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In Karl Popper's famous book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, appears the formulation social engineering. That is an unfortunate wording. There is nothing mechanical in Popper's political strategy. The keywords are rather piece-meal & trial & error. It is even possible to characterize Popper as -- up to a point -- anti-rationalistic. His warning that we should not think too much of our knowledge of the functioning of the social world & of our ability to make forecasts, reminds one of what a critic of the French Revolution like Edmund Burke had to say. We should start with the delivered institutions, diagnose what is working badly &, aware of possible error, try to improve it. That said, one is not surprised of meeting a strain of antipolitics in Popper's philosophy. Although Popper welcomes measures to clear away suffering & distress, it is uncertain how he would balance his negative utilitarianism against individual freedom. He is distrustful of political power. The idea that democracy gives the people the instrument of governing is an illusion. Democracy's point is to make it possible to dismiss a government (notice the parallel with his methodology, a government is a kind of hypothesis, the election an opportunity for falsification.) However, it is not Popper's political philosophy in a substantial meaning that makes him worth studying, but his theory of the critical discourse, a theory that is very relevant for a reformistic political strategy. The idea of the Popperian discourse is not to get the parties closer emotionally, not to reach a compromise, not even to convince, but for me to listen to & learn from the criticism of my hypotheses. People with divergent standpoints should not be kept out of the discourse, they should be welcomed. Popper admires Greek culture up to Socrates & he emphasizes its openness to influences from other cultures along the shores of the Mediterranean. That is in keeping with Popper's antinationalism. Nationalism fattens stupidity & is often the cause of devastating violence. In his later works Popper regularly uses an evolutionary model & his theory of language is no exception. He sets forth how the development of describing, language's third function besides expressing & warning, created the possibility of storytelling. Now, stories can be true & false, & that makes language's fourth function necessary, the function of argumentation, of proving or disproving of what has been said. Lying, however, is a wonderful invention. To lie, to say what is not, but could be true, is a nursery for fantasy & creativeness. 33 References. Adapted from the source document.

Karl Popper's principal philosophical problem was trying to understand the world & ourselves as a part of it; he argued that any method to search for the truth is valid. Popper dealt with two great problems in the logic of scientific discovery: (1) in the problem of induction, experience is the judge of truth, but to induce a universal rule from observations is not justified; & (2) the problem of the demarcation between the sciences & metaphysics, which addresses the deductive method of testing & falsifiability. Popper also explored the concepts of verisimilitude, corroboration, objective knowledge, & the problem of mind-body interaction. For Popper, objective knowledge made the human responsible for his/her own actions. Adapted from the source document.

Nowadays are full of challenges & problems we have to face. There is no time to skip them. It is time to decide how to confront them. Several attitudes may be followed. Nevertheless if we take as a basis the main ideas of Sir Karl Popper, one of the most outstanding philosophers of the XXth Century, the ethical decision we face is to decide if we want to live with an attitude of an open or a close society. In this essay the reader will find some of the main ideas of Sir Karl Popper, which will stimulate reflection about responsibility of each individual in the construction of History. Adapted from the source document.

The infamous "methodology dispute" between Karl Popper & Theodor W. Adorno is examined. Popper's writings on political theory, philosophy of social science, & philosophy of history are reviewed, & it is shown that the most significant distinction between Popper & Adorno is that the former finds a distinction between truth & ideology. Popper, moreover, argues that social theory produces explanations that maintain agency against physiological, biological, or behaviorist reduction. Adorno's position on the methodology of social analysis is examined via an analysis of critical theory's original formulation as spelled out in Lukacsian Marxism. It is concluded that the basic difference between Adorno & Popper is that Adorno sees critical theory as a fetter from which humanity will ultimately be freed, whereas Popper views critical thinking as the single variant of rationality & as a strategy against the appeals of utopianism, dogmatism, & absolutes.

A posthumous discussion of the political & scientific significance & implications of Karl Popper's philosophy of science. Following a brief review of Popper's life & achievements, it is argued that he has been misunderstood & misrepresented by both admirers & critics. This is partially attributed to the radical nature of Popper's philosophy: Popper challenged many of the presumptions about knowledge & inquiry & presented a form of science & philosophy that was counterintuitive to many. The most significant of these counterintuitive claims was the suggestion that knowledge does not require justification or foundations. According to Popper, the most important knowledge rests on hypotheses that must be continually challenged, critiqued, & transformed. Therefore, recognition of ignorance is privileged over (illusory) certainty. In terms of politics, these principles encourage a form of government that is constantly exposed to criticism & change. Further, Popper suggests that democracy is the most just form of government due to its capacity to recognize & act on the critiques & claims of shifting public opinion & beliefs. 18 References. Adapted from the source document.

Karl Popper's strong attachment to music is seldom observed. He expresses strong opinions about what is good & bad in that field. Are these opinions just expressions of his subjective preferences? No, it is obvious that Popper finds a place for musical values in his "world 3." One of the aims of Popper's theory of the three worlds is to solve the body-mind problem; another is to demonstrate the possibility of objective knowledge. As the case of music indicates, world 3 does not consist of just factual knowledge; even values have a place there. Each world is said to be autonomous but interacting. What Popper has to say about the interaction between world 1 & world 2 is a polemic against the thesis that mental processes can be reduced to the physical. In the same way, the interaction between worlds 2 & 3 contradicts the idea that knowledge can be reduced to knowing & values to evaluation. Although Popper wrote Objective Knowledge, & accordingly is suspected of being a "positivist," it is, on the other hand, also possible to pick up arguments to accuse him of "decisionism." For example, he says that there is nothing that strictly compels the researcher to accept a falsification; after evaluating the results he has to make a decision. More fundamentally, nothing compels Popper or anyone to choose a critical-rationalistic philosophy. For Popper's part, such an attitude to life seems to be the only alternative to violence, & Popper insists that he hates violence. That means that objectivism follows from a fundamental ethical choice. Even the second word in the title Objective Knowledge may mislead the unprepared reader. The fact is, that Popper emphasizes how uncertain & limited our rational knowledge is. One might ask how it is possible to survive under such conditions. The answer is that we provisionally have to trust a lot of "knowledge" that is not rationally grounded. Does that means that anything goes? No, in life as in science we have to start with what is delivered, traditional, but we also should make our best to refine it into rational knowledge. Popper's acceptance of "metaphysics" is what separates him from the "positivists." From this it can already be anticipated that Popper is a "reformist," & that is what interests us as political scientists. 36 References. Adapted from the source document.