Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 17:25:03 -0800
From: John Fox <J.Fox-AT-latrobe.edu.au>
Subject: PKF: On disliking Popper


On disliking Popper (in reply mainly to Rafe Champion)

As an old man who for most of my working life has been (mis)taken
for a Popperian, here's some reasons I don't like Popper much
(mind you, I also think he's very valuable in a lot of ways).

He wanted disciples, a vile vice, and didn't let himself realise that
he did; he reacted with denunciation and excommunication to mild
and very respectful criticisms from those he expected to play
that role - e.g. earlier, Agassi and Bartley, later, Watkins.

He trumpeted his own importance in solving the great problem of
demarcation and the almost equally important problem of induction.
It was patent to any good undergraduate that he had done neither;
whenever the basic points were made to him he kept changing the
subject and/or misrepresenting the points and/or ranting.

On valuing criticism, on openmindedness, on tolerance etc. he was
good at talking the talk but not at walking the walk.

Why the young don't like him?  I think partly because he comes across
as a know-it-all, partly because his style seems dogmatic and rather
pompous.  Style, more than substance; the young (as Nietzsche
recommends) tend to philosophize with the nose.  There are several
equally dogmatic and intolerant folk around who have a following
with the young because they concentrate on having a more
commercial style - use intellectual deodorants.

Some of the young love him; they pick up that his basic drive from
the first was disrespect for the established gurus, that his approach
had an incredible irreverent freshness - remember his reply to Adler,
"I see, and next time it will be your thousand-and-one-fold
experience" - and they find him an ally against a great deal of
fashionable bullshit.

Best wishes
John Fox

John F Fox
Philosophy
La Trobe University
Bundoora, Vic 3086
Australia


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