper (1902-1994) The
Open Society and its Enemies, Objective Knowledge, The Poverty of Historicism Historicism,
negativism, piecemeal social engineering, critic of historicism and holism, critical
rationalism, falsificationism, tolerance Feyerabend,
Kuhn, Vienna Circle. We
must not tolerate intolerance Cold-war
hyperliberalism LSE |
If
one wants a brief political introduction to the confused mind of this
conservative thinker, then look no further than his essay on piecemeal and holistic
social engineering. This essay, written
in 1944 is tragically bad, it shows the depths of his technocratic understanding
of politics (as engineers buiding and modifying institutions), the perculiar
conservative motivations behind his confidence in the fundamental similarity of
the natural and social sciences and the principles of experimentation, test and
falsification therein and the lengths he will go to to misrepresent the
ultimate target of his scientific scepticism, namely Marxism, or any utopian or
holistics (much of the same thing in Popper’s book)and their pretensions
towards total critique and total transformation of the prevailing order.
There
are fundamental incongruities in Popper’s argument. Many stem from the idea
that social processes can be observed like natural laws as there are certain
features of social organisation that act in a law like limiting way upon what
can arise. Popper constantly conflates what is proper to the domain of scientifc
inquiry with conclusions about the possiblities of change in social and
political life. In his mind-set piecemeal social reform is the only form of ‘social
engineering’ that is in actually practiced. This involves adaption of
institutions and the creation of new ones (examples given include the decision
of a monopoly to reduce prices). In Poppers view holistic social transformations
only really ever effect piecemeal change, yet they do so in a manner that
negates the benefits of such change, as the prejudice of total critique
circumscribes a proper estimation of the effects of such practices. In fact,
for Popper, the perculair human problem of social engineering lies in that it
can never fully predict its effects on social behaviour, given such factors as
the variability of outcomes and reactions. Because Holistic transformations can
not be tested (as a total transofrmation is necessary for the experiemnt to
have effectiveity) this precludes the possiblity of there being a proper
scientifc basis to such meta-adjustment. In fact, Popper draws this conclusion:
“The holistics approach is incompatbile with a truly scientific attitude”.
Yet
we are lead immediately to question in what sense piecemeal social engineering
(that is to say minor reforms) are compatible with a truly scientifc atittude.
They are unfortuantely, at least in the manner that Popper construes the
question, wholely inadequate. What Popper provides as evidence of the
possiblity of minor social reform lies in the practical experience of the
individuals involved. He confesses this is not properly scientific (as in the
example of someone who knows when to queue for a cinema ticket in order to
ensure a reservation), but pre-scientifc – nevertheless, the practical
experience forms the basis on which social engineers can make measured
calculations as to technologically based social intervention. Yet because of
his perculiar technocratic construction of politics, he only judges the more
holsitc total transformation on the basis of such a conception of politics. All
of a sudden experience is lost from the equation, Popper simply does not see
how a holistic change could be based in mass collective experience and shared
interests – he sees the aritculation of these as being utopian excesses of his
type of constructed political agency. He needs to posit an especially
scientific character to his enemy inorder to discredit it, he can only view
social experiementation and knowledge production in his own narrow way, within
his own blinkered bourgeois mentatily of isolated individuals. Hence projects
that claim the necessity of a total transformation, for popper do not derive
this from the more quotidian pre-scientific experiences, but from a
pre-established schema that is beyond question: hence a political project is
reduced to a validity claim in science, and they never meet Poppers standards. Yet
it has long been an argument within Marxism that the possiblity of a different
society lies very much within the existing configuration of soceity, that the
social forms characteristic of the contemporary world and the experiene of the
social agents within it, allow for the possiblity of their overcoming, and in
some cases are posited as a necessary overcoming. Popper conflates very
different conceptions of holistic social change implicitly judging them by his
own, unstated totalisations. Whole states and whole histories of determinative,
creative social agency are ignored here.
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