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Lewis and Popper on historicism

PostPosted: November 10th, 2004, 2:29 pm
by postodave
I was just wondering if anyone else had noticed the similarities between Lewis's criticism of historicism and the late Sir. Karl Popper's. Popper's is to be found in 'The Poverty of Historicism' and also in volume 2 of 'The Open Society and its Enemies'. Popper like Lewis was a critic of logical positivism, indeed he was known by them as 'the official opposition' He argues that scientific prediction of the future, as in Marxism is impossible because the future depends on things which have not yet been discovered; hence it is open, and society needas to be open, to allow it to unfold. Lewis focuses more on the mythical aspects of historicism, but it surely can't be a coincidence that they both use the word in the same way. Could Lewis have read Popper?

Popper on history (and Christianity)

PostPosted: November 5th, 2008, 2:23 am
by boink1

PostPosted: November 5th, 2008, 11:08 pm
by postodave

PostPosted: November 6th, 2008, 4:43 am
by rusmeister

PostPosted: November 10th, 2008, 11:31 am
by moogdroog

Re: Lewis and Popper on historicism

PostPosted: March 29th, 2009, 9:27 pm
by boink1

Re: Lewis and Popper on historicism

PostPosted: April 13th, 2010, 4:50 am
by Menippus
The comments about the dating here are not quite right. While Popper's Poverty of Historicism was published as a book for the first time in 1957, the book collects together articles which were published in the journal Economica, in 1944 and 1945.

Re: Lewis and Popper on historicism

PostPosted: April 14th, 2010, 7:56 pm
by cyranorox
Is that the Popper who waived a poker game with Wittegenstein? and derived the principle of not threatening opponents with andirony?

Re: Lewis and Popper on historicism

PostPosted: April 14th, 2010, 10:05 pm
by postodave
Very witty.
Have you been reading Wittgenstein's Poker?

Re: Lewis and Popper on historicism

PostPosted: May 11th, 2010, 8:26 pm
by cyranorox
No, dodging it.

Re: Lewis and Popper on historicism

PostPosted: May 11th, 2010, 9:23 pm
by postodave
It's an interesting read. Two of the greatest twentieth century philosophers meet and get in a row over philosophy and then cannot agree over what happened when they met.

Re: Lewis and Popper on historicism

PostPosted: May 12th, 2010, 9:00 pm
by cyranorox
dodging Wittgenstein's poker, not "Wittgenstein's Poker".

Re: Lewis and Popper on historicism

PostPosted: May 12th, 2010, 10:13 pm
by postodave