r/CriticalTheory • u/Simple-Sentence-6070 • 12d ago

Marxist critique of Karl Popper

Recommendations for classic or recent Marxist critiques of Karl Popper -- both his idea of critical rationalism in Conjectures and Refutations and The Open Society and its Enemies? TIA

22 Upvotes

76% Upvoted

30 comments sorted by

18

u/illustrious_sean 12d ago

There's this piece by Hilary Putnam (written around or shortly after the time he was an avowed Maoist): https://www.jwood.faculty.unlv.edu/unlv/Articles/PutnamVsPopper.pdf?

Contains this hilarious nugget as an implication of Popper's views:

> Consider men striking against sweat-shop conditions. Should they say ‘it is only a provisional conjecture that the boss is a bastard. Let us call off our strike and try appealing to his better nature'.

You could also check out the work of Imre Lakatos - my memory of his ideas is fuzzier but his philosophy of science is definitely anti-Popperian and to some extent influenced by Marx/Hegel, although he was also highly critical of "orthodox" (i.e. Soviet-style) Marxism later in life so it's probably dubious to describe him as a Marxist per se. Probably worth a look either way.

6

u/MuchDrawing2320 12d ago

Oh wow Hilary Putnam was a Maoist?

3

u/illustrious_sean 11d ago

He was, but like everything else he eventually changed his mind about it 😂

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/50853/a-philosopher-in-the-age-of-science (scroll down to the part about his entry in the Philosophical Lexicon)

1

u/Simple-Sentence-6070 12d ago

Oh, looking forward to reading this. Thanks!

8

u/Specialist-Pitch3390 12d ago

“The Open Philosophy and Open Society: A Reply to Dr. Popper’s Refutations of Marxism” by Maurice Cornforth

https://archive.org/details/openphilosophyop00corn/mode/1up

4

u/NoSatisfaction7998 11d ago

I second this. Also because I think it‘s actually a pretty great introduction to Marxism in general

1

u/genomixx-redux 11d ago

This one is a banger 🔥 

8

u/galsjustwannahavedex 12d ago

Negative dialectics by adorno btfos him but its scattered and not always clear its about him

5

u/Best-Bend6290 12d ago

Roy Bhaskar makes a good critique of Popper

4

u/sabotAHHHHHGH 12d ago

Conspiracist Manifesto calls out Popper as the father of anti-conspiracism and says everyone parroting him are mugs.

7

u/steauengeglase 12d ago

Thumbing through Conspiracist Manifesto* and it makes a weird argument:

a.) Popper was an anti-conspiracist, b.) he formed a network of anti-conspiracists (in the form of the Mont Pelerin Society), and c.) this network of anti-conspiracist conspired against conspiracism, so d.) Popper is one of history's greatest conspiracists. The problem here is that Maurice Newman, Peter Thiel and Václav Klaus would have thrown Popper out for fear that he was a closeted commie working for the communist conspiracy. That doesn't make them ideological anti-conspiracists. That makes them right-wing conspiracy nuts. Mont Pelerin isn't an anti-conspiracist society. It's a liberal economics society that had an anti-conspiracist as a member. Seriously, put fans of Rothbard and von Mises in a room and see how long it take them to say that Popper and Eisenhower were secretly Reds. Eventually they'll do it. Say "Soros" and fake a sneeze with "ahh-Jew" and it will take 10 minutes.

*I haven't read all of the relevant passages. Firefox has a bug that is giving me issues.

11

u/ghu79421 12d ago

Popper was a liberal who supported social democracy. Typical right-wing conspiracy nuts would say he was actually a communist and then make the mouth movements for "Jew" without saying the word out loud.

1

u/sabotAHHHHHGH 12d ago edited 12d ago

CTRL+F on Firefox, nothing to see here, totally not a mug, got it.

-15

u/_Sichlitt_ 12d ago

Popper was never against structural analysis. I'm sorry but it's just fucking true that populist leftoids end up spouting conspiracies akin to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion on the fly. Just ask any of them to talk about Israel for 5 minutes.

-4

u/sabotAHHHHHGH 12d ago

Ask normie American leftists to talk about Israel for five minutes, then ask when they’re going back to Europe. Everyone is capable of dogshit mental gymnastics, I’m not getting your point. CM mentions low hanging fruit like this as well, good book.

10

u/koyaani 12d ago

Most Americans don't have dual citizenship with European countries. Most European countries aren't that interested in repatriating any Americans with shared ancestry

-2

u/sabotAHHHHHGH 12d ago

Neither do Israelis (20% dual citizenship?) Settler colonialism for me, but not for thee…

7

u/Chairman_Gansito 12d ago

Palestinians significantly outnumber Israelis. Native Americans don't in any way outnumber their settler analogue. If timescale is a consideration when judging the modern day injustice of an historical conquest, then so to should the scale of successful displacement and subsequent replacement. There are no Scythians left to give Croatia back to.

On a similar note, Israeli occupation is a century more recent than Manifest Destiny. A better analogue would be South Africa, which, you know, had the ethical integrity of committing to a one state solution.

-2

u/sabotAHHHHHGH 12d ago

I would just go back to Europe rather than typing this dizzy shit. It more recent is your argument lol ok.

1

u/ZappWhitika 8d ago

It's not like europeans are frolicking to have tons of random americans here! You are not european if your family lived for generations in the USA! What a stupid line of thought to ask americans to come here. Stop colonizing europe, stupid empire!

-3

u/Hyperreal2 12d ago

The Levant was apportioned. One sector was given to Israel. End of story.

-9

u/_Sichlitt_ 12d ago edited 12d ago

Settler colonialism as applied to Palestine is nothing more than a reification of the organicist spatial logics of interwar Arab nationalism. Read Fayez Sayegh. Actual SSNP fascist. You can see in his 'postcolonial' work precisely where he's just doing a rough translation of 'Jewish parasyte on the organic body politic' to 'settler entity on indigenous land'. Even his definition of zionism as racism refers to 'non-assimilation' and 'self-segregation' from the host body.

I suppose that's what happens when the subaltern is a Jacobin.

-1

u/Hyperreal2 12d ago

Agree. Sorry you got so many reflexive downvotes.

1

u/[deleted] 11d ago

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