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The Popper Principle

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Re: The Popper Principle

#21

Post by card_zero »

loss_flow wrote: post #19

What if a society's collapse is a feature of progress, not a failure of it? Popper argues that open societies thrive on questioning and closed ones stagnate by suppressing it. But this introduces the contradiction that openness can't be preserved by any fixed set of rules as rules rigid enough to structure a society inevitably devolves the openness they're meant to protect. The optimistic read of that problem is that…

Why can't the society have evolving rules? Looks like your "rules rigid enough to structure a society" phrase denies this is possible, for no reason.

Re: The Popper Principle

#22

Post by fmajid »

Also worth reading, I. F. Stone’s “The Trial of Socrates” that sets the context. TL:DR Socrates was deeply involved with a group of Quisling aristocrats who briefly overthrew democracy with Sparta’s help. Athens’ withdrawal agreement with Sparta stipulated amnesty for the collaborators, so they used the roundabout prosecution. They were not going to execute him, just strip him of his civic rights, but his arrogant conduct during the trial so incensed the jurors that more voted for the death penalty than had voted to convict him.

Otherwise, it’s important to remember Plato sock-puppets Socrates, who had no truck with the newfangled and subversive invention of writing and thus could not correct the record. What is clear is that Plato, a disgruntled aristocrat himself, exiled for being part of the quisling faction, was a proto-fascist far beyond the wildest dreams of a Stalin or Hitler. But philosophy teachers like the conceit of a philosopher-king and that’s why he hasn’t been consigned to the trash heap of history where he belongs.

Re: The Popper Principle

#23

Post by viccis »

Hmm, was the rise of the Third Reich because a far-right and social democratic regime had liquidated the entirety of the militant left wing in Germany? Was it because of the vulnerabilities of parliamentary democracies that Carl Schmitt identified and helped the nascent Nazi movement exploit? Was it because the much lauded dialectical progression towards societies of greater freedom, touted by the German idealists, instead led to a country ravaged by war, leaving disillusionment and a moral void that a strongman with some convenient scapegoats could exploit?

No! Of course it was because Plato's authoritarian Republic ideas because they, with the most surface level interpretation, share the concept of class collaboration with fascism.

Popper has many good ideas but I think this was not one of them. The rise of fascism was incredibly historically contingent. It was a black swan event, and one of the defining characteristics of such events is that people always write flimsy narratives to explain them with the benefit of hindsight.

Re: The Popper Principle

#24

Post by soulofmischief »

card_zero wrote: post #14
dcre wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comment approved by my wife, who is a Plato scholar. Your point that whether True Philosophers even exist is left open is the kind of problem she points out all the time in dogmatic interpretations. It sounds basic, but it's so important to keep in mind that just because a character says something (even if that character is Socrates), that doesn't mean it's the "view" of the dialogue. And you have to be careful to pi…

Saying Plato is "just asking questions" seems like a cop-out, he's responsible for what he implies, whatever character he makes say it. How about the allegory of the cave? The roots of fallibilism could be traced to that allegory - except for the part about philosophers, who are the ones who have escaped the cave and have seen the sun, implying that they gain access to the absolute truth.

Is every author who wishes to convey certain messages to their audience through narrative also responsible for every single thing his characters say? Character-driven narrative would seem to be at odds with such a view.

Re: The Popper Principle

#25

Post by tshaddox »

loss_flow wrote: post #19

What if a society's collapse is a feature of progress, not a failure of it? Popper argues that open societies thrive on questioning and closed ones stagnate by suppressing it. But this introduces the contradiction that openness can't be preserved by any fixed set of rules as rules rigid enough to structure a society inevitably devolves the openness they're meant to protect. The optimistic read of that problem is that…

It seems to me that the open society is in a perpetual state of trying to outrun an endless sequence of problems: would-be invaders from closed societies, internal activists who would rather close down the society in the name of stability, exhaustion of resources on the planet, solar system, and so on, the inevitable asteroid impact or supernova, etc.

And the idea is that this endless sequence of problems exists regardless of how open your society is. So even if you were able to implement a perfect set of authoritarian rules to establish a stable closed society with the technology to capture all the resources from the solar system and redirect all dangerous asteroids, well crap, you still weren't innovative enough to stop the supernova from killing everyone 200 million years later.

Re: The Popper Principle

#26

Post by card_zero »

soulofmischief wrote: post #24
card_zero wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying Plato is "just asking questions" seems like a cop-out, he's responsible for what he implies, whatever character he makes say it. How about the allegory of the cave? The roots of fallibilism could be traced to that allegory - except for the part about philosophers, who are the ones who have escaped the cave and have seen the sun, implying that they gain access to the absolute truth.

Is every author who wishes to convey certain messages to their audience through narrative also responsible for every single thing his characters say? Character-driven narrative would seem to be at odds with such a view.

I was wondering about that too. But what I mean by "responsibility" is that the ideas presented have a definite form and don't get to evade criticism by being mercurial and shape-shifting. Not sure about art, like fiction. I'm not seeking to prevent authors from being ambiguously provocative, but it's a crappy way to reason.

Re: The Popper Principle

#27

Post by kbrkbr »

fmajid wrote: post #22

Also worth reading, I. F. Stone’s “The Trial of Socrates” that sets the context. TL:DR Socrates was deeply involved with a group of Quisling aristocrats who briefly overthrew democracy with Sparta’s help. Athens’ withdrawal agreement with Sparta stipulated amnesty for the collaborators, so they used the roundabout prosecution. They were not going to execute him, just strip him of his civic rights, but his arrogant co…

Also worth reading, Donald Kagan's [1] "The Trial of Socrates, by I.F. Stone" [2] that sets the context of this context. TL;DR Stone's story is not very strong.

[1] eminent historian of ancient Greece, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Kagan

[2] https://www.commentary.org/articles/donald-kagan/the-trial-o...

Re: The Popper Principle

#28

Post by throwaway27448 »

viccis wrote: post #23

Hmm, was the rise of the Third Reich because a far-right and social democratic regime had liquidated the entirety of the militant left wing in Germany? Was it because of the vulnerabilities of parliamentary democracies that Carl Schmitt identified and helped the nascent Nazi movement exploit? Was it because the much lauded dialectical progression towards societies of greater freedom, touted by the German idealists, i…

> The rise of fascism...was a black swan event

This is a very bold claim, and many (including myself) argue that authoritarianism and many things identified fascist are the inevitable result of liberal democracy. Capitalism cannibalizing itself, etc etc, which again many would argue is also inevitable. Marx outlines the inevitable decline of profit that drives this phenomenon in Volume III of Capital, but it is also a viewpoint shared by Adam Smith himself, John Stuart Mills, etc etc. Schumpeter also relies on it heavily in his analysis of the role of private property in driving market processes.

As profits inevitably decline, either capital will inevitably seize control of the state (dictatorship of capital) or the people do (dictatorship of the proletariat). Their interests are inherently at odds, and market forces ensures that this contradiction must be resolved. Inevitably.

Re: The Popper Principle

#29

Post by epsilonic »

loss_flow wrote: post #20
loss_flow wrote: post #19

What if a society's collapse is a feature of progress, not a failure of it? Popper argues that open societies thrive on questioning and closed ones stagnate by suppressing it. But this introduces the contradiction that openness can't be preserved by any fixed set of rules as rules rigid enough to structure a society inevitably devolves the openness they're meant to protect. The optimistic read of that problem is that…

Worth noting that Popper himself would probably reject this as he explicitly argues history has no meaning or direction. I'm inclined to see this view as in tension with the idea that openness promotes growth combined with the idea that growth is self-selecting

Sounds like nihilism.
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