Bartley, W W Unfathomed Knowledge, Unmeasured Wealth Portrait - Optimized OCR

Unfathomed On Universities
and the Wealth

of Nations
Knowledge,
Unmeasured William
Warren
Wealth Bartley, III
Books by W. W. Bartley, III
The Retreat to Commitment

A. A. Knopf, 1962; Chatto & Windus, 1964; second, revised and enlarged
edition. Open Court, 1984
Morality and Religion

Macmillan. 1971
Wittgenstein
J. B. Lippincott, 1973; second, revised and
enlarged edition. Open Court, 1985; Hutchinson, 1986
Lewis Carroll's Symbolic Logic

Clarkson N. Potter. 1977; second, revised and
enlarged edition, Clarkson N. Potter, 1986
Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man

Clarkson N. Potter, 1978
As Editor:
S i r Karl Popper, Postscript to the Logic of Scientific

Discovery
Vol. I: Realism and the Aim of Science
Vol. II: The Open Universe: A n Argument for
Indeterminism
Vol. Ill: Quantum Theory and the Schism in
Physics
Hutchinson, 1982 and 1983
Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of

Knowledge (with Gerard Radnitzky)
Open Court, 1987
F. A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism,

being Vol. I of The Collected Works of F. A . Hayek
Routledge, 1988; The University of Chicago Press, 1989.
F. A. Hayek, The Trend of Economic Thinking (with Stephen Kresge),

being Vol. I l l of The Collected Works of F. A . Hayek .■
Routledge, 1990; The University of Chicago Press, 1990
-I
UNFATHOMED KNOWLEDGE,
UNMEASURED WEALTH
On Universities and the Wealth of Nations
W. W. BARTLEY, III
Open Court
La Salle, Illinois
1990
OPEN COURT and the above logo are
registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office. Copyright © 1990 by William Warren Bartley, 111.
First printing 1990.
All rights reserved. No part of this

publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
Open Court Publishing Company.
La Salle. Illinois 6 1 3 0 1
Printed and bound in the United States of America
Library o f Congress Catalogtng-in-Publicalion Data
Bartley, William Warren. 1934-

Unfathomed knowledge, unmeasured wealth: on universities and
the wealth of nations/William Warren Bartley.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN (F8I26-91O54). — ISBN 08126-9106-7 (pbk.)
1. Universities and colleges — United States . 2. Knowledge. Theory
of. 3. Universities and colleges — United Stales — Economic aspects.
4. Education. Higher — Philosophy. 5. Liberty. I . Title. II. Title:
On universities and the wealth of nations
LA227.3.B37 1989 90-32102
378.73 — dc20 CIP
To
E A . von Hayek
A false hypothesis is better than none at all, for that it is
false does no harm at all; but when it fortifies itself, when it
is accepted universally and becomes a kind of creed that
nobody may doubt, that nobody may investigate, that is the
disaster of which centuries suffer.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The previous chapters may sometimes have given the im-

pression that they pleaded for the answer “Yes, let us rally
and restore the House of Intellect forthwith." This is an
unavoidable effect of the common forms of exposition. The
argument was in fact a choice, and one characteristic of
intellectual judgments: if you want this, you must have, or
do, that. The intention of my words was not so much to
persuade as to direct attention to incongruity and disease;
this book is a pathology of the subject, of which the fun-
damental principle resides in just this conditional proposi-
tion: if—then.
Jacques Barzun
CONTENTS
PREFACE xiii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xv
introduction
1 . What 1 Was Taught, and What I Learnt xvii
2. What this Book Contains xviii
A MANIFESTO B Y WAY OF A PROLOGUE

Let Me Count the Ways I Love You, Let Me Count
My Liberties 3
Part I: UN FATHOMED KNOWLEDGE
Chapter 1 . Liberty, Knowledge, and the Marketplace of Ideas

1 . Liberty and Knowledge 23
2. The Marketplace of Ideas 25
Chapter 2. Unfathomed Knowledge

1 . Limitations on Access to Knowledge:
A Section Full of Metaphors and Allusions 31
2. Fallibilism Transcended 33
3 . What It Means to Understand a Theory:
The Intrinsic Inaccessibilities of Knowledge —
Explained in a Cold, Logical Fashion 34
4. An Objection 38
5. The Time Warp Disappears: Unfathomed
Knowledge in a Bottle 39
6. The Usefulness of the Argument:
Determinism and Alienation 44
7. More Useful Applications: Patent Law,
Exchange of Property, and Theory of
Economic Value: Unmeasured Wealth 47
8. Some Consequences for Morality 50
TABLE O F CONTENTS
Chapter 3. Intentions and Expressions: The Objection Reconsidered

1 . Objective Knowledge and Our Subjectivist
Tradition 57
2. The Self Is Also Unfathomable 62
3. Alienation in the Service of
Knowledge-Production 64
4 . Freud and the Psychology and
Psychoanalysis of Knowledge 67
5. Acknowledgement and Alienation 69
Chapter 4 . The Sociology and Economics of Knowledge

1 . The Sociology of Knowledge 73
2. Sociology of Knowledge Misconstrues
the Problem 75
3. Ecological Questions 83
4. The Goal: Unlearning 85
Part II: UNIVERSITIES AND THE WEALTH OF

NATIONS
Chapter 5. Epistemology and Economics

1 . The Theory of Knowledge Is a
Branch of Economics 89
2. Localisation and Differential Growth
in Production of New Knowledge 92
Chapter 6. A n End Run: Why Do Intellectuals Like Kuhn So Much?

or— Is Kuhn a Sociologist of Knowledge and Not an
Economist of Knowledge?
1 . How Intellectuals Tend to Want Free Markets
Only for Themselves 95
2. Kuhn ’s Account of the Research
Community Is One in which Nothing
Resembling a Market Operates 103
3. Kuhn Systematically Misdescribes His
Opponents — and Gives an Absurdly Optimistic
Impression of the Real Situation in the Sciences 105
TABLE O F CONTENTS
4. Why Our Intellectuals Need

Kuhn's Ideas 109
Chapter 7. What is the Economic Structure of Our Research

Institutions ?
1 . Where Consumers Do Not Buy, Producers
Do Not Sell, and Owners Do Not Control 1 11
2. Fiefdoms, Guilds, Mutual- Protection
Rackets 114
Chapter 8. The Entrenchment of False Philosophies

1 . The Information Explosion:
Fact or Fantasy? 11 7
2. Our Universities are in the Midst of an
Intellectual Slump 120
3. Many Innovators Work
Outside Universities 1 23
4. A n Entrenched Network of Ideology 129
5. The Ritual Styles that Support the
Ideologies 13 2
6. The Little Innovation that Does Exist in Most
Universities Is Generated by
Competition from Other Institutions 141
7. What Are the Preconditions for
Correction? 143
8. A Modest Proposal: The Sociology of
Knowledge Must Be Replaced by the
Economics of Knowledge 146
Part III: THE CURIOUS CASE OF KARL POPPER
Chapter 9. The Popperian Philosophy and the Difficult Man Who

Started it All 153
TABLE O F CONTENTS
Chapter 10. The Crisis in Philosophy

1 . Popper's Philosophical Revolution:
Where Did It Happen! 165
2. The Birth of the Profession of
Philosophy of Science 166
3. Induction and Demarcation 168
4. The Key Role of the
Demarcation Problem 171
5. Problems in Relativity Theory 172
6. Problems in Quantum Theory 173
7. The Problem of the Status of
Scientific Theories 174
8. Philosophy of Science in a
State of Collapse 175
Chapter 1 1 . How the Crisis Was Resolved

1 . Popper's Response: There is
No Induction \T1
2. Falsifiability and Demarcation 179
3. Probability, Metaphysical Determinism,
and Quantum Mechanics 180
4. A Reexamination of the Philosophy of Science
from Within Science 183
Chapter 12. Popper’s Reception by the Profession: Con Lamento

1 . Acclaim by the Intellectual Community 185
2. Rejection, Obstruction and Suppression
by the Profession 188
3. Opposition from an
Entrenched Profession 1 92
4. Dialogue Ruined: The Strategy of Ignoring,
Distorting, and Deferring to Authority 195
5. Which Elite Has the Authority? 199
X
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Answer Matter?
1 . The Rhythms of Evolution and Strategies
for Survival 203
2. Then There Is Plain Envy 209
Chapter 1 4 . The Underlying Assumptions of Popper's Opponents:

The Wittgensteinian Problematic and Justificalionism
1 . An Approach to a Chasm 211
2. Tenets/ Problematic/Research Program/Structure 213
3. The Wittgensteinian Problematic 216
4. Weighty Consequences: The Task of
Philosophy is to Describe the Principles of the
Fragmented: The Division of Knowledge 221
5. Research Programs 222
6. Further Consequences and Reactions 224
7. A Different Look at the Matter 226
Chapter 1 5 . Justification and Rationality

1 . Comprehensive Rationality 229
2. Limited Rationality 232
3. Pancritical Rationality 236
4. The Ecology of Rationality and the
Unity of Knowledge 240
5. Some Specific Criticisms and
Some Minute Philosophy: Incantation
and a priori Claims 243
6. Scientism and the Buddha 251
Chapter 1 6 . The Popperian Harvest 257
Chapter 17. On Making a Difference:

The Difficult Man Again 261
Chapter 18. On Imre Lakatos 269

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part IV: FORGOTTEN PAST, UNKNOWN FUTURE
Chapter 19. Forgotten Past, Unknown Future: America and the

World Community
1 . The Time Before Our World Became Divided 274
2. The Division 277
3. Curtains of Iron, Economic Barriers 279
4. To Perpetuate the Division, to Remove
the Division 285
5. Portents of Unity: Vanishing Barriers 287
6. The Japanese: “The World’s Most Dedicated
Empiricists’’ 288
7. The New Divisions of Fanaticism:
"Unification" by Force 291
8. Knowledge, Cultural Diversity, and Open Borders
9. Vanishing Borders, New Boundaries 295
CODA 295
Name Index 299
Subject Index 306
xii
PREFACE
When he finished writing this book, W. W. Bartley, III, had

every hope and expectation of living to see it in print. Even while
undergoing treatments for the cancer which could not, finally, be
stopped, he made corrections to the manuscript. His mind remained
vigorous, occasionally even playful. He looked forward to the book’s
reception, hoping for a modicum of praise, but not blinking at the
prospect of criticism. Intellectually, W. W. Bartley, III, knew no
fear. If advancing the growth of knowledge meant giving offense, so
be it. Unfathomed Knowledge,Unmeasured Wealth should not be read in
any way as a farewell. It was not intended as a parting shot, but as
the opening salvo in what he was sure would be a lively battle with
many, such as the cadre of unreconstructed deconstructionists, of
the academic establishment. Yet he hoped die battle would not
obscure his positive intentions: to provide the basis for a clearer,
more promising view of our intellectual and economic prospects.
W. W. Bartley, III, was Senior Research Fellow of the

Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford Univer-
sity. He wrote numerous books, including The Retreat to Commitment-,
Morality and Religion-,Wittgenstein; and Werner Erhard, as well as many
papers in epistemology and the theory of rationality. He edited
Lewis Carroll’s Symbolic Logic, Sir Karl Popper’s Postscript to the Logic of
Scientific Discovery,and F. A. Hayek's The Fatal Conceit, and was
General Editor of The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek. He was known
both for his historical researches and for his contributions to the
theoretical foundations of philosophy, where he developed the
theory of rationality and solved Goodman’s paradox.
Bom in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1934, he died at his
home in Oakland, California, on February 5, 1990. A graduate of
Harvard College, he received his doctorate in Logic and Scientific
Method at the London School of Economics and Political Science,
University of London.
He was formerly Professor of Philosophy and of History and
Philosophy of Science, and Associate Director of the Center for the
Philosophy of Science al the University of Pittsburgh. He has also
been Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Humanities Pro-
gram at the University of California, a Lecturer at the University of
London (Warburg Institute and The London School of Economics),
a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University, and
a Fellow of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institutes for the Theory of
Science in Vienna and London. He was a Fellow and Adjunct
Scholar of the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason
University, and a member of the Mont P£lerin Society.
He held research fellowships and grants from many bodies,
including the United States Educational (Fulbright) Commission in
the United Kingdom and in New Zealand, the American Council of
Learned Societies, the University of California Institute for the
Humanities, the Danforth Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, the
Cato Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Wincott Foun-
dation, the Vera and Walter Morris Foundation, and the Thyssen
Stiftung.
Rerum cognoscere causas.
Stephen Kresge
March 12, 1990
xiv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1 am grateful to the following persons for conversations and

correspondence, and for comments on all or parts of this book: the
late Gregory Bateson, Mikhail Bernstam, John Blundell, James M,
Buchanan, Donald T. Campbell, Donald A. Erickson, Antony Flew,
Jeff Friedman, die late Lucien Goldmann, Sir Ernst Gombrich, OM,
FBA, Brian Gomes da Costa, John Gray, Richard Gregory, F. A. von
Hayek, CH, FBA, Robert Hessen, the late Sidney Hook, Ian C.
Jarvie, Audrey Johnson, Stephen Kresge, Leonard P Liggio, the late
Sir Peter Medawar, OM, CH, FRS, Naomi Moldofsky, Peter Munz,
Klaus Pahler, Gayle Pergamet, Sir Karl Popper, CH, FRS, FBA,
Gerard Radnitz.ky, Phil Salin, Jack Sommer, Gordon Tullock, Doro-
thy and Gunter Wachtershauser, and Robert Wesson,
I owe a special word of thanks to Leslie Graves and Eric S.
O’Keefe, for their detailed examination of the manuscript, and for
their encouragement. 1 am also greatly indebted to my research
assistants: to Timothy R. Brien, John Hank Edson, Timothy
Groseclose, Jason Lewis, of Stanford University; to Gene Opton, of
Berkeley; to Peter Klein, of the University of California, Berkeley;
and to Leif Wenar, of Harvard University.
I should also like to express my gratitude for support of my
research to The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace,
Stanford University; to the Vera and Walter Morris Foundation; and
to the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University.
W. W. B.
XV
INTRODUCTION
1 What I Wat Taught, and What 1 Learnt
/ was taught as a student that the university is a marketplace of

ideas where new ideas are welcome and falsehoods can be chal-
lenged without recrimination, where standards of gentlemanly dis-
course, honour, honesty and courtesy prevail, where one
cilI1 indeed, is expected to—think boldly and ambitiously and
deeply. The veil of deception woven by these great ideals is so
strong (as also in the church) that many students not only learn
these things but actually experience life at the university in this way.
I learnt as a professor that matters and manners were very dif-
ferent: that reigning doctrines or fashions or ideologies (the words
hardly matter) govern research and appointments in many fields,
especially in the arts but also in some sciences, and that most of
these ideologies have been in power for many decades, stilling much
genuine innovation. I also came to see that most of these ideologies
are false and to think of the twentieth century as an age of supersti-
tion. I learnt that it is prudent for someone who wishes to prosper
within the halls of academe to align himself with a reigning fashion.
If he does so, dropping the right names and the right slogans, he
may say, discreetly and indirectly, almost anything he wants—includ-
ing any nonsense. He will be permitted a sly liberty. And he may be
recognised and honoured not only for his discretion and indirection
but perhaps also, ironically, for his originality.
To live like this— to live a life of slyness if not deception whilst
searching for the truth—it is important not only to be cynical but to
grasp what is within, and what beyond, the Pale. It is prudent to
criticise no one within the Pale (whilst calling what one is doing
criticism”), to challenge no doctrines except those already agreed to
beyond the Pale, and to wrap oneself (or to appear to be
"'rapped) in specialist studies written so as to obscure their con-
tent—a practice that does not contribute to the development of a
clear and lively style.
What if one violates these norms? If one does so blatantly and
early, one usually does not gain entry as a teacher or researcher in
the groves of academe. As Nietzsche knew, academics and priests
are vindictive, and take a certain pleasure not only in ignoring but
so in stamping out disagreement. If one somehow does nonethe-
ess
manage to pass the sentries— perhaps by developing an engag-
ln
g. good-humoured, and non-threatening personality—one may well
survive by being ignored or not taken seriously. One may live out
UNFATHOMED KNOWLEDGE
one’s career as one of our eccentrics, as a beloved clown. This is of

course punishment for those who take ideas seriously, but there are
worse forms of punishment. There are other possibilities too: one
may go underground only for a time, as many of the radicals of the
'60s did, and hide one’s ideas until one obtains tenure, at which
time one may emerge as “a guerrilla with tenure”.1
Have 1 exaggerated? Perhaps a little. Yet while man is vile,
people are wonderful. They manage to adapt themselves to almost
any environment, to do what they want, to “get away with murder",
to be generous, and thoroughly to enjoy themselves while doing all
this. Thus while universities do contain some stunted individuals
who cannot and do not want to learn, and some activist guerrillas
who will do anything to seize power, there is also to be found
within their walls, especially amongst those who have a certain sense
of humour and a very thick skin, a far-ranging vitality and sensitivi-
ty and tolerance and compassion—and a sometimes burning curios-
ity. Then too, there are the undergraduates, who usually do not
know the rules, and who often remain full of life during their brief
sojourn in the halls of learning, and recall that time long afterwards
as a romantic idyll. But how much growth of knowledge takes place in
these halls of learning? That is what this book asks.
2. What this Book Contains
This book of essays is intended for those interested in philoso-

phy, political theory, economics, and education. The argument aims
to advance liberty, to increase knowledge and other forms of wealth,
and to improve education. All these are possible only within some
epistemological limitations created by our unfathomable knowledge.
Il is these limitations to which the title of the book refers.
The book is divided into a prologue and four Parts that weave
these themes together. The prologue, a manifesto that may be read
independently, outlines the basic freedoms that enable, i.e., that
create the space for, all the developments of civilisation, including
the unrestricted investigation of nature and mankind. Suggesting
how precariously these freedoms survive, and how easily they are
eroded, the prologue adds urgency to the Parts that follow.
' See Sidney Hook, "Intellectual Rot", Mrasurt. February 1989.
xviii
INTRODUCTION
| firsl and second Parts are devoted to two fundamental and

* st com pletely ignored aspects of the theory of knowledge. The
Part explores the intrinsically unfathomable character of knowl-
, , s howing what sweeping effects this feature of knowledge
exerts throughout the arts and sciences, how it affects our prospects
for liberty, and to what a limited extent knowledge can be owned
controlled. This knowledge about knowledge also has a devastat-
ing effect on many traditional and current intellectual fashions, some
of the most important of which are discussed.
The second Part, “On Universities and the Wealth of Nations”,
continues one of the themes of the first Part and of the Prologue in
arguing that economics and epistemology are fundamentally interre-
lated, since both are concerned with increase of wealth and gov-
erned by many of the same principles. Indeed, the theory of knowl-
edge is a branch of economics. This Part also argues that the institu-
tions on which we rely most for the production of knowledge
(conspicuously the universities), if viewed from an economic perspec-
tive, are not organised in such a way as readily to advance knowl-
edge, and indeed often work against its growth. As might be ex-
pected in case this claim were true, much of our intellectual life is
in the midst of a slump.
The third Part, “The Curious Case of Karl Popper", provides a
case study to examine and test the contentions advanced elsewhere
in the book. Popper's philosophy of liberty and of the growth of
knowledge has been more influential, and more widely and publicly
acclaimed, than any other philosophy of the century, and is especial-
ly influential within the most productive sciences. Yet Popper's work
also seriously threatens current intellectual fashions, especially in the
humanities and social sciences. It also threatens the existing struc-
ture of the university. As a consequence, Popperian views have been
systematically prevented from propagating within many areas that
they directly affect, and especially within the profession of philoso-
phy.
1 he philosophies which Popper’s approach directly attacks—es-
pecially Wittgensteinianism, analytic philosophy, logical positivism,
pragmatism, and phenomenology and hermeneutics—are indeed
doubly endangered by his ideas. They are threatened by his attacks
on their fundamental doctrines; and they are also threatened be-
xix
cause these philosophies are particularly congenial to Marxism2 and

to moral and intellectual relativism, positions which Popper’s ap-
proach also undercuts.
The situation is made precarious in that the demographics of
the university are about to change again. A large percentage of
those professors currently tenured will retire during the next de-
cade, at the same time that university enrolment is once again
expected to increase. It is widely predicted that in the coming two
decades American universities will require nearly as many new
faculty appointments as there are professors in place today. The
places of current professors, as well as many new places, will be
taken, under present non-competitive rules and practices, by the
students and disciples of those now in power. The exceptions will lie
chiefly in the allocation of a certain percentage of appointments to
members of minority groups appointed as much on the basis of
background as on merit or point of view. If the present situation is
not exposed, the fundamental philosophies taught in western univer-
sities may be expected to continue, until well into the twenty-first
century, to be dominated by Marxism and other forms of socialism,
relativism, Wittgensteinianism, positivism, phenomenology, and
hermeneutics. Existing, dominant false philosophies will become fur-
ther entrenched.
1 emphasise that my treatment of Popper’s views is a case study
or example. Many other worthy individuals, disciplines, and systems
of ideas find themselves in a similar situation.
The fourth Part of the book looks at knowledge and its divisions
in broader terms, turning from divisions amongst and within disci-
plines to the wider political and economic divisions that have
marked the twentieth century. It returns, in closing, to the themes
sounded in the prologue.
W. W. B.
The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace
Stanford University
June 1989
From about the 1960s onwards, the social base of Marxism shifted steadily from the
working-class movement to the university." Sec Frank Parkin, in The law-like and the man-
made . Times Islerar, Supplement. July 25. 1980, p. 838.
XX
A MANIFESTO BY WAY OF A PROLOGUE
Let Me Count the Ways I Love You,

Let Me Count My Liberties
Not long ago I was drinking coffee with my friend and colleague
Mikhail Bernstam in the Senior Common Room at the Hoover
Institution. No one had asked the question: What is indispensable to
freedom?, but it must have been in the air. For suddenly, setting
down his cup and waving his pipe in a large circle, Bernstam an-
nounced that there was a necessary’ condition to freedom: namely,
the freedom to supply.
Bernstam is an economist and demographer by profession. What
he alleged seemed to me original, and deeper than most character-
isations of freedom. Certainly I preferred it to Voltaire's “Quand je
peux faire ce que je veux, voih la liberty”1, or to Bertrand Russell’s
"Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to
the realisation of desires”.* If it is an original idea, he should have
all the credit. On the other hand, since ours was a casual conver-
sation, leaping from one topic to another with great liberty, he may
hardly be blamed in case the formulation of freedom that he so
freely supplied should prove faulty. Caveat emptor!' Nor should he be
held responsible for the following meditation that I composed on
the theme he set.
In the spirit of our conversation, and of the Common Room, I
retorted that there was another necessary condition to freedom:
namely, the freedom to receive. He objected to this not on the ground
that it is more blessed to give than to receive; instead he insisted
that the freedom to receive can be reduced logically to the freedom
to supply. I have remained convinced, as I shall explain in a mo-
ment, that the freedom to receive is just as basic. The logical point
’ I.e., “Liberty is when I can do whatever I want.” Compare K. R. Popper’s anecdote: “Once
an American was brought into court because he had punched someone in the nose. He defended
himself on the grounds that, being a free citizen, he had the liberty to move his fists in any
direction he wanted. Whereupon the judge cautioned him, ’The freedom to move your fists is
limited. These limits may vary from lime to time. But the noses of your fellow citizens are almost
always outside these limits’.” Sec K. R. Popper, Bemrrkungrn zu Throne und Praxis des demokratischen
Staates (Zurich: Bank Hofmann AG. 1988), p. 19.
’ Bertrand Russell, “Freedom and Government*’, in Ruth Nanda Anshen, cd., Freedom: Ils
Meaning (New York: Harcourt. Brace & Co.. 1940). One might ask: “Any desires?”
1
“Let die buyer beware!”
is, however, not what most interested me. I was more intrigued by
the fertility of the two freedoms when taken together. These twin
freedoms sow the seed for a free order.
The primacy and necessity of the freedom to supply and the
freedom to receive are evident in the way that they limit one
another—that is. in the way they pose obstacles to one another.
One’s freedom to supply—even in the most libertarian or anar-
chical of states, burdened by a minimum of laws and frowns—is of
course never unlimited in practice. But there is one limitation on
the freedom to supply that precedes all law and practical regulation,
and stems from the existence of the freedom to receive alone. For if
I am to have the freedom to receive (as opposed to being com-
pelled to receive), I must also have the freedom (or right) not to re-
ceive—i.e., the freedom to reject, refuse, or exclude what others
want to supply to me.4 Your freedom to supply is abridged by my
right to refuse what you wish to supply me. This is why the free-
dom to receive, placing a priori restrictions on the freedom to
supply, could not be reducible to the freedom to supply. And vice
versa.
One cannot be free to supply me contrary to my will or consent,
and I may even cut public lines of access to me. Thus I may throw
away my mail unopened, screen my telephone calls, and shut off, or
throw away (or supply to others) my television and radio.’ A free-
dom to supply uncurbed by this right to refuse would lead to the
extinction of virtually all rights: had I no right to refuse or exclude,
I would have no private domain. One sees here how short-sighted
was Lord Russell’s notion of freedom.
Similarly, my freedom to receive or obtain cannot be unlimited.
There is also a prior limit on it, antecedent to any law, regulation,
or other restriction, stemming from your freedom to supply. If you
are to possess the freedom to supply, you must also possess the
freedom (or right) not to supply: otherwise you would be compelled
The freedom not to receive —i.e.. the freedom to reject—mull of course be distinguished
from die lack of the freedom to receive.
There are limits to my freedom to refuse to receive too: I cannot refuse a subpoena,
a t lough I am free to hide, so long as 1 can, from the server thereof. We shall return to such
*l*‘c *1 arc secondary limits far distant from the basic limit just mentioned, and to other
problems of being compelled to receive, below.
4
to supply whatever you have that I want to obtain, and I could take
from you at will.6
This applies not only to goods but also to information. If I am
free to supply information I must also be free to keep secrets. Thus,
while a person is free to receive or obtain whatever knowledge he
can, he cannot have an unlimited “right to know” if this means that
I, who happen to know, am compelled to supply him with my
information.’ My information may have been hard to come by and
be precious to me. And if what were meant is a general right to
know, who could grant anyone any such right? And who could
supply anyone who had such a right?
This applies not only to goods and information but also, especial-
ly, to attention. Most ordinary people and children and domestic
animals—and tyrants and rulers and politicians, and actors and
intellectuals—crave attention. Although Andy Warhol declared that
“In America, everyone gets to be famous—for fifteen minutes”, that
is not sufficient for many people whose desire is unlimited. If one is
to be free to supply attention, one must also be free to withhold it.
Otherwise one would be drained. In another conversation in the
Hoover Senior Common Room, die economist Max Hartwell once
asked me (after 1 had revealed to him that 1 had five cats), “How
can you possibly do that? I find it difficult to have more than five
good friends in addition to family. It’s too time-consuming, and it’s
too demanding emotionally and intellectually!” I understood what he
meant, and sometimes I think my cats do too.
Converse to the craving for attention is the wish for privacy. If
one is to be free to receive attention one must also be free to refuse
it: that is, to enjoy privacy.
In these mutual limitations that the freedom to supply and the

freedom to receive place on one another there is no harm but only
benefit. They are the limitations on freedom that protect freedom,
whereas to be compelled to supply or receive violates freedom.
• What I have just written applies to relations amongst individuals and ordinary companies
and enterprises. There are. however, some things which the state is obligated t o supply as a
consequence of its duty to protect its citizens and to provide recourse from injustice. For instance,
one has an unlimited right to receive a fair trial, the attention of a jury of one’s peers, and free
legal representation if one cannot afford to pay. Whether the stale wishes to supply these or not,
it is obligated to do so.
’ Plato well understood this. When Hippocrates came to Socrates to complain dial Protagoras
had robbed him by keeping his wisdom from him. Socrates admonished him to offer him money
in payment for it See the humorous exchange in Protagoras, 310-311.
5
On the other hand, provided I do not compel you to receive

what I supply (including my supply of words), there is no objection
to my supplying you with persuasion and enticement and argument
to receive what 1 supply. Likewise, provided you do not compel me
to supply you with what I have, there is no objection to your
supplying me with persuasion and enticement and argument to
supply you with what is mine. You may beg, borrow, or buy it.
Limitations on the freedom to supply and receive unfortunately
do not begin and end in the mutual logical limitations that they
place on one another. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The natural
progress of things is for government to gain ground and for liberty
to yield”. Thus much government law forbids or at least regulates
the freedom to supply and the freedom to receive in particular
respects, and thus restricts these basic freedoms. Depending where
we are in the world, various laws may forbid us to supply to others:
many drugs, alcohol or pornography to those under age;

certain sorts of sexual favours; forced sexual contact; persist-
ent sexual suggestions (sexual harassment); obscene phone
calls (unless, in some localities, the recipient is both willing
and paying by credit card); false witness; particular (e.g.,
seditious, blasphemous, plagiarised, shocking, and even un-
fashionable) ideas'*; stolen property; newspapers or books
from abroad; and broadcasts from abroad or unlicensed
broadcasts from within.
As an example of the last prohibition, it is at the moment 1 write

these words unlawful for anyone to print or broadcast or otherwise
* 'Hie legal faculty at the University of Stockholm is attempting to deny the right of a
colleague. Professor Jacob Sundberg, to supply to his students the doctrine that people have any
rights apart from those that the law of a particular land may state them to have. See “'rhe Right
t o Differ". The Economist, February 11, 1989. p. 32. See also Gerard Radnitzky’s detailed study of
the Sundberg case, “Academic Freedom in Conflict with the Party’s Cognitive Capital: Two Case
Histories", forthcoming in Afmmvr and in Cnhcmi. On the differences between Anglo-Saxon and
continental traditions with regard to rights, and on the erosion of the Anglo-Saxon tradition
during the past century, substituting "sociology for jurisprudence and ad hoc jural orders for
predictable results", sec Ridgway K . Foley. Jr.. "Invasive Government and the Destruction of
Certainty". The Freeman, January 1988. pp. 11*19. Foley writes: “The history of the common law
of promissory obligations makes one point patent: The law has slowly but surely evolved to an
ameliorative stance wherein a promisor whose expectations are thwarted or whose forecast is
flawed stands a Hkeiihood of relief from his obligations, in whole or in part, at the expense of a
promisee who forecasts more correctly and who now experiences punishment (in the form of hu
thwarted expectations) for accuracy. . . . The result: Parties to a contract do not know if. and to
what extent, the courts will enforce their voluntary bargain."
6
supply or disseminate, within the U.S., anything the Voice of Amer-

ica says to its 130 million foreign listeners.9
Among other things we may be forbidden to supply are:
fruit that falls below marketing-board standards; the skins of

endangered animals; counterfeit bank notes; pirated, pat-
ented or copyright material to which one holds no license;
certain sorts of semi-conductor chips; certain kinds of equip-
ment, such as computers or high technology, to certain
countries (e.g., those within the communist bloc); certain
kinds of dangerous articles such as bombs or radioactive
material; certain venereal diseases10; hypnosis or psycho-
therapy without a license; medical or legal advice or a mar-
riage or a death certificate without a license; medications
unapproved by the state, even to terminally-ill patients;
bribes; blackmail; kickbacks; gifts over a certain amount to a
public official; classified or officially secret information;
information to someone who does not "need to know”. One
could go on.
Likewise, again depending where we are in the world, various

laws and regulations (sometimes the same ones) may forbid us to
receive or obtain from others some of the following things (the lists
overlap but are not identical):
any drug not sold over the counter unless one has a pre-
scription; any drug not approved by the Food and Drug
Administration; alcohol or pornography unless one is above
a certain age; certain sorts of sexual favours; more than one
spouse al a time; particular (e.g., seditious or blasphemous)
ideas; stolen property; sunken treasure, beached whales in
• Anyone who supposes that he must have misunderstood this sentence, should read Michael
Cartner. “Don‘t Repeat What Your Uncle Sam Tells lliose Other Folks", Wall Street Journal, June
9 . 1988. p. 29.
10
The law is in the making: it may now be assault, or worse, for a person knowing that he
or she has an HIV infection or even herpes to have sexual intercourse without so informing the
partner.
7
England1*; a fugitive from justice; an illegal alien as an

employee; newspapers or books from abroad; broadcasts
from abroad or unlicensed broadcasts from within; the skins
of endangered animals; counterfeit bank notes knowingly; a
secret bank account; hidden assets; more than one legal
name without publishing it (or an undeclared alias); a
passport from a foreign country (except under restricted
conditions); a letter in one’s own mailbox unless it bears a
recognised stamp and was placed there by a recognised
bearer; pirated material; certain sorts of semi-conductor
chips without a license; certain kinds of dangerous equi-
pment such as bombs and radioactive material; bribes;
kickbacks; gifts over a certain amount if one is a public
official; classified or secret information. Or a good time in
Philadelphia. One could go on here, too.
Such prohibitions to supply and receive are not eternal or a

priori. Once upon a time citizens of the United States were forbid-
den to supply or receive alcoholic beverages. But good President
Roosevelt restored this freedom while, at the same moment, taking
away our freedom to supply or receive gold. We could drown our
grief at the loss of our freedom to deal in gold. Later, good Presi-
dent Nixon restored our freedom to deal in gold.
Are our lists just a jumble of things? Or may one order and
classify them? A certain amount of order is obvious, for those things
that one is forbidden to supply or receive (or in which supply and
receipt is regulated) tend to fall into the following categories:
A. Things or actions forbidden to supply or receive in order to protect the life

and property of the citizenry:
lies in court, which could endanger other persons or under-

mine justice; ideas or artifacts which in one’s own hands or
in the hands of another (or another country) could be
11
Some of these prohibitions may of course have unintended good consequences. Because of
Crown ownership of beached whales in England. British records of beached whales are unusually
good. These records enabled testing and corroboration of the recent hypodiesis that whales steer
according to magnetic Gelds, and that whales are apt to run aground where magnetic contours
cross the coast at right angles. Sec Thf April 8. 1989. pp. 96-97. See also Gary Gentile,
Shipwreck Legislation: Legality vs. Morality", Thf Hrtman. June 1989. pp. 217-223.
8
dangerous, damaging, or ruinous to another citizen or to

the state; stolen property, including stolen ideas; threats and
violence to the lives, health or well-being of other persons
(whether by bodily injury, forced or deceitful sex, or by
injury to their reputations, as by, say, blackmail); threats to
public safety, including persons who may threaten the public
safety (as, say, fugitives from justice); threats to the integrity
of money (as by counterfeiting); rendering wealth or inheri-
tance rights ambiguous or clouded, as by engaging in
bigamy; corrupting public officials, which endangers the
lives, rights, and property of citizens; actions or objects that
could tend to lead to the destruction of the environment
that sustains life, and thus endangering life.
B. Goods or actions forbidden to supply or receive in order to protect or

regulate the morals of the citizenry:
drugs,1’ including (in some places) alcohol; voluntary sex, as

between consenting adults.
C. Goods or actions forbidden to supply or receive,the forbidding of which

has the effect of furthering state invasion or usurpation of private matters,
suppression of initiative, and regulation of personal behaviour.
“invasion of the mail box”, whereby the state, through

confiscation of use, manages one’s property to protect its
cartel and inconvenience competition”; engaging without a
license in activities, in themselves legal (such as hypnosis or
practical psychological counseling), which the state chooses to
license and regulate for purposes always alleged to be
beneficent and which do always benefit the state;' 4 property
arbitrarily claimed by the state or crown, such as treasure
trove; acts tending to disregard, despise, discredit or under-
mine rights claimed by the state, such as the right of admis-
sion to the country (as in hiring illegal aliens); concealed
” See William F. Buckley, “Why not legalization of narcotics?", March 26, 1989; and David
Boaz, "Let s Quit the Drug War", The New fork Times, Thursday, March 17. 1988. Sec also James
Ostrowski, "Thinking About Drug Legalization", Calo /'b/tq no, 121, May 25. 1989.
” See Martin Anderson, "Decriminalize the Carrying of Mail", in "A Six-Day Plan for
Reagan", The Washington Post, June 16, 1987.
14
See S. David Young, The Rule of Experts (Washington. D.C.: The Cato Institute, 1987).
9
U N FATHOM ED KNOWLEDGE
wealth or sources of wealth; actions or objects that could

tend to lead to the destruction of rare plants and wildlife.
Z>. Goods or artions forbidden to supply or receive in order to pennit the state
the power of censorship, direct and indirect
ideas considered by the state to be dangerous, offensive, or

undermining of authority; specified information or sources
of information.
Those things that we are forbidden to supply or receive are

hardly a jumble, yet they remain a mixed bag on which it is some-
times difficult to form an opinion. 1 have formed the following
tentative opinion: In the regulation of those items and actions in
category A, the state has a legitimate interest, on behalf of its
citizenry, since these matters do threaten the lives, property, and
liberties of that citizenry. This is true even of the prohibition against
counterfeiting, even though states have done far more to debase
currency and undermine the integrity of money than has any
private counterfeiter. Here 1 follow a conservative position. In the
other categories, however, the state has, in most circumstances, no
legitimate interest, and no laws should be enacted regarding such
matters. Here I follow many classical liberals and contemporary
libertarians (or “liberals in the 19th-century sense”)., s
While the state has no business regulating or making laws about
such matters, its citizens, with the right of free association, may or-
ganise to persuade or convert others by all the means of free
speech not to supply or receive such items or actions. They may
indeed see themselves as having a moral duty to do so. Free indi-
viduals, in free association with other free individuals, meddle in the
affairs of one another whether they intend to do so or not. At-
tempts have been made to restrict such meddling by pejoratively
classifying some of it as “proselytizing". These attempts are danger-
ous. For proselytizing is not an easily identifiable act like punching
" "In I860 a liberal. of whatever nationality, was one who favored free trade, a market
economy with little or no government intervention, a limited constitutional slate, and a social
policy based on self-help. , . . Those who espoused the views defined as liberal in 1860 were, by
the mid-twentieth century, now commonly labelled as conservatives.” Stephen Davies, in “Biblio-
graphic Essay: The Decline of Classical Liberalism: 1860-1940”, Human/ Studirs Rnnrw, vol. 5, no.
"'j nter '987-1988, pp. l-)9. This is most unfortunate, for classical (or nineteenth-century)
liberals were not conservative in either the earlier or the more recent senses.
10
someone in the nose. It is hard to distinguish it in any theoretical

way from a hard sell in business or from enthusiastic self expres-
sion.
However these things may be, those who would meddle with the
views of their fellows may not, since this would interfere with the
liberty of their fellow citizens, capture the power of the state to
regulate or legislate on such matters in accordance with their own
opinions; they may not enforce their meddling.
Yet conservatives (and those, such as the so-called “Moral Major-
ity”, who often try to usurp the honourable name “conservative")
sometimes attempt to do just this: they lobby for legislation regulat-
ing, criminalising, and excluding not simply from their own groups
but even from the country others whose personal behaviour dis-
pleases them. They use state power to compel.16
The danger that such abuses might occur played a large part in
the discussions leading to the adoption of the American constitution.
Madison's problem, in 1787, was precisely how to prevent majorities
(whether within the community at large or simply within the legisla-
ture) from violating individual rights. The task of preventing them
from doing so suffuses his constitutional thought. Thus:
The great discovery that Madison carried to Philadelphia was that

laws destructive of private rights were far less likely to be enacted
in an extended national republic than within the smaller spheres of
the states. Because a national republic would embrace so many
diverse and shifting interests, the danger of the wrong kinds of
coalitions forming and enduring among the community at large
would be gready reduced. And the new Congress, he predicted,
would consist of legislators far more enlightened and scrupulous
than the petty demagogues who controlled the state assemblies.
(This, of course, was the theory that took its mature form in The
Federalist papers 10 and 51 .)"
“ See Professor Ronald Dworkin, of Oxford University (an American), as quoted in The
Stanford Daily, May 11, 1988, p . 2. who declared that the moral majority, “are not concerned
about the slate of my immortal soul. They just want me to take my sin the hell out of the
country" I n Tailing Rights Srnoush (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977). Dworkin disputes
Lord Devlin's argument that “any society wanting to pass the lest of morality had to criminalise
homosexuality first”. Setting up and passing “tests of morality” is not die business of the state
” J. Raliove, “Mr. Meese, Meet Mr. Madison", The Atlantic, December 1986, p. 82. As Rakove
points out, Madison's is not an argument for large government but for government transcending
local and partisan interests. See also F. A. Hayek, “Why 1 am Not a Conservative". >n Die
Constitution of Itberti (London: Routledge A- Kegan Paul. 1960; Chicago: University of Chicago
Press. I960).
II
Although attempts to compel are perhaps most often put forward by

conservatives in the United States, there is nothing intrinsically
conservative about them. The income tax changed the behaviour of
the citizenry radically, making one of the most enterprising popu-
laces of the world less knowers and explorers of that world than
knowers and explorers of rules and loopholes. Yet neither the
income tax nor the prohibition against holding gold, to take two
examples, were introduced by conservatives. A conservative who
makes such an attempt to compel, indeed acts stupidly from his
own point of view: he neglects to consider that, although state con-
trol may temporarily be captured by conservatives, it also may be
captured by their opponents, and if state power may be used by
conservatives to compel their opponents, it also may be used by
their opponents (when they are in power) to compel them\ Just this
has frequently happened—not only in the countries of the eastern
bloc, but in the United States and the European lands as well—in
the tyranny of so-called liberals and of the left. Yet not only the
conservative but also his opponent (the Marxist or socialist, say) is
virtually driven to neglect this consideration. For both, despite their
many differences, have this in common: they see the state, as op-
posed to private institutions and initiative, such as that of the
family, as being charged with the supervision and protection of
values: old values in one case, values declared to be new (but in fact
primitive18) in the other. And they both operate with the naive (and
often unconscious) assumption or hope—an assumption as old as
Plato—that, once right has triumphed, it will not be dislodged.
If the tendency to usurp state power to control behaviour is
most common in the United States amongst those groups associated
with conservatism, its roots lie not in conservatism as such, but in
the fact that the desire to control the behaviour of others is strong-
est in the US amongst some religious groups. These groups tend to
make their case through conservative politicians because, at least at
the moment, they succeed better with them than with their oppo-
nents. Elsewhere, as in England and most of western Europe, where
the association between conservatism and religious fundamentalism is
See F. A. Hayek. The fatal Conteil, vol. I of The Collected H’orE: of F. A. Hinek (London:
Kouuedge, 1988; Chicago. Lmveraty of Chicago Preu. 1989).
12
far weaker19, conservatism is a more reputable and intellectually

stronger political philosophy.
Here is a question more urgent than distinctions amongst forms

of conservatism: namely, do any of these particular limitations
violate the mutual, prior, timeless, limitations that the freedoms to
supply and to receive place on one another? That is, do any partic-
ular restrictions go further and compel one to supply or to receive,
and thus violate our basic freedoms?
The answer is obviously yes. We are not only forbidden to
supply and receive; we are also compelled to supply and receive.
And the compulsions are more fundamental than are the forbid-
dings.
What are we compelled to supply? The old saying that one
cannot escape death and taxes embodies what philosophers call a
category mistake. For though one may, by some crime, bring down
on oneself an early death enacted by the state, death itself is a
condition of being and comes sooner or later regardless of human
law. The compulsion to supply taxes lies on an entirely different level.
Closely attending the compulsion to supply taxes is the compulsion to
supply information. Justified not only by the requirement of the
census but more particularly by the pretext that the state wishes to
extract taxes non-arbitrarily, according to some rule, and therefore
compels one to supply statements of income and assets, it amounts
to a deep invasion of one’s privacy, forcing one to expose to the
scrutiny of the state and hence, indirectly, to the scrutiny of all
mankind, the particulars of one's intimate affairs. Thus confiscation
and invasion of privacy go hand in hand, the second aggravating the
damage of the first. If taxes must be raised, the damage that they
do to liberty and to morality both public and private could be
alleviated somewhat by levying them on public or anonymous
transactions alone, such as purchases and sales, thus leaving us with
our privacy, if not our estates, intact.
What else are we compelled to supply? We are compelled to give

testimony to grand juries, and to surrender our time without due
compensation in giving testimony or depositions of any kind and in
'* See Gerard Radniuky. "Science a» a particular mode of thinking and the ‘taming oi the
State'", in Fred D'Agostino and Ian C. Jarvie, edi.. Freedom and Rulionahh (Dordrecht: Kluwer,
1989).
13
doing jury duty. If fit, young, and male, we are also compelled to
defend the state. And thus one is compelled to supply oneself in
time of war, and in time of peace to register for the call-up20. The
justification for these latter compulsions is that in defending the
state we are defending ourselves, our families, our possessions, and
our liberties—a claim that is often untrue when the state is power-
ful, and less likely to be true the more powerful and unchecked the
state becomes.
There are also subordinate compulsions to supply, stemming
from the licensing activity of the state. Thus one must supply a
sample of one’s blood if one wishes to be married; apart from quite
exceptional circumstances, one must supply one’s child to an ap-
proved school to be educated; one must supply one’s automobile for
a smog test if one is to drive it; one must supply plans of one’s
house to obtain a building permit. And one may not even live on
one’s own land unless one has supplied for oneself a dwelling
conforming to the standards and codes of the community. This last
regulation, had it then existed, would have driven Henry David
Thoreau from Walden Pond, for neither would his shanty have
conformed nor did he even own the land —double trouble for the
author of “Civil Disobedience".
Some of these compulsions would be less onerous—at least many
people would support and participate freely in such activities—if one
had any confidence that the state were competent and disinterested
in its licensing and regulating. But the state is rarely competent.
One might almost say that it debases whatever it touches. The
schools are a scandal. 21 The Food and Drug Administration is a
sewer of pseudo-scientific methodology, financial and intellectual
corruption, and gross immorality.22 Nor can anyone deny that the
armed forces have at times and places behaved scandalously. Nor is
the state disinterested: licensing is a source of revenue, corruption,
” “The draft is an infringement of basic American liberties." See Martin Anderson. “A Six-
Day Plan for Reagan", op. dt, The Washington Post, June 16. 1987.
” See Robert B. Everhart, cd.. The Public School Monopoly: A Critical Analysis of Education and
the Stale in Amencnn Society (San Erandsco: Pacific Institute, 1982). For an account of the greatly
enhanced control the Federal Government has gained over the schools, and virtually all other
institutions, through the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988, see George Roche. “The Price of
Independence", fmpnmis, January' 1989.
” See "Progress and Placebo", The Wall Street Journal, June 29. 1989, p. A12, and Harry
Schwartz, “A ’Miracle’ Drug That Languished Among the Worms", The Wall Street Journal, July 18.
1989, p. A14. The latter article discusses the potent anti-cancer drug levamisole, first discovered in
1966, but languished at die FDA for thirty-three years before being added to the oncologist’s
14
and control, including the control and manipulation of thought and

behaviour, and the sinister use of information.
One is now also compelled in some states to supply protection
against danger for those who stray or intrude uninvited upon one’s
property. Thus one must make one’s ’’attractive nuisances" (ameni-
ties intended for one’s own use in private, such as swimming pools)
inaccessible to intruders who might otherwise damage themselves in
them; and one must supply a safe environment for burglars in one’s
own houses. That is, one must place no dangerous obstacles in the
way of burglars, lest a burglar who, say, falls through one’s skylight
successfully sue for negligence. Compulsions to supply such as these
are plainly mad.
By contrast, we are compelled to receive or obtain relatively
little. Which may suggest to the cynical that the state is, in general,
more interested in taking than in giving?5
Perhaps the worst that one is compelled to receive or obtain is a
certain number of years of education at a recognised school. One
must also receive into one's house or office a person with a search
warrant. Yet this is less a compulsion to receive than a direct
consequence of the compulsion to supply certain information.
Certain other compulsions to receive protect the health and
safety of other citizens: thus one cannot turn away the fire depart-
ment if one’s house is burning; one must receive medical attention
and vaccinations for one’s children, and may be compelled to obtain
vaccinations for oneself.
Citizens and residents of many parts of the world must obtain
and carry proper identification al all times. Such a requirement is
an outrage. One’s identity is one’s own business if anything is. And
the first step in self-incrimination (which allegedly cannot legally be
required of one) may be self-identification. States under which one’s
innocence is not presumed are those most likely to require such
self-identification.
There are other things that we are compelled to receive or

obtain not absolutely but conditionally: that is, if we wish to do
something regulated by the licensing activity of the state. Thus we
M
I have a hypothesis about relative unassigned costs—or what economists call “externalit-
ies" —in the regulation of the freedoms to supply and to receive. Regulation of freedoms may
tend to be asymmetrical in that freedom to supply tends to produce more externalities titan free-
dom to receive. The speculation is worth investigating, although not o n this occasion.
15
are required to obtain a license to drive a car, to run a business,

and to practice many professions; and we are required to obtain a
passport if we wish to travel, a visa to enter many foreign states,
and a ration book in order to eat in time of war. But one is not
compelled—at least not yet and not everywhere—to go to state
doctors for medical care.14
****
A matter often neglected is the way in which freedoms are trans-
formed into duties and entitlements. There is a direct path and an
indirect path by which the freedom to supply becomes the duty to
supply, and the freedom to receive becomes the right or entitlement
to receive.
First, by the direct path, essential to all free exchange, I may by
agreement or contract voluntarily incur the duty to supply to
another party. Thus that party may pay me a certain sum or other
consideration in exchange for my undertaking to supply a certain
item or service. That party then has the right to receive that item
or service horn me, and I, the duty to supply it. These rights and
duties may be enforced at law. On this direct path, the fundamental
limits on the freedom to supply and receive are respected. In
acquiring the duty to supply we are compelled to supply only what
we have voluntarily agreed to supply in return for some considera-
tion. In acquiring the right to receive, moreover, we are not com-
pelled to receive. We may waive our rights: i.e., we remain free to
refuse or decline what is due to us.
The newspapers, and the media generally, provide an illustration
here. If the media are free to supply news, they nonetheless, being
privately owned, do not have a duty to supply news (that is, they
may withhold some of the news) unless they have represented to
those who have purchased their services that they will supply all
that they have without stint. The New York Times declares its right
without duty in declaring plainly that it contains “All the news that’s
** The State of California recently undertook to provide a direct-payment medical plan for its
employees on the grounds that it would provide better services more economically. Although
reasonable reimbursement was approved only for certain “preferred " doctors, laboratories, and
hospitals, so that one was rather severely penalised for using other providers of services, the cost
of the program immediately increased, and benefits decreased. Moreover, nurses, engaged by die
Mate, now determine important aspects of one’s medical treatment, overrule doctors’ instructions
(even prrftrrtd doctors), and dius practise medicine without a license.
16
fit to print”. In this proviso it reserves judgement and withholds

commitment.’5
The indirect path winds differently: the state may declare itself,
or be declared, to have the duty to supply certain things (such as
welfare or health care) to its citizens, and the citizens may declare
themselves or be declared to have the right, or the entitlement, to
receive certain things from the state. This is a path fraught with
danger to freedom. It too does not honour the basic limitations on
the freedom to supply and to receive.
What are the duties of the state towards a citizen? And the
entitlements of the citizenry? Protection against certain sorts of
dangers from others to his life, health, and property. These are the
sole duty of the state, the sole entitlements of the citizen. All other
duties of the state, accumulated while treading the indirect path, are
dangerous additions.
How do duties and entitlements accumulate? I n practice, the

state confiscates the property of some of its citizens. And its officials,
to increase their own power, then declare the state to have certain
duties to some of their constituents, and therein make undertakings
to supply (indefinitely), from these gains, certain goods or services
to other citizens, who in turn then come to think themselves to be
entitled (indefinitely) to receive, to have the right to receive, to be
able to command receipt of, such goods and services. Thus some
citizens come to rely on the state’s powers to confiscate in order to
obtain from other citizens, indirecdy, what they could not obtain
directly. For example, they may come to think that they have the
right to receive from the state an education and medical care.
The basic limitations to the freedom to supply and to receive are
violated here in that there is compulsion: some citizens are com-
pelled to supply their goods to the state, which confiscates and
redistributes them.
Typically, in this same process, some citizens are also now com-
pelled to receive: in many associations to which they may belong,
they no longer have the right to exclude other persons, and there-
fore no longer have the right of free association. For as a price for
its largesse, the state compels its citizens to forfeit the right to
” On the other hand. I felt a bit cheated when I found that there ii no entry for freedom
•n the Fontana/ Harper Dictionary of Modem Thought.
17
exclude any persons from associations that benefit, directly or

indirectly, from state largesse or concessions—or that benefit even
from membership in the wider community.
This process damages or even destroys free association and tends
to corrupt the citizenry. To be free to associate implies that one is
also free not to associate: that is, one may choose with whom one
wishes to associate. People with the freedom of association may wish
to form associations or clubs or communities from which they
choose to exclude certain persons or types of person whom they do
not like or of whom they do not approve or with whom they feel
uncomfortable. Any sort of person may be the object of such exclu-
sion: women, men, homosexuals, heterosexuals, Jews, Presbyterians,
Roman Catholics, Freemasons, blacks—although it is those who are
in some way out of fashion or who are regarded as threatening who
are most likely to be excluded.
No person can have a right or an entitlement to be a member of
a private association freely formed. Otherwise the members of that
association are not associating freely, but are compelled so to as-
sociate.
If one may form a community from which certain sorts of people
are excluded, one may also form a community from which certain
sorts of goods and influences are also excluded or boycotted.
Of course associations already exist from which certain persons,
goods, services and influences are excluded. Some local groups of
United Auto Workers have denied access to their parking lots to
any foreign vehicles. Persons, goods, services, and influences may be
excluded not only from imagined economic interest but also by
superstition and foul prejudice. Yet the source of the decision to
exclude is irrelevant. For if the members of that association have
the freedom to receive, they must also have the freedom to ex-
clude—and with it the freedom to decide for themselves, neglecting
even the sound advice of others as to what is damaging and what is
not. Regarded in this way, the closed society, like the closed individ-
ual, has the right to exist. Whether either is viable is a separate
question. Yet if I am a member of an organisation which has
exercised the right to exclude, then I do not, as sueh a member, have
the freedom to receive what it excludes (1 have lost that freedom),
unless 1 have retained the unrestricted and irrevocable freedom to
leave that organisation or not to be bound personally by its ex-
clusions. This is a consequence that persons who become entangled
with exclusive associations or closed societies neglect at their peril.
18
The representatives of open societies, like free individuals, have

the liberty to persuade, but not to compel, other societies and their
representatives to lay down their exclusions.2® Thus open societies
and their members willy-nilly meddle in the internal affairs of one
another and of other states. Businesses and financial institutions, as
when they grant credit or engage in commerce or production in
other countries, have a great and unpredictable impact on the life
of those countries and on the behaviour patterns and traditions of
their inhabitants. So do cultural products, literature and art, and all
the products of the media. In a world criss-crossed by networks of
trade and communication, it remains easy to declare persons,
institutions, ideas, practices, and things excluded. But it is harder,
and very costly, to implement most such exclusions.
In such complicated situations, some individuals wish, at one and
the same time, to receive and to exclude. Some people, tangled in a
web of contorted arguments and assumptions, often now confuse the
right to exclude with alleged entitlements, and also loosely blend
rights and alleged entitlements of individuals with those of “peo-
ples", communities and states. Not long ago, while reviewing an
application for a foundation grant, I came upon the following
curious categorical statement:
Every people, every nation has a right to a life-style of its own, to

forms of governmental, legal and social organisations and cultural
identity that reflect its own history and correspond to its nature.
Without this there can be no genuine creativity, no innovation, no
“development".
People have whatever “life-styles”, forms of government, legal

and social institutions, and histories that they do in fact have, and
they have the right to cling to or prize them, wisely or foolishly as
the case may be. But from whom do they claim a “life-style of their
own" if they do not already have it? What is this “nature" that is
claimed for every people? And who could supply them, if they
lacked it, a “cultural identity that reflects their own history"? Hardly
a people or society in the world today is unified by a single cultural
tradition, let alone by “its own life-style".
One can guess what the author of this proposal must have ex-
pected for an answer. Many persons see it as part of the role of
18
Sec Part IV below.
19
UN FATHOM ED KNOWLEDGE
political institutions to prop up tottering cultural identities, to

protect them from the wounds of rapid cultural change.*7 When the
winds of doctrine and change damage or threaten their own moral,
religious, political and legal traditions, many people see themselves
as indeed “entitled" to state protection. This often means restricting
the rights of others, within and without the country in which they
dwell, to supply them with, or even to inform them of, alternative
moral, religious, political or legal traditions, or to practise them
themselves—at least within viewing or hearing range. “1 want to
know nothing about it, to have nothing to do with it.” The situation
is hardly different in essentials from that of a business, such as
Chrysler, or of a city, such as New York, that expects the state to
bail it out of a financial disaster (in order, especially in the second
case, to help it to continue to fund some of its “traditions”). To rely
on the state for such services is the road to bankruptcy, cultural or
fiscal as may be. Not to mention that it violates the basic liberties of
an individual to supply and to receive at his or her own discretion.
The duty of the state is not to defend individual traditions and life-
styles whose representatives move within its matrix, but to preserve
a structure of law in which practitioners of different traditions and
life-styles may coexist.
Creativity, innovation, the growth of knowledge, and develop-
ment have always been associated with the clash of cultures, almost
never with cultural isolation and state protection. The clashing of
cultures is also the setting in which liberty grows.
A friend who read these remarks asked why I had not discussed
property rights, since it was customary to do so in such settings.
Another friend asked whether 1 intended the freedoms to supply
and receive to supplant property rights. The answer to both ques-
tions is simple. Without the freedoms to supply and receive there
can be no such thing as private property.*’' The freedoms to supply
and receive do not “supplant” private property; they enable it.
When one adds up, when one counts, the present constraints on the
freedoms to supply and receive one finds that it is in an increasing-
ly attenuated sense that we any longer have private property, and
privacy of any kind, in this country. God bless America, land that I
love . . . must I count my liberties?
” For a tale of two threatened identities that are a part of Western culture — Protestantism
and rationalism — see my The fatrral to (jnmmtmml, second edition, revised and enlarged (La Salle:
Open Court. 1984).
tiompare James M . Buchanan. "Towards the Simple Economics of Natural 1-iberty: An
Exploratory Analysis”. Kuklm, vol. 40. last . 1. 1987. pp. S-20, esp. p. 10.
20
Part I
Chapter 1
LIBERTY, KNOWLEDGE, AND T H E
MARKETPLACE O F IDEAS
Erroneous beliefs may have an astonishing power to

survive, for thousands of years, in defiance of experience,
and without the aid of any conspiracy . . . One example
is the general conspiracy theory itself . . . the erroneous
view that whenever something evil happens it must be the
evil will of an evil power.
Sir Karl Popper 1
1. Liberty and Knowledge
Freedom to supply and to receive, and the mutual limitations

they impose on one another, are indispensable to liberty. The
mutual limitations are crucial. As explained in the Prologue, anyone
with the freedom to supply must also have the freedom not to
supply. Otherwise he could be taken from at will. Likewise, anyone
with the freedom to receive must have the freedom to reject what is
offered, and to maintain a private sphere without intrusion.
These conditions apply of course as much to the exchange of
information as to the exchange of goods. The matter is relatively
well understood with regard to the freedom to receive (or not to
receive). In a free order one is compelled neither to receive, nor to
believe, information or doctrine.2 The matter is less well understood,
and less readily accepted, with regard to the freedom to supply (or
not to supply) information.
Most existing knowledge is, to be sure, open to all comers in our
publications, libraries, schools and universities, and its availability
benefits the immediate community and all the world. Yet anyone
free to supply information must nonetheless also be free to keep
secrets. While a person is in general free to receive or obtain
whatever knowledge he can, he does not, as we have seen, have an
unlimited “right to know” if this means that someone who happens
to know something is compelled to supply this information on
demand. Not that I recommend secrecy: generally it is a mistake.*
Yet one does not have a right to another’s information, or to make
* K. R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations (London: Routledge & began Paul. Ltd.. 1962).
’ The freedom is at the moment being eroded. Anti-abortion lawmakers are drafting
legislation that would compel women to see photographs of aborted fetuses before having the
operation performed on themselves.
’ For an explanation of why this should be so see Arthur Kantrowitz. "The Weapon of
Openness”, Foresight Background, no. 4. 1989, pp. 1*4-
a decision for that person; revealing that information is his or her

decision alone.
For the moment, however, consider not the person who would
withhold information but the individual who is eager to impart or
supply it to others. It might seem that rather little limits him in the
expression of his views, at least if he is not intimidated by the
disapproval that may just as freely be supplied by his neighbours
and others. “It’s a free country, isn't it? 1 can say what I like." The
situation has recently become less clear because of the increase of
bigots and terrorists—and, in the United States, of litigation. But let
us leave these aside for the moment, returning to them in the final
Part.
Freedom to supply in this sense—to say what one likes—is, even
when one has it, only a first step. To have a chance to supply
information effectively,one must have access to means of distribution.
Otherwise one may be reduced to the unenviable position of the
man who shouts the gospel from a street-corner soapbox. Means of
distributing information have taken many forms: one had to have a
booth in the mediaeval fair (as in today’s flea market); one used to
need a pulpit and now may require “equal time” on the airwaves.
To use a contemporary metaphor, one needs "shelf space" in the
supermarket, something which is, at least in supermarkets, now
often available to a supplier only at a price. And what are review
space in a journal, publication by a reputable publisher, certification
in a profession, or an appointment in the university? They are
forms of shelf space in the supermarket of ideas.
Here the trouble begins, and here the freedom to refuse to
supply becomes important. If those middlemen who control or
supply booths, pulpits, air time, certifications, licenses, academic
appointments, and other forms of shelf space refuse to supply them
to some who wish to supply products or information, the latter may
not be able effectively to supply or distribute their wares or opin-
ions to the populace at large, or indeed even make their existence
known to that wider populace. Those who supply booths, shelf
space, and the like become intermediaries between those who would
supply information and those who might receive it. In the exercise
of their own freedom to refuse to supply, they become de facto
censors or regulators of the freedom to supply information. They
also, indirectly, restrict the effective freedom to receive of still others.
Those who find themselves in such a position will however not
often put it, or even perceive it, in this way, but may speak instead,
24
LIBERTY. KNOWLEDGE. AND THE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS
high-mindedly yet self-servingly, of quality control and standards,

and even of their responsibility to the public. They assume die task
and the ability to judge responsibility and to purvey and withhold
respectability.
What liberty to supply information does one really have if one is
thus denied entry to the marketplace of ideas?
2. The Marketplace of Ideas
The question brings us to economics. That epistemology and the

growth and supplying of knowledge have something to do with
economics has been sensed from very early days, long before the
Scottish philosophers Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, and David
Hume founded economics.4 So much one can tell from some of the
anecdotes and metaphors philosophers used already in antiquity.
Lucian (A.D. I20-C180), in an exceptionally funny satire that hardly
anyone reads any more, wrote of “The Auction of Philosophers".
Kierkegaard, in Fear and Trembling, wrote of the “clearance sale of
ideas”; and William James repeatedly sought to reckon the “cash
value” of philosophical notions?
The most familiar and important epistemological metaphor stem-
ming from economics, and the one that we have just been
using—that of the “free market of ideas”—seems to originate with,
or at least is often attributed to, John Milton, who, in his Areo-
pagitica, wrote thus of “Truth”6:
* Alvin M. Weinberg. Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Energy Analysis. Oak Ridge,
Tennessee, believes that “the market approach to allocation was first articulated by M . Polanyi" in
1963 See Weinberg's " H o w the Scientific Marketplace Works”, paper delivered at the 16th
Annual Conference on the Unity of the Sciences. Atlanta. Georgia. November 26-29. 1987.
* One sometimes finds this passage cited as evidence of “American materialism". People who
practise this sort of sociology are capable of anything, and have no regard for evidence: in
addition to being a pragmatist. James was a spiritualist who went to stances and talked with
‘pirns See Gardner Murphy and Robert O. Ballou. Willum Jamn on Psychical Research ( N e w York:
Viking Press. 1960).
* The spelling is of course Milton's. See “Areopagitica: a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the
Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing to the Parlament of England". 1644, printed in John Millon.
Spirited Prase: New and Reived Edition, ed. C. A Patrides (Columbia: University of Missouri Press,
1985), pp. 196-248. esp. p . 242. The phrase “free market of ideas" does not occur in "Areopag-
jfica". but the other economic terms that he uses make the metaphor entirely appropriate. Thus
be sap; “Truth and understanding are not such wares as to be monopoliz'd and traded in by
tickets and statutes, and standards. We must not think to make a staple commodity of all the
knowledge in the Land, to mark and licence it like our broad cloath. and our wool packs.
tbe incredible losse. and detriment that this plot of licencing puts us to. more then i f som enemy
41
sea should stop u p all our hav'ns and ports, and creeks, it hinders and retards the importation
25
And though all the windes of doctrin were let loose to play upon the
earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licencing and
prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple:
who ever knew Truth put to the wars in a free and open encounter?
Of course the actual market in ideas antedates Milton by far. It

was probably first institutionalised in ancient Athens, when Peisistra-
tos published Homer and brought into being the market in books
and manuscripts which was probably directly responsible for the
cultural miracle that occurred in Athens in the 5th century B.C., as
well as for the Athenian movement for democracy that drove out
the tyrant Hippias shortly after his father’s rule. 7
Wherever the market in ideas began, the metaphor itself has
always been appealing. As almost any thinker has experienced, the
free and open competition of ideas does tend to lead, more directly
than any other path, to the advancement of knowledge. And thus
the institution known as the market, to the extent that it involves
such competition, seems to be an appropriate model for trying to
understand how knowledge, as well as other forms of wealth,
increases.
Yet Milton’s implied declaration is partly false, partly incomplete.
First, he clearly, and wrongly, implies that truth must be “in the
field” for the play of the winds of doctrine to be productive, where-
as better approximations to the truth may emerge even from a
storm of doctrine all of whose winds blow false. Otherwise science
never could have arisen or evolved. Second, while it would be com-
forting to think otherwise, truth is in fact often put to the worse in
free and open encounters. It is interesting to unravel how and why
this happens. For while epistemologists are sometimes uneasy about
of our richest Marchandize, Truth." See also Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861): "Grace is given of
God, but knowledge is bought in die market," TAr Bothie of Ibbema-Vuoluh, text of 1848 edited by
Patrick Scott (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1976. reprint of 1848 edition), part iv.
The idea appears also, in a pragmatic version, in Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: "The
ultimate good desired is belter reached by free trade in ideas—-that the best test of truth is the
power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market . . . . That al any
rate is the theory of our Constitution." (Abrams v. United Slates. 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919).) For
background see Robert W. Wallace, The Arropagai Council, to 307 B.C. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press. 1988),
See K. R. Popper, Bemcrkungm zu Theone und Prtuas den drmokraiuchen Staates, op. dL, and
Auf drr Surhr nach rmcr be&frrn HW/ (Munchen: Piper, 1984). chapter 7. "BOcher und Gedanken:
Das erste Buch Europas"
26
LIBERTY, KNOWLEDGE, AND THE MARKETPLACE O F IDEAS
Milton’s comforting dictum, they rarely identify its flaws. These flaws
have for instance nothing to do with Gresham’s Law," We begin to
identify them if we notice that Milton’s assurance—that Truth is
never put to the worse in a free and open encounter—is unfalsifiable
in die sense that it can be juggled in such a way that no evidence
ever counts against it. Ironically, this watchword of critical debate
shields itself from refutation by deflecting critical examination.
It is easy to see how this works, for we all have been in situa-
tions where truth seems to have been bested: indeed, most people
have occasionally lost arguments yet remained convinced that they
were right. Such an experience never need force one to jettison
Milton’s dictum, but may even serve to confirm it. In defeat, one
may hang on desperately to the dictum itself —not to concede that
truth did win, but in order to insist, in excuse, that the encounter was
not free and open, and that one would have won had it been so. This
way of shifting the blame or burden of proof to an opponent or
circumstances makes those who employ it ever right in their own
eyes, even if at the cost of tending to render them practising
paranoiacs.
The main mistake in Milton's metaphor lies in its being dressed
out in the presupposition that truth is naturally "manifest”9: the idea
that once truth is set out plainly—the “naked truth” as it
were—anyone can distinguish it from falsehood and recognise it for
the truth that it is. This assumption we find in both rationalist and
empiricist traditions, in the "clear and distinct ideas” of Descartes,
and in the “immediate certainty” of the sense observations of the
empiricists. It is diametrically opposed to the main thesis of this
Part and of this book as a whole: namely, that knowledge is un-
fathomable. If knowledge is unfathomable, truth could not possibly
be manifest. The assumption that truth is manifest, moreover, leads
to an interventionist or conspiracy theory of ignorance and error: that if
what is true is not manifest or obvious, then some party must have
intervened to prevent its being seen. That is, it presupposes that
error or ignorance arises only from deliberate intervention or
conspiracy to suppress truth, whereas in fact interesting truths are
anything but obvious, while error and ignorance are omnipresent
That "bad money drives out good". Orcsme had already taken such a view in the 14th
century.
Unfortunately, the fallacious assumption that truth is manifest is closely linked to the
(equally fallacious) understanding that many people have of .Adam Smith's "invisible hand".
27
regardless of intentions, and do not have to be “explained” by

conspiracy.10
The conspiracy or interventionist explanation of undesirable
effects did not die with Milton, and it lives on not only in the self-
justifications of those who have been bested in argument and other
competition. It is a common assumption of ordinary people and
ordinary life. A variant of it, what could be called the “conspiracy
theory of humourlessness", undergirds the plot of Umberto Eco’s
popular book and movie. The Name of the Rose, whose dank mediae-
val setting and plot reeking with heresy and murder are built
around the assumption that, in order to preserve philosophical
grimness and lack of humour, it was necessary for a fanatical priest
to suppress, by whatever means, a lost treatise by Aristotle on
laughter. Yet 1 wager that, were such a work ever discovered,
philosophers would examine and debate its tenets in the most hum-
ourless possible way, and would hardly crack a smile."
One can however champion competition and the marketplace of

ideas without falling victim to assumptions like the conspiracy theory
of error and the notion that truth is manifest and always wins
out—assumptions essential neither to the metaphor itself nor to an
understanding of the contest of ideas. In E A. von Hayek’s use of
the same metaphor, or in that of Ronald H. Coase12, there are no
such assumptions. When Hayek, as a fallibilist, writes of market
competition as a “discovery process"1’, he presupposes error, ignor-
ance, and limited information—rather than knowledge—as a natural
state of being, as something that is present even in the most “free
and open encounter”. Such ignorance is present whether or not any
conspiracy or deliberate suppression of information is, additionally,at
work. (No one denies that there is conspiracy and intervention, and
in Part III 1 shall give some examples: the mistake is to assume that
“ On Milton. see K. R. Popper: Conjecture! and Refutations, op. dt., pp. 8 and 16; and J. W.
N. Watkins. The Listener, January 22. 1959.
11
See an essay written long before Eco’s work, namely Walter Kaufmann's, “Why most
philosophers cannot laugh" in his Cntujue of Religion and Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University
Press. 1958/72). section 8.
" R H . Coase. "The Market for Ideas". The American Economic Review, vol. 64. 2, 1974, pp.
884-391. reprinted in National Review. September 27. 1974. pp. 1095-1099; and "The Market for
Goods and the Market for Ideas", in Private Higher Education: The Job Ahead (Malibu, California:
AAP1CU. 1976). pp. 17-21. See also his "The Nature of the Firm". Economica vol. 4. 1937, pp.
386-405; "The Problem of Social Cost". Journal of law and Economics, vol. 3. 1960, pp. 1-44; and
Adam Smith's View of Man", Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 19, 3. 1976, pp. 529-546.
See The Fatal Conceit, op. cit.
28
LIBERTY. KNOWLEDGE, AND THE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS
they are responsible for most mishaps.) Fallibilists like Hayek and
Coase do favour “free and open encounter” and oppose intervention
and conspiracy, but this is because the latter make error harder to
eradicate. Error is there in any case.
Hayek and Coase see unfettered markets as the best means not
only to generate more ordinary forms of wealth, but also to uncover
knowledge and better to identify error, even if never fully to elimi-
nate the latter. Yet unfettered markets are rare, and even unfet-
tered markets are not perfect. Nor can they become so. For error
and ignorance—and consequently occasional market failure even in
the marketplace of ideas—exist regardless of intervention: regardless
of its presence and regardless of its absence.14 Error walks always
with us, fallibility is our lot, and any marketplace of ideas (or
indeed any marketplace at all) can function only in such a dismal
setting. Knowledge, like wealth, is hard to obtain, and even when
won may easily be lost again.
Others see matters differently, supposing that knowledge, unlike
other forms of wealth, always keeps growing—or at least never
diminishes. Thus Arthur Koestler once declared that “We can add
to our knowledge, but we cannot subtract from it".’* In a similar
vein, Thomas S. Kuhn held “that the sequence of conceptions
espoused by a scientific community is irreversible, and that there is,
therefore, something like progress involved—but this is progress
away from confusion, rather than toward any antecedent reality”.16
And on the occasion of Harvard's 350th anniversary, President
Derek Bok stated that “In most other walks of life, institutions come
and go. Institutions that seem to be doing very well in one genera-
tion decline in the next. That’s not true of universities. Being a
Stanford man, the President of Harvard was easily impressed by the
surroundings that he adopted.
I was comforted, in my dismal and dissident view that knowledge
too can be lost and in my sad reflection that even one’s own alma
mater may decline, by a dissenting observation made on the same
“ E A Hayek: The Constitution of laberty. op. de, pp. 22 and 29. See also Hayek's The Fatal
Conceit, op. dt. and his comments in Congress for Cultural Freedom, Science and Freedom
(London: Martin Seeker & Warburg Ltd., 1955), pp. 5S-54.
" Arthur Koestler. The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing llrion of the Universe (London:
Hutchinson. 1959). p. 19.
’* But if one is less confused, what is one less confused about? Believing as I do in an
antecedent reality", I evidently am confused,
n
Interview with Derek Bok, President of Harvard University, published in “John Harvard s
Journal", Harvard Magazine, September-October 1986, p. 207. Italics added.
29
anniversary occasion by Jacob Neusner, University Professor at

Brown, and a fellow Harvard alumnus (should I say “a fellow
traitor”?). "Like the rest of the Ivy League”, Neusner declared,
Harvard “sets too comfortably on its ivy laurels. Believing your own
press releases is not the way to achieve excellence, and in field after
field Harvard simply does not excel”. Is my poor ahrui mater rusting
on her laurels? If it is true, as the economic historian Douglass
North contends1**, that stagnation has been more characteristic than
growth throughout history, the allegations of Bok, Kuhn, and
Koestler need considerable defending.
In this book such views are attacked. 1 consider what role a
market plays in our current generation of knowledge, where growth
of knowledge in fact now mainly occurs, and whether knowledge
and universities are indeed unique in being immune to decline. 1
also deny the common assumption that there is a free market of
ideas in the universities of the West. To investigate these matters
profitably we need to learn something of the unfathomable nature
of knowledge.
Compare Douglass North: "Stagnation has been more characteristic of economic societies
i lari growth throughout history", in Michael Hinn. ed„ Proctfdings of tht Srvrnlh Inlmuitumal
•ronomic History Congress. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 1978), p. 212. Sec also Thomas
dCIS Nrwslrttrr. vol. 56, Summer-Fall 1985, p. 15.
30
Chapter 2
UNFATHOMED KNOWLEDGE1
1. Limitations on Access to Knowledge: A Section Lull of Metaphors and

Allusions
Refusal to make information available, i.e., to supply information,

is one of several ways to limit access to knowledge. This limitation,
however irksome, and whatever the reason for refusal in individual
cases may be, is necessary to preserve liberty. Yet it can often be
overcome by force, threats, torture, and the like. Most people are
sufficiendy weak that they can be “made to talk”. And “every man
has his price”.
A body of objective knowledge itself, however, cannot be made,
or paid, to talk. Thus arises a second, far more fundamental,
limitation on access to knowledge, which has to do with its un-
fathomable character. Unfathomability is intrinsic to knowledge and
can be removed neither by force nor tyranny, nor by the most
ardent and sincere striving for liberty and knowledge. If one wants
to learn, one works on a problem and takes what one gets, which is
not necessarily what is already there.
We shall return below, and then again in the next section, to
these gnomic pronouncements, some of which initially may seem
strange and which deal with matters with which almost no one
seems familiar. First, however, 1 want to pause to recall the sig-
nificance of any kinds of limitations on access to knowledge.
The creation, defense, and preservation of liberty depend might-

ily, in practice, on access to existing knowledge, and on the continu-
ing growth of knowledge. Why should this be so?
Any enterprising individual of ordinary means who wishes to
maximise his independence from his fellow citizens and the state,
and from the general circumstances and prejudices of the time and
place in which he happens to live, will naturally attempt both to be
thoroughly familiar with, and to forge for himself a critical and
independent relationship with, received bodies of knowledge. That
is, he will attempt to make this knowledge his own. If one could
make knowledge one’s own, one would presumably be free, without
permission or approval, to try to revise, augment, improve, discard,
discredit, transform, propagate, or sell it. One would perform such
' The substance of this chapter was delivered as a lecture at Hendrix College in March 1989.
actions by exercising imagination and intelligence, or by experiment-

ing, or procuring or swapping information from whatever source.
If one's ability to gather accurate information is limited or frus-
trated, so is one's independence. Such frustration may come in the
first instance from the state, private groups, and one’s fellows. These
may not only shut off or restrict existing sources of information but
also attempt to persuade, influence, and perhaps ultimately to
control one with alleged knowledge or information (misinformation
and disinformation), and by opinion, rumour, and suppression of
information —stirring up the hope, fear, anxiety, and ignorance that
all these can engender. Such attempts—which one might attempt to
thwart from an independent base of knowledge—may be pursued as
a simple matter of economics: generally, it is more effective and
cheaper to control others by opinion rather than by force.
Any individual's ability to liberate himself by appropriating and
transforming existing bodies of knowledge is however also limited in
a second sense, intrinsic to knowledge itself. It is not only state and
private groups, and one’s fellows, that thwart one's search for
independence through the acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge
itself can be intractable. Bodies of knowledge, while created and
explored by men, do not bend and yield like slaves to those who
would create and master them. Familiarity with them, when one can
get it, may increase one’s independence and may also increase one's
ability to control others. But bodies of knowledge are independent
too. To create knowledge is not to fathom or command it or own
it. All knowledge is born, and forever dwells, behind a veil that is
never shed. After their birth, bodies of knowledge remain forever
unfathomed and unfathomable. They remain forever pregnant with
consequences that are unintended and cannot be anticipated. They
are malleable only within limits. They are autonomous.
Must one approach this subject by metaphor f Perhaps it is appropriate
initially to clothe these limitations in metaphor, as the metaphors
themselves are instructive as well as provocative. Perhaps proceeding
in this way befits what is and cannot fully be known. Yet the answer
to the question raised is no. That is, all these matters can be set out
in plain, cold logical terms, as we shall begin to do presently.
The fact that access to knowledge is limited, even intrinsically
limited, does not diminish its importance to liberty. Indeed in some
circumstances it enhances it. The autonomy and unfathomability of
knowledge affects and limits all those concerned with it: those who
would use it to control others as well as those who would use it to
32
liberate themselves. Not only the latter are frustrated by this limita-
tion. The totalitarians of this century, and their precursors in past
ages, who thought they knew, and that they should and could
control, have repeatedly been taken by surprise. “While we differ in
the little things we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all
equal.”1
2. Fallibilism Transcended
In developing this line of argument I am deploying one of the

most useful and profound ideas in twentieth-century philosophy.
Unfortunately, few persons have used this argument, or even have
noticed its importance. I like to put the idea, which comes from a
passing remark made by Karl Popper, in this way: our best existing
knowledge is unfathomed and unfathomable* Which means that we do
not know what we are saying or (since of course we act partly in terms
of what we know) what we are doing* It follows that we do not know
what we have said, or have done. Homo faber does not know what
he has made.
What am 1 saying? Should I reply, “How should I know?”
One might suppose that I am simply expressing old-fashioned

fallibilism in an unusual way. But the idea just voiced goes beyond
ordinary fallibilism. Ordinary fallibilism asserts that certainty cannot
be achieved, and that anything that we say, even anything which
’ K , R Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, op, cit.

1
Popper used the idea in his lectures for many years. A dear and brief summary appears i n
his Unended Quest (La Salle: Open Court, 1976), section 7. Watkins used the idea briefly in his
Hobbes t System of Ideas A Study tn the Political Significance of Philosophical Theories (London:
Hutchinson, 1965), pp 22-23 (second edition, 1973), p p . 9-10, although confining himself chiefly
to that aspect of the idea that deals with logical content. 1 have used i t in a number of places
including m y “Ein schwieriger Mensch**, in Eckhard Nordhofen, cd.. PAyshgnomim; Phiiosophen tics
Jahrhunderts in ftortrads (Kdnigsiein/Ts.: Alhenaum, 1980), pp. 43-69; “Knowledge is a Product
Not Fully Known to Its Producer", in Kurt Leubc and Albert Zlabinger, eds.. The Political Economy
Q
f Freedom (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1985), my “Alienation Alienated: 'Die Economics ol
Knowledge uenui the Psychology and Sociology of Knowledge", in Gerard Radnitzky and W. W.
artley, in. Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge (La Salle: Open
urt, 1987); my Marx on Alienation: d Refutation (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1988; and i n
t e Afterword. 1985" to my Wittgenstein, Second Edition, revised and enlarged ( L a Salle. Open
J-oun. 1986. London: Hutchinson. 1987; Munich: Matthes & Seitz. 1983). See also my The Retreat
f’nd edition, op. dt.. Appendix 2, "Logical Strength and Demarcation", pp. 185*
, indeed, it is artificial to separate knowing and doing: talking, conceptualising, estimating a

n, acting — these arc intimately interwoven.
33
has been incorporated into science, may be wrong.’ Ordinary fal-

libilism is also often suffused with the sense that much of what we
have already discovered only touches the surface, and that many
new things remain to be learnt about ourselves and the universe,
things reaching far beyond our existing knowledge.
I am a fallibilist in this ordinary sense. But the idea that I now
propose transcends such ordinary fallibilism. Fallibilism acknowledges
that our existing knowledge may be wrong, and encourages us to
search beyond it. I am, however, also saying that we do not, and
cannot, fully understand our existing knowledge. We do not under-
stand what we already have: knowledge is a product not fully known to its
producers. Indeed, the better our knowledge gets, the less we under-
stand it. Even the creators of theories or hypotheses about the
world do not and cannot understand them. Which means that they
do not understand their own theories even when the theories
themselves, as may be, are correct. All these assertions, which put a
crimp in any claims to expertise, need to be explained, and I shall
now proceed to do so, to the limited extent that I understand what
1 am asserting.®
3. What It Means to Understand a Theory: The Intrinsic Inaccessibilities of

Knowledge—Explained in a Cold, Logical Fashion
To understand what a theory asserts will require, among other

things, understanding its logical implications, its content and its
context, what historical problem situations it addresses, what prob-
lems it can solve, and how it interconnects logically with other
theories. Among these preconditions for understanding, the hardest
to understand, and to characterise and convey adequately, is the
idea of content, even though, or perhaps because, we all have an
intuitive idea of what must be involved.
Lord Quinton, who wrote the article on fallibilism for the Fontana,'Harper Dietionary of
Modem Thought, expresses fallibilism in a n unacceptable justifications way. So I do not want to
insist on the word “ordinary", and atn willing to allow laird Quinton the credit for being
ln
a d'ftirt ’ cluc or a tT
’“ <l u e °f justificationistn. see my The Retreat to Commitment, op. cil..
I shall on the whole follow Popper's exposition in Unended (tuest, op. dt., in the n e x t few
paragraphs, b u t I shall also add some ideas of m y own. so that Popper should not be held
responsible for my errors.
34
There are two closely-related ways to characterise the content of

a theory: logical content and informative content. Taken together,
these go far towards explaining the idea of unfathomable knowl-
edge.
The logical content of a theory is what mathematical logicians call
its Tarskian consequence class, that is, all the nontautological con-
sequences that can be logically derived from it.7 For example, when
we produce and affirm a theory, we also propose its logical implica-
tions (otherwise we should not have to retract it when these come
to grief). That is, we affirm all those statements that follow from
it—as well as further implications that result from combining this
theory with other theories that we also propose or assume. It is well
known that the logical content of any theory must be infinite.8 The
infinity of the logical content of any theory is, in and of itself, a
trivial matter.
The informative content of a theory, which is also infinite, is the set
of statements that are incompatible with the theory. This formulation
sometimes surprises people, but it becomes easier to understand
when one recalls the slogan that “the more a theory forbids, the
more it says".
This slogan, surprising as it may seem, also strikes some people
as very simple: they may swallow it too quickly yet not digest it. If
my own experience is any guide, this is to be regretted. 1 had lived
with, thought I understood, and even believed, this slogan for
several years when—one morning in London, in the summer of
1959, just as I placed my foot on the moving staircase, or escalator,
to descend into the depths of the Kentish Town tube station—some
of its further ramifications suddenly flowed through my mind, and
forever changed my way of thinking.
What does the slogan mean? One discovers more about what a
theory, or any statement, says—one becomes better informed about
its content—by identifying some state of affairs that it prohibits.
(Statements that prohibit little if anything—for example, “This
normal die will, when tossed onto a flat surface, turn up a natural
number less than 7", or “It will either rain this afternoon or it
’ Alfred Tarski. "On the Concept of Logical Consequence", chapter 16 of his Logu, SemantKS.
Mftamathemaius (Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1956). pp. 409-420. We exclude tautologies
from consideration because all tautologies are implied by any statement whatever.
‘ See Watkins, Hobbes. op. dt„ p. 23, footnote I. and Popper, l/nended Quest, op. cit.. pp - h
27 and footnote 18. page 199.
35
won’t"—have negligible informative content.)9 If one wants to gain

information about the world, and to test and refine it through
criticism, one will then prefer theories that exclude much, and be
on the watch for criticisms of such theories. In particular, one will
try to identify potential falsifiers, those experimental results or states
of affairs that are forbidden by the theories and which would, if
realised, lead to their overthrow.
Although the logical and informative contents of theories are
distinct, there are some interesting connections between them. For
example, the elements of the informative content of a theory stand
in a one-to-one correspondence to the elements of the logical
content of a theory. To every element in either of the sets there is
to be found, in the other set, its negation. Hence the logical and
informative content of a theory increase and decrease together.
If the infinity of the logical content is a trivial matter, the infinity
of the informative content is far from so. The best-known, if some-
what mind-boggling, illustration of the point is Popper’s analysis of
the relationship between Newton's and Einstein's theories of gravita-
tion. Call Newton’s theory N and Einstein’s E. Any statement or
theory that is incompatible with N will belong to the informative
content of N, and similarly, any statement or theory that is incom-
patible with E will belong to the informative content of E. Since
Newton’s and Einstein’s theories are mutually incompatible, each
belongs to the informative content of the other.
But this means that the infinity of informative content is any-
thing but trivial, for Einstein’s theory is not simply incompatible
with Newton's, it is historically connected with it in the important
sense of having superseded it. It has superseded it in the sense that
Newton's theory is inadequate to the facts, and that Einstein’s
theory appears to come closer to the truth. This illustrates that any
new theory that supersedes a reigning theory after, say, a crucial
experiment decides against the latter, has to belong to the informa-
tive content of the superseded theory. That is, any existing theory
includes in its informative content any theory that will eventually
supersede it.
One finds a comparable situation with logical content. Since E
belongs to the informative content of N, not-E belongs to the logical
* I have qualified my meaning with the word) "little if anything" and “negligible" to allow
for the objection that, ray. the statement about the die does prohibit various things—for example,
it prohibits the die from turning into a large rabbit!
36
UNFATHOMF.D KNOWLEDGE
content of N. That is, not-E is entailed by N. Amplifying the closing

sentence of the preceding paragraph, the situation may be summar-
ised as follows: any existing theory includes in its informative
content any theory that will eventually supersede it, and in its
logical content the denial of any theory that will eventually super-
sede it.
By now, I hope that my initial claims, that our knowledge is

unfathomed and unfathomable, and that we do not know what we
are asserting or what we are doing, are becoming clearer and rather
less dependent on metaphor. (The process of clarification will be
taken a step further in the next chapter, where 1 try to make the
notion of objective knowledge clearer.)
To emphasise the point, there is a radical sense in which the
content of existing theories is inaccessible in principle even to the
creators of the theories and to other experts. The content of New-
ton’s theory is not identical with Newton’s thoughts or opinions
about it. Neither Newton nor other physicists prior to Einstein knew
a crucial part of the informative content of Newtonian theory; and
lacking the informative content, they could not locate the logical
content. To them, the experiments that eventually overthrew New-
ton’s theory were not only not yet imagined; they were unimag-
inable. I do not mean that there was anything defective about
Newton's own imagination: the point is that, lacking Einsteinian
theory, certain experiments suggested by Einsteinian theory were
unimaginable to anyone. Einstein’s theory postulated new situations
and possibilities that could not have been framed in terms of Newton-
ian theory and which were incompatible with it. Einstein’s theory
instructed physicists to look in certain places—places that, lacking
Einstein's theory, they could not have dreamt of, which would,
when investigated, give results in conflict with Newtonian theory.
I will presently consider an objection to what I have claimed, or
at least to the form in which I have put it, but first I need to
sketch some ramifications of what has already been said.
As hinted earlier, our argument renders the meaning and the
significance of a theory—in the sense of its relevance and of the
common understanding of it at any particular lime—partly a histori-
cal matter, as well as partly a matter of logic. It also helps to clarify
" el a t the difference between the objective content of a theory and
vague notion of the common understanding or meaning of a
eor
y might amount to. The significance of a theory “depends on
37
what has been discovered, at a certain time, in the light of the pre-
vailing problem situation, about the theory’s content; it [that is, its
significance] is, as it were, a projection of this historical problem
situation upon the logical content of the theory". 10
I like to call this projection the “accessed slice” of the objective
content of a theory, and to think of it as falling across the informa-
tive as well as the logical content of the theory."
This point is important in the effort to convince language ana-
lysts (and positivists preoccupied with the “explication" of “concepts”
in the “language of science”) that a theory’s meaning has compara-
tively little to do with the particular words and terms used in it.
Almost any statement may be rendered in different terms without
change of meaning. In fact the meaning and objective content of a
theory are not identical; the meaning, relevance, and common
understanding (and thus also the economic value-, see below) of a
theory shift as we uncover more of, or gain access to a larger slice
of, its objective logical and informative content.**
4. An Objection
It might be countered that it is misleading to describe the history

of scientific thought in such a way. That is, if Newton did not
intend his theory to conflict with a theory that would be put for-
ward nearly two hundred fifty years later, and which he himself
could not possibly have imagined, it is not only misleading but even
quixotic to describe that later theory as part of the informative
content, and its denial as part of the logical content, of Newton’s
own theory.
This is a reasonable objection; and although I shall reject it, it
must be taken seriously. The objection is based upon a misunder-
standing. The issue here is not the intention of the author of a
theory (indeed, it might be said that that is the whole point: see the
” K. R. Popper. Unended Quest, op. de, p . 28.

" On objective content, see K . R . Popper, Objective Knowledge An Evolutionary Approach
(London: Oxford. 1972). pp. 47-53, 55-57. 143-144, as well as Conjectures and Refutations, op. cit..
For a, discussion of difficulties in the theory of content. see Objective Knowledge, pp. 366-374.
This would have to be so since a new theory both explains and corrects its predecessor, as
well as correcting the corroborating evidence for it See “The Aim of Science" in Objective
nowledge, op. dt. See also Realum and the A m of Science, Vol. I of Postscript to the Logic of Scientific
Oucover), erf, w w Bartley. I l l (London: Hutchinson. 1983).
38
following chapter). Nor is the issue how large an accessed slice of his
own theory its author has himself cut out for himself. The issue is,
rather, the objective content of the theoretical system itself. In many
familiar examples these fail to coincide, and indeed often have
hardly anything to do with one another. Anyone familiar with the
history of mathematics will realise that mathematics generates prob-
lems wholly independent of the intentions or personal understand-
ing of its creators, and is full of crossed expectations. The early
discovery of the distinction between odd and even numbers, and
such questions as whether there exists a highest prime number, or
highest twin primes, are unintended consequences of the discovery
of the sequence of natural numbers. Nor, when Russell and Hilbert
began their work, did anyone intend or anticipate, let alone want,
the discoveries of Kurt Godel and Alonzo Church about incomplete-
ness and undecidability.1*
Finally, the feeling of oddness in our characterisation stems
mainly from a kind of time warp: with a case such as the contrast
between the theories of Newton and Einstein, where theories are
separated by over two hundred years, the result may seem peculiar.
The peculiarity vanishes when we consider successive and incom-
patible theories close in time, or the unpredictable, yet soon to be
discovered, content of current theories.
5. The Time Warp Disappears:Unfathomed Knowledge in a Bottle
Pills and other drugs are of course manufactured by reference to

theories. I placed in the title of this section the words “Unfathomed
Knowledge in a Bottle” in recognition of this fact, and of the devas-
tating AIDS epidemic that has plagued the decade just passed, and
which may continue to wreak havoc for another several decades,
and also of the treatments that have been discovered for it. Knowl-
edge in this area is advancing so rapidly that the information I
present in the next few paragraphs may be obsolete by the time this
chapter is published —but that will only go to support the point.14
11
On Godel see Ernest Nagel and James R. Newman. Gdde/'s Proof (New York: New York
university Press. 1964).
„ view that HIV causes AIDS has been challenged by Peter Ducsbcrg, ’‘Retroviruses as
atl
*H utnan ° Cimmunodeficiency
n S an Pa ,o eni:
d 8 virus Expectations and immunodeficiency*
and acquired Reality", Cancer Rtstarch,
syndrome:March 1, 1987.
Correlation but and
not
UsaL o n
* . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,USA, vol. 86, February 1989, pp- 755-764.
39
The most widely known treatment for AIDS approved by the

American Food and Drug Administration is the drug AZT or Retro-
vir, which hinders the AIDS virus from replicating. It is not a new
drug, but was synthesised early in the 1960s, when it was hoped,
mistakenly, that it might be useful in the treatment of certain kinds
of cancer.15 Although well over three-quarters of AIDS patients
appear to be able to take AZT for extended periods without serious
side effects, the drug is highly toxic and thus of limited usefulness.
It is also one of the most expensive drugs ever marketed.
As I write this, another widely used, although quite controversial,
treatment for AIDS is dextran sulphate. Dextran sulphate was devel-
oped in the 1950s as an anticoagulant, and for more than twenty
years has been sold across the counter in Japan, without prescrip-
tion, as a treatment for arteriosclerosis. Some seventeen companies
in Japan manufacture it. When used in recommended dosages it
appears to have no serious side effects, and two decades of use in
Japan testify to its relative safety.16 Its use in treating AIDS is a
good example of what Hayek calls “dispersed knowledge" in the
“extended order of human cooperation”17. Although there are
relatively few cases of AIDS in Japan, two Japanese medical re-
searchers, familiar with dextran sulphate from its different common
application in their own land, applied what Hayek would call their
“local knowledge" to the problem of AIDS, and discovered that the
drug stops the AIDS virus from replicating in vitro. Moreover, they
found that its effectiveness is enhanced when it is used together
with the anti-DNA-viral drug acyclovir and with small, non-toxic,
“ When it was discovered not to be effective as hoped in treating cancer, its economic value
fell. See the article on the drug, a n d on the work of Jerome P Horwitz in developing synthetic
AZT in the 1960s. in The New York Times, September 20, 1986, p . 1 and, on p. 7 , “A Failure Led
to Drug Against AIDS". See also Erik Eckholm, "Test Results Are Due on Drug to Fight Aids".
New Times, September 18, 1986, p. A22. and "AIDS Drug is Raising Host of Thorny Issues",
Neu* >frrA Times, September 18, 1986, p, 38. See also Marilyn Chase, "Promise Is Seen in Tests of
Drug for Treating A I D S " , Wall Street Journal, March 14, 1986, p. 18, and "Burroughs-Wellcome
Test of AIDS Drug May Be Halted, Suggesting Initial Success", lib// Street Journal, September 17,
1986.
*• Its safety has recently become more questionable. The dosages of dextran sulphate widely
recommended for treatment of H I V infection can cause a condition akin to ulcerative colitis in
some individuals, although the condition appears to dear when the drug is discontinued or its
dosage is decreased. Absorption of the drug into the blood stream when taken orally is also a
matter of dispute.
” See F. A. Hayek, The Total Conrrii. op. cit. See also "Economics and Knowledge" and "The
Use of Knowledge in Society" in F. A Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order (London: Rout-
ledge. 1948).
40
L'NFATHOMED KNOWLEDGE
doses of AZT1": the three drugs work together synergistically. What

happens in vitro Jmay happen also in vivo, although formal studies
•-
are not compieteo, and the absorbability of the drug in sufficient
quantity by the body is in some doubt.
Dextran sulphate is not approved by the Food and Drug Ad-
ministration for medical use in the United States. But since mid-
1987 hundreds of American doctors have been recommending it to
patients and writing prescriptions for it, not only for those with
.AIDS and Aids-Related Complex (ARC), but also, prophylactically,
for many persons who test positive in HIV antibody tests. They are
trying the latter course because statistics seem to indicate that, if un-
treated, most of those exposed to the HIV virus will eventually
develop AIDS, even though the full effects of the damage to the
immune system may in many cases not appear for a decade or
more. Thus thousands of people are taking daily doses of dextran
sulphate, which is “smuggled" into die United States—with the tacit
approval of the FDA and the customs authorities—either directly
from Japan or by way of Mexico and Canada.
Another beautiful and perhaps far more important example of
how dispersed and local knowledge contributed to the treatment of
AIDS is the drug GLQ223, or “compound Q”. It is a preparation of
trichosanthin, a protein isolated from root tubers of Thchosanthes
kirilowii, a cucumber, which for some 1600 years has been used in
“ Kozo Yamada. Hurnio Kuzuya et al.. “Studies on Some Actions of Sulphated My-
saccharides on Arteriosclerosis (IV). Oral Administration of Dextran Sulphate". Jafxmtu emulation
Journal, vol. 25. June 1961; US Patent No. 3.126.320. March 14. 1964; Yuki Tashini and Shinichi
Fukumoto, Therapeutic Results of Arteriosclerosis by Dextran Sulfate (MDS)", in Japaruu
emulation Journal, vol. 29. March 1965; I. Hirono et al.. “Carcinogenicity of Dextran Sulphate
Sodium in Relation to Its Molecular Weight*'. Cancer letters, vol. 18, p. 29. 1983; Rvuji Ueno and
Sachiko Kuno. "Dextran Sulphate, a Potent Anti-HIV Agent in Vitro Having Synergism with
Zidovudine". The Lancet, June 13. 1987, p. 1379. reporting also a personal communication from
II Mitsuya and S. Broder, of the US National Cancer institute; M. Berenbaum. “Anti-HIV
Synergy Between Dextran Sulfate and Zidovudine". /Az Lancet, August 22. 1987. p. 461; H.
Mitsuya and Samuel Broder. "Strategies for Antiviral Therapy in AIDS", Mtfurr vol. 325, 1987,
pp. 773-778; Ryuji Ueno and Sachiko Kuno. "Anti-HIV Synergism Between Dextran Sulphate and
Jdovudine", The leaned . October 3, 1987, M Ito, et al.. “Inhibitory Effect of Dextran Sulphate
*d Heparin on the Replication of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in Vitro", AfUrurm/
’ onh, vol. 7, no. 6, 1987. pp. 361; H. Nakashima et al., "Purification and Characterization of
* n Avian Myeloblastosis and HIV Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitor, Sulphated Polysaccharides
acted from Sea Algae". Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, vol. 31, no 10, 1987, p. 1524;
* n Hiroaki Mitsuya, Samuel Broder, David J . Looney and Flossie Wong-Staal, with Sachiko
ino and Ryuji Ueno. Snence. April 1988. See also Marilyn Chase. “Defusing a Bomb: Doctors
Patients Hope AZT Will Help to Stave Off AIDS". Wall Street Journal, April 28. 1988. pp. I
1
19. in which dextran sulphate is discussed briefly, and "Cholesterol Remedy Might Find a
in fighting AIDS", Wall Street Journal, April 29, 1988, in which dextran sulphate is discussed
* greater length
41
China (in non-purified form of course) to induce abortions. More

recently it has been used effectively in China to treat certain tu-
mors. It came to the attention of western AIDS researchers in a
most extraordinarily roundabout way, which once again illustrates
the dispersed and local character of knowledge, and the impossibility
of central or “socialist” control of scientific research. In 1987 a
visiting Chinese scholar, at his own initiative, wandered into the
AIDS research centre at the University of California, San Francisco.
Although he had no appointment, he managed to obtain a meeting
with the head of the team working on AIDS, a man who, by coinci-
dence and good fortune, happened to be particularly interested in
the way the HIV virus works in macrophages, which appear to be
the main hosts for HIV in the body. The Chinese visitor explained
to him the effectiveness of tricosanthin in killing macrophages, and
then pulled out from his briefcase a vial of the protein—which was
then tested in the university laboratory. As a result of these and
subsequent tests it is now widely thought that tricosanthin may
provide a major step forward in the treatment of HIV infection and
for AIDS.*’ Although formal tests are, as 1 write, just beginning, the
drug is already being widely, and apparently successfully, used
against AIDS (in a form smuggled in from China).
The parallel to our earlier example of Newtonian and Einsteinian
theory should be obvious. But here the time warp diminishes
considerably. When AZT and dextran sulphate were synthesised over
two decades ago, and when tricosanthin was first used to treat
cancer in China about a decade ago (not to mention the time, some
1600 years ago, when trichosanthin was first used in China), nothing
in the existing knowledge about them, or about immunology,
suggested their current uses. It was unpredictable in principle, in
conflict with all immunological theory of the time, that they should
be used in treatment of a disease caused by a retrovirus that was
itself completely unknown and which possibly did not even exist at
the time. Indeed, retroviruses themselves were not discovered until
early in the present century, and their manner of working has been
'* Sec Biumeu IWv*. Apnl 24. 1989. p. 29, and Michael S. McGrath, Jeffrey D. Lifson, ct al ,
"GLQ223: An inhibitor of human immunodeficiency virus replication in acutely and chronically
infected cells of lymphocyte and mononuclear phagocyte lineage", Pmaedmgi of thr National
Acadrmy of Same. USA. vol. 86. pp. 2844-2848. April 1989.
42
understood at all well for less than two decades. 20 Indeed immuno-
logical theory, and genetics, have been in a state of nearly constant
revolution throughout the current century, with changes taking
place as radical as those between the theories of Newton and Ein-
stein. Until the mid 'sixties, what is sometimes called "Crick’s dog-
ma" went virtually unchallenged—the doctrine, that is, that biologi-
cal information flows only, and irreversibly, from DNA to RNA and
then to protein structure. Yet it is now known that the retroviruses
contain an enzyme, reverse transcriptase, which enables the RNA
virus to form a DNA copy of itself and then incorporate itself into,
and change, DNA genes. In short (although interpretations still
differ), information can flow “backwards” from RNA to DNA, thus
violating at least the original interpretation of Crick’s doctrine. 21
Thus it was part of the objective informative content of immuno-
logical knowledge of the time, and part of the background knowl-
edge used in the production of these drugs, that such diseases, and
such flows of information, did not and could not exist.
It was also part of the objective (yet unfathomed) content and
objective (yet unfathomed) potentialities of AZT, dextran sulphate,
and tricosanthin (all of which did exist), that they could be used in
treatment of a disease, AIDS, that did not yet exist, and which,
when it did come into existence, would function in a way then
believed to be immunologically and genetically impossible. Yet there
was no way to gain access to this “slice” of their content. What is
crucial about an item of objective knowledge—a book, or a pill, for
instance—is its potential for being understood, or being utilised in
* They were of course not initially described and understood as they are today i n terms of
UNA, RNA. and reverse transcriptase, these aspects of genetic theory being at the time not yet
discovered. Reverse transcriptase was discovered only in the late 1960s. and David Baltimore and
Howard Temin were awarded the Nobel Prize for it as recently as 1975. See Dani Bolognesi,
Human Rrtrovirustt, Cantor, and AIDS: AMnathes to Pmenlion and Thrratn ( N e w York: Alan R . lass,
Inc-. 1988).
” See F. M . Bumct. "Dogma Disputed: M a n or Molecules: A Tilt at Molecular Biology",
nr,l
f January 1. 1966. pp. 37-39, who writes, “The latest development has been the recognition
■■■ a portion of the genetic material of a virus can be incorporated into the genome of the
1,1
ected cell and induce changes in the behaviour of the cell." Jacques Monod. however, cate-
8®cically reaffirms "Crick's Dogma". See Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity (London: Collins,
“• PP- 107-108 and note, where he writes: "Information is never seen being conveyed in its
PP°**te direction . . nor is it conceivable that it could be. This certitude rests upon an
~™utnulation of observations by now so complete and so well verified — a n d its consequences,
f r
fun 'l"?
Rental. ? tenets
"olutionary theory.
of modern are so
biology. . . important
. There —
is that it may be mechanism
no conceivable considered one existence
in o f the
C
cndr V instruction or piece of information could be transferred to DNA. Consequently the
fton>C totally. intensely conservative, locked into itself, utterly impervious to any ‘hints'
43
some way that has not yet been imagined, a potential that may exist
without ever being realised. At that earlier time there was no way
even to fantasise this particular potential.
Our time warp should not only be much diminished, but should
now begin virtually to disappear. For there is nothing quixotic or
misleading about this example. Rather, drug developers, manufac-
turers and distributors are well aware of such possible unforeseeable
effects and uses of drugs. In the development, testing, patenting,
and licensing of their products, they both hope for such results (if
beneficial) and fear them (if harmful). When buying rights to and
licensing such knowledge, one is dealing with what cannot be
predicted; hence one is speculating, and one takes precautions
accordingly using all the resources of the law. Moreover, existing
patent law already largely recognises (although it does not use our
language or epistemological and logical analysis) the objective con-
tent of such discovered yet unfathomed products.”
6. The Usefulness of the Argument: Determinism and Alienation
1 mentioned earlier that our argument is extremely useful, yet

hardly ever used. How can it be used?
Our argument immediately topples virtually all serious forms of
determinism, and was the lynch-pin in Popper’s own refutation of
determinism, both in The Poverty of Historicism and in The Open
Universe.25 Thus, confining our example to historical determinism,
the course of human history is strongly influenced by the growth of
" I am much indebted to Dr. ('.(inter Wkchtershauser for instructing me in patent law. In
order to obtain a patent, one must show that the knowledge that one seeks to patent was not
predictable from the prior art; and one attempts to state explicitly in one’s patent everything that
one believes to be derivable from it.
" There are of course several different forms of determinism. The most serious and
influential is l-aplacean determinism, which is concerned with predictability of future states of the
universe with any required slate of precision. From Laplacean determinism one may derive
trivially an ontological or metaphysical version of determinism according to which all states of the
world are fixed, despite their not being predictable. All serious arguments for determinism, and
those that have played an important role in science, pertain to a laplacean determinism requiring
predictability, For a dear distinction amongst the various forms of determinism, and a refutation
of them, see K. R. Popper. /Tie fbtierty of Historvism (London: Routledge, 1957), especially the
preface, and K. R, Popper, The Open Universe An Argument for Indeterminism. vol. Il of ftnljcripi to
the Logic of Scientific Discovery. ed W. W. Bartley. I l l (London: Hutchinson. 1982). especially
secuons 20-24. See also Karl Popper. "Is Determinism Self-Refuting?", Afind, vol. 92. 1983, pp.
103-104. See also Popper’s discussion of Laplace's classic statement of determinism in K. R.
Popper and John C. Eccles. The Self and Its Oram (New York: Springer Verlag, 1977). section 1*8.
44
human knowledge. Yet it can be proved logically that we cannot

predict, by rational or scientific methods, the future growth of our
scientific knowledge. That is, we can predict only on the basis of
what we already know. We cannot predict, i.e., logically derive, from
present knowledge, something incompatible with it. Something that
would conflict with present knowledge is excluded by it, not predic-
table from it. Thus, to the extent that the growth of human know-
ledge influences the course of human history, we cannot predict the
course of human history. It can hardly be denied, for example, that
the quite unpredictable and unexpected advances in atomic theory
and in medical knowledge made during the past hundred years
have both, in their different ways, profoundly affected the course of
human history.
Our argument is also useful in refuting much of Marx's theory

of alienation and exploitation, in refuting much of the psychology
and sociology of knowledge, and in refuting virtually all forms of
expressionism. I shall discuss only the first of these examples here,
and shall do so briefly. In the next two chapters 1 shall explore it
at greater length, and also investigate the other examples men-
tioned.
Marx complains that, in economic exchange, the fruits of a
worker’s labour are wrested from him. His product ceases to be within
his own control and "stands opposed to him as an autonomous power . . .
which he no longer experiences as his own". In a similar vein, in The
German Ideology, Marx bemoans the “consolidation of our own product
into an objective power over us that outgrows our control, crosses our
expectations, and nullifies our calculations”.
Yet our argument shows that there is no way to avoid this, at
least when the products are knowledge products (as virtually all
products in some sense are). For knowledge is autonomous in just the
sense that Marx had in mind. It does outgrow our control, cross our
expectations, and nullify our calculations—for just the reasons cited.
Moreover, for it to function so is inherent in any situation in which
knowledge is used and cannot be remedied by any sort of social
revolution or reform, any more than by any personal desire for in-
dependence. Our autonomous knowledge products escape our
control whether we like it or not, and whether we surrender them
to others or manage to keep them to ourselves. No one can really
nake knowledge“his own". It may indeed happen, as Marx supposed,
that our knowledge products are used by another against us. But
45
they may also be used for us. Another individual, such as a capital-
ist or entrepreneur, may take an idea or tool that we have made,
discover in it something that we had not noticed, and develop it in
a way that aids us. This benefit to us may also occur contrary to the
intentions of the person who obtained the idea or object from us.
There is no need to assume either benevolence or malevolence, or
to deny either exploitation or altruism. They are all present, and all
play a relatively minor role. The important thing is that the recipients or
new owners of products cannot control them either. These products
continue to be autonomous: no matter who temporarily owns or
“controls” them, they “outgrow our control, cross our expectations,
and nullify our calculations”. One function of a market is to get rid
of purchases or investments that do not turn out (at least so far as
one can tell) as expected or hoped.
Thus it is wrong to characterise the process of exchange mainly
in terms of exploitation. People need one another and a competitive
exchange process to help probe and objectify their ideas and other
products—and thereby to discover their potentialities. Especially, we
need to be able both to give and receive criticism and correc-
tion —not in order to dominate or humiliate one another, but to
learn better what we have already produced. In science, and in
intellectual life generally, this is supposed to happen through the
marketplace of ideas.
Behind Marx’s argument lies an important sentiment, the desire

of the free individual for maximum autonomy and independence.
Marx’s account of alienation indeed has everything to do with
freedom, the wish for independence, and ownership. 1 myself voiced
such a sentiment at the beginning of the preceding chapter but
then immediately qualified it. There I acknowledged two sorts of
limitations on the fundamental freedoms to supply and receive. One
of these I would not want to be overcome, since to do so would
intrude on the liberty of others. Other, intrinsic limitations, arising
from the unfathomability of knowledge, cannot be overcome by
anyone, whatever his wish might be.
In Marx’s argument such limitations are not considered, and the
position is pushed to an untenable extreme. Marx insists that man
does not, yet ought to, control his fete; that man ought not to be
dependent on, or under the control of other men, or of the market
process; that in liberating oneself from such control lies the path to
freedom. When people turn over their destiny to other beings or to
46
processes beyond their control, they surrender what is proper to

them, what is their own, and thus lose themselves. The theme of
control that appears here lies at the heart of all Marxist thought.
One writer on Marx put this point curiously by stating that Marx's
"central point is that man has lost control of his own evolution”.24 I
call this declaration “curious" because neither man nor any other
creature has ever had control of its evolution, and thus cannot have
lost control. However this may be, socialism does, in many of its
forms, aim to put man in the saddle: to have man, by use of
reason, control his fate. This theme is perhaps its most attractive
feature but also its fatal flaw.85 It is attractive because man is indeed
highly creative, and by no means entirely the victim of, controlled
by, the circumstances of his existence. Rather, he can, and some-
times does, overcome them.
But that one can occasionally, even often, heroically triumph
over circumstances does not mean that one can be in full control.
That man is not controlled by gods does not mean that man himself
is godlike. When one abandons the idea of the gods, one must also
shed theoraorphic conceptions such as the idea of godlike control.
One is not all-powerful or all-controlling, by reason or will or
otherwise. Especially, one cannot expect never to have one’s expec-
tations crossed, or one’s calculations nullified.
7. More Useful Applications: Patent Law, Exchange of Property, and Theory

of Economic Value:Unmeasured Wealth
The findings of the last two sections suggest a further line of

useful research. 1 have been claiming that the neglected idea of the
unfathomed nature of knowledge is useful. Here is a research
program—one soaked in a rich and largely unexamined mixture of
logic, epistemology, biotechnology, economics, and law—that some-
one might pursue. Exchange of property ordinarily depends on very
clear demarcation of what is being exchanged: for example, specific
bank deposits or numbered securities, or surveyable pieces of real
estate identified by surveyors’ reports and district land records, and
backed by title companies. But what about the exchange of knowl-
v or v avid McLellan. "Alienation in Hegel and Marx". Dictionary of the History of Ideas (New
k: Charle* Scribners Sons, 1973), vol. 1. p 39a.
Sec F. A Hayek. The fatal Conceit, op. cit.
47
edge products, which, if our argument is correct, are in principle

unsurveyable? To what extent, and how adequately, does current
patent law provide for, and provide protection against, the unsur-
veyability, the unfathomability, of the knowledge that is regularly
exchanged? To what extent does this unsurveyability provide incen-
tives—and deterrents—to development and exchange of knowledge?
To answer these questions would provide an education in episte-
mology, and also provides an illustration for a contention to be
presented later (in Parts II and III): namely, how what is ordinarily
called epistemology, in the tradition still embodied in the university
departments that house contemporary professional philosophy, is
irrelevant to such important questions.
Another fruitful, and related, direction for research might be to

ask whether there need be any conflict between the objective theory
of knowledge used here and the subjective theory of value advo-
cated by most economists. One often hears in conversation that
there is indeed a conflict: I have been asked, for instance, how one
who recommends an essay by Popper entitled "Epistemology without
a Knowing Subject" 26 can also advocate subjectivism in the economic
sense. How indeed do the two approaches relate?
Objective theories of economic value, such as the classical theory
of intrinsic value or the labour theory of value, as held, for ex-
ample, by Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Karl Marx, are clearly
untenable; Marx's version of the doctrine is even preposterous.27 But
the objective theory of knowledge is not a theory of economic value.
Demand for an item of knowledge, to the extent that it is available
in the marketplace, will be based on dispersed subjective under-
standings or estimates of, or preferences for, its accessed slice, and
on speculations about its potentialities. It will not, and cannot, be
based on its objective—unfathomable and autonomous—logical and
informative content. This is not available or readily accessible for
anyone to value.
Similarly, if a theory should be commonly supposed to have no
unknown or hidden potentialities —if it has become “common know-
K. R. Popper, “Epistemology Without a Knowing Subject”. in Ofyrctrvr Knmulrdgr: An

Hvolutumary Approach. op. dt The material in this section was first presented at a seminar at the
Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University in December 1986.
Leopold Schwarzschild. Karl Marx: The Uni Prussian (New York: Grosser tc Dunlap.
1947); second edition, ed. Antony Hew (London: Pickwick Books, 1988).
48
ledge" —its economic value may diminish.2* Yet if something unex-

pected is then discovered in the theory, the situation may radically,
even suddenly, reverse itself. As the logical and informative content
of an item of knowledge is probed, as its accessed slice alters,
demand for it, and thus its economic value, may then change.29 Far
from conflicting, the subjective theory of value and the objective
theory of knowledge thus go hand in hand.50
By contrast, the neoclassical equilibrium economics that domin-
ates many professional departments of economics is incompatible
with the theory of objective knowledge. Such economics tends to
focus on situations where all relevant knowledge is already known to
all concerned parties. In its very understanding of competition, it
requires that buyers purchase with full knowledge of the

composition, use and possible weaknesses of the product
being offered for sale. It requires further that convenience
of purchase—location, wrapping, queues, delivery, etc. —be
equalized.”
It may also assume that, where ignorance does exist, all parties
know in advance what they are ignorant of, and have deliberately
chosen whatever existing ignorance they enjoy following a cost-benefit
analysis of the cost of remedying it.” Such requirements and as-
sumptions are utterly incompatible with the unfathomability and
” One sign that this may be happening is that the key terms of the theory become matters
of definition or convention, as happened to Newtonian theory in the late nineteenth century
immediately prior to the discovery of Einstein's theory. The economist Fritz Machlup evidently
did not understand the relation between economic value and the quality and level of knowledge
when he took the position that “price theory ought to be largely uninterested in the level of
knowledge individuals (or firms) possess or in the problems of information acquisition they face”.
See Richard N. Langlois. “From the Knowledge of Economics to the Economics of Knowledge
ritz Machlup on Methodology and on the ‘Knowledge Sodety’", Research m the History of Economic
Thought and Methodology, vol. 3, 1985, pp. 225-235. See the next footnote but one.
Valuing can. however, affect the history and development of the accessed slice of a theory.
nu
y for instance lead one part or aspect of a theory to be investigated prior to another.
*° Machlup also did not understand how this works. Sec his Knowledge: Its Creation, Distribu-
conomw Significance, vols. I. II, and 111 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.
«)• Machlup reasons, fallaciously, that knowledge cannot be objective since expectations are
**a ys fallible. See vol. HI, op. at.. pp. 2 If- See also Warren J . Samuels, “Machlup on Knowl-
* Cand
*enCCMethodology,
' u ’Jccll vism
vol.and the Soda!
5. 1985. Nature ofesp.Knowledge”,
pp. 243-255. ffzsmrrA rn tAr History of Economic
pp. 253-254.
w Joseph S. Fulda, “Dimensions of Competition”. The Freeman, June 1988, p, 212.
v . 5 Esteban F. Thomsen, “Knowledge, Discovery, and Prices”, in Humane Studies Review,
* no. 1, Fall 1987. pp. 1-17.
49
objectivity of knowledge. One can know and choose in advance

neither the composition of one’s knowledge, nor its weaknesses, nor
its strengths, nor what one does not know about it.
8. Some Consequences for Morality
Having very briefly considered economic value, I would like to

draw yet another kind of value into our discussion: morality. For in
stressing that we do not know what we are asserting, we should not
forget that we also do not know what we are doing.
John Watkins is, I believe, the only philosopher to have attempt-
ed to base ethical theory on Popper’s philosophy of science. His
account, based on Popper’s passing recommendation” that the
utilitarian principle of maximising happiness might better be put in
the negative form of “Minimise suffering!", he dubbed “negative
utilitarianism”.” Negative utilitarianism suggests that moral postu-
lates, principles or standards be treated hypothetically, in a way
parallel to scientific theories; and that feelings of moral revulsion (as
against cruelty and suffering, for instance) be treated as analogues
to basic observation statements. As basic observation statements may
falsify scientific theories, so might feelings of moral revulsion (as in
the face of suffering) rebut moral injunctions.
Apply this perspective now to one of the conditions that con-
tributed initially to the rapid spread of AIDS: sexual promiscuity.
Sexual promiscuity is frowned on by most, if not all, forms of
religion,” and also by much conventional non-religious morality. An
exception, in religion, is to be found in those forms of Buddhism
that, seeking freedom for their adherents, object not to promiscuity
as such but to attachment to promiscuity, to enslavement to sex.” In
“ The Open Society and lb Enemies (London: Routledge &■ Kegan Paul. 1945), vol. I. chap. 5.
note 6 (2); vol. I, chap. 9 , note 2.
“ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume. 196S. See also Ninian Smart. Mind.
October 1958; J. J. C. Smart, ,4n Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics (Carlton: Melbourne
University Press. 1961); H. B. Acton, "Negative Utilitarianism". Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society.
Supplementary Fo/ume. 196S; and Richard Robinson. An Atheist's Values (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1964), p. 18. See also Eduard von Hartmann, Das sitlliche Brwufllsein (Berlin: Duncker,
1879), and Aurel Kolnai, "The Thematic Primacy of Moral Evil", Philosophical Quarterly. January
“ But see John Boswell. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality.Gay People tn Western
Europe from thr Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Chicago: Chicago University
Press. 1980).
“ See my The Retreat to Commitment, op. dt.. Appendix 1.
50
the twentieth century these prohibitions have weakened: penicillin

became readily available in the early 1940s, providing quick and
easy cures for the then-known venereal diseases”; later, the birth
control pill and other means of contraception diminished the risk of
unwanted pregnancy. In the three decades following, sexual promis-
cuity seems to have increased considerably.
Rational and prudent persons reached the conclusion, based on
reasoning that conforms with negative utilitarianism, that there was
considerable pleasure to be gained, much pain and stress to be
avoided, and little if any harm to be suffered, from engaging in
sexual promiscuity.58 One need not invoke the examples of Bertrand
Russell or other extreme advocates of "free love”. Take the case of
Oscar Ichazo, a Chilean "guru” in the tradition of Gurdjieff, a
student of religions and techniques of self-mastery and self-libera-
tion. In the 1970s Ichazo moved to New York, where he established
a training program known as “Arica” which achieved considerable
attention and respect, and even became fashionable for a time.59
Like many of the Asian teachers from whom he had learned, Ichazo
taught, as a goal, spiritual liberation from vice. Reflecting on the
strain of ordinary living, and on how people sought relief from the
pain of stress through indulgence in various acts traditionally con-
ceived as vices—gluttony, drinking, drugs, sex, and so on— Ichazo
suggested thinking of these vices as “doors”, as temporary escapes
from the pressures of life, and casually remarked that, among them,
the only “door” that did no damage physically was sex. His position
should not be misunderstood: Ichazo did not advocate promiscuous
A qualification is needed. I t was suspected in the 1960s and became widely known in the
WOs that hepatitis was a venereal disease. Although most hepatitis passes quickly without serious
damage, a tiny percentage of hepatitis cases are fulminant, and usually fatal. A somewhat larger
number of hepatitis cases develop into persistent or chronic active hepatitis, which in turn
■onjctimcs leads to serious disease and death.
’ii Watkins’s paper was, incidentally, published in 1963, when homosexual activity was still
L *n Britain, and was widely being referred to as a “victimless crime". Sec The Wo/fendrn
Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offenses and Prostitution, Authorized American Edition,
Introduction by Karl Menninger, M.D. (New York: Lancer Books, 1964), and Edwin M .
. U r * Crimes Without Lictiffu, Ttevianl Behavior and Public Policy. Abortion, Homosexuality. Drug
(Englewood Cliffs. N.J.. Prentice-Hall. Inc., 1965).
, , See Winifred Rosen. “Down the Up Staircase", Harper's, June 1973, pp. 28-36. Reports o f
cnazos work and even a cartoon about Arica also appeared in The New }brker. See the discussion
- ‘ and dialogue with, Ichazo by John C. Lilly, The Center of the Cyclone: An Au/nbwjgropliy of Inner
'***' (New York: Bantam Books. 1973).
51
sex or free love; he advocated spiritual freedom from craving; but

he saw promiscuity as the least harmful among the ordinary vices.40
Since AIDS, of course, all this is changed; indeed the anecdote
just told itself sounds like what Gurdjieff would have called a tale of
the miraculous. But the example reminds one that, whatever moral
attitude one strikes towards promiscuous persons, prudence is also a
traditional virtue. Furthermore, one cannot blame most of those
who were promiscuous prior to mid-1982 (when it was discovered
that AIDS was caused by a virus) for flagrant imprudence about
their health. What was then known about sex and disease had
suggested that promiscuity carried minimal physical risk. Yet,
according to many medical researchers, the majority of those who
now carry the HIV virus had already acquired it, without knowing
it, prior to 1982. They did not know what they were doing.
Take another example. It has less to do obviously with morals,
yet concerns responsible action and health while also being some-
what less charged with controversy. Asbestos was introduced into
construction because of its fire-retardant qualities and thus to mini-
mise the suffering and destruction due to fire. Only later was it
discovered that its fibres would get into the air and cause lung
cancer. It is still often unclear what one should do in particular
cases about asbestos that has already been installed: for to remove
existing asbestos also puts its fibres into the air.41
A final example, which also has to do with health, and with
unintended consequences of nightmarish proportions brought about
by benevolent, highly altruistic medical programs, brings us full
circle. The AIDS epidemic, and the disease itself, may have been
created by the 13-year-long mass vaccination campaign which, by
1980, had successfully eradicated smallpox from the world —a
campaign undertaken by the World Health Organisation.42 The
“ See Robert S. De Ropp, 77w Mailer Game: Beyond the Drug Experience (New York: Delta.
1968), pp. 154-57.
” Examples of discoveries which were unpredictable in terms of their precursors could be
multiplied. 'ITiere is for example the discovery of the usefulness of aspirin in preventing heart
attacks.
“ See J . Wright. Robert Redfield. William James, Stephen Jones, Charles Brown, Donald
Burke, The New England Journal of Medicine, March 1987. wherein these doctors at Walter Reed
Hospital warn against plans to use modified versions of the smallpox vaccine to combat other
diseases in developing countries. See also the series of reports in The Tones, London, beginning
with the lead story of May 11. 1987. "Smallpox vaccine "triggered AIDS virus"". Articles in The
Tones continued on May 12, 1987, p, 1. " W H O seeks evidence over vaccine link to Aids virus”;
D«tor backs smallpox link". M a y I S . 1987, pp. I . 22; "Smallpox virus link with Aids", May IS.
1987. p. 13; -Vaccines and Aids". May 25. 1987, p 2 1 ; "Vaccines and Aids". May 28. 1987; and
52
AIDS outbreak in Africa, Brazil, and Haiti is directly correlated

epidemiologically with the WHO vaccination program. As The Times
states, basing its report on WHO information, “The greatest spread
of HIV infection coincides with the most intense immunization pro-
grams’’. The appearance of AIDS in such a setting can be explained
without any theoretical difficulty as a direct recombinant descendent
of bovine leukaemia virus and visna virus spread by means of the
vaccination program. The latter virus is known to be able to grow
in human cultures, is a member of the T-lymphotrophic virus
family, and is virtually identical to the HIV virus. It seems that
human HIV is bovine visna virus with a trans-acting transcriptional
regular gene inherited from bovine leukaemia virus.45 The recombi-
nant could have been created in the contaminated fetal calf serum
culture stimulant known to have been used to manufacture most of
the smallpox vaccines employed by WHO in Africa. A similar ex-
planation can be given for the spread of AIDS in the United States,
where the initial outbreaks correlate closely with the experimental
Hepatitis B vaccine study of the late 'seventies (a study for which
only promiscuous homosexual males qualified, virtually all of whom
have since fallen ill with AIDS). In both cases of course these
horrible results would have happened by accident. My subject, after
all, is unintended consequences. 44
'Fate of smallpox virus in balance", November 4, 1987, p. 8 . The Ttmrt stories raise only the
possibility that Vaccinia awakened or triggered dormant H I V infections. It is also quite possible, as
explained in the text, that H I V is a direct recombinant descendent of bovine leukaemia virus and
vtsna virus. Litde of the vaccine employed by WHO in Africa was from tissue culture or eggs;
most of it was crudely produced directly from catde even though, in the United Slates, sixty to
seventy per cent of dairy herds are contaminated with bovine leukaemia virus.
“ See J. A. Georgiades, A. Billiau. B. Vanderschueren. "Infection of Human Cell Cultures
with Bovine Visna Virus". Journal Gm. Vir, 1978. vol. 38. pp. 375-81; M . J. van der Matten, A D
Sooth. C. L. Seger, "Isolation of a Virus from Cattle with Persistent Lymphocytosis", JNCI. 1972,
49, pp. 1649-1657; A D. Booth, M. J . van der Matten, Ultrastructural Studies of a Visna-likc
Syncyua Produdng Virus from Cattle with Lymphocytosis", J. Vir. 1974, vol. 13, pp. 197-204; M
< Cr
r h * fallen. J M. Miller. A D. Booth. "Replicating Type-C Virus Particles in Monolayer
"*** Lulturev of Tissues from Catde with Lymphosarcoma". JNCI. 1974. vol. 52, pp. 491-494; J.
. f <lds, R I . Hamilton, "Structural Interactions between Viruses as a Consequence of Mixed!
J'fc’Stons”, in M. A* Lauflcr, F. B. Bang, K. Maramorosch, and K . M. Smith, eds., /Mimed rn
Stan* (New York: Academic Press, 1976). pp. 33-86; and J . Sodroska, C. Rosen, F. Wong-
* et aL. "Tram -Acting Transcriptional Regulation of Human T-Cell Leukemia Virus Type I I I
RTernxinal Repeat". Scwncr, 1985. vol. 227. pp. 171-173.
ankles in Th? Tine, op. ciL. explained the connexion through a triggering of latent
y the smallpox vaccine. While this is theoretically quite possible, there is no evidence that
r a5 an
r y y "ktent H I V infection" for the vaccine to trigger.
Ren P°P u iar ideas that the H I V virus came from green monkeys or dr novo have now
havec n , keen discredited. Sec for instance Robert J. Biggar, "The AIDS agent could not
pD ° K r »ated de novo", in his "The Aids Problem in Africa", Lancrt. January 11. 1986. vol. I,
*9-83.
53
Such examples, illustrating how little we know what we are doing

even when we are acting from high motives, render impractical, and
indeed refute, Watkins’s suffering-minimising negative utilitarianism
(and, 1 think, any other kind of utilitarianism). Even where we are
most certain about what we are saying and what we are doing, we
I f the W H O smallpox vaccination program, the Hepatitis B experimental vaccine study, and
the AIDS epidemic are connected in this way, the possiMih o f an epidemic resembling AIDS,
although not of courxe the details, was predicted in 1973 by J. Clcmmcsen, who warned: “We are
. . . establishing conditions for a possible pandemic of a n oncogenic virus variant on the scale of
the influenza of 1918. . . . We have in tissue cultures created conditions for propagation of virus
in cells from a host different from the original This will tend to increase enormously the chance
of mutation into variants acceptable to new hosts and by their heterogenic qualities they may have
neoplastic capacity in a new host. So it is possible to visualize a mutation of a virus into a variety
of high contagiosity to man. resulting in a pandemic of neoplastic disease." See his "Summation".
Comparative Leukemia Research1973, Leukemogenests, Bibliotheca Haematologica. no. 40, ed. Y. Itao and
R. M. Dutcher (Basel: Karger, 1975), pp. 783*792. The danger was also seen by the National
Academy o f Sciences, which, in 1974, recommended that "Scientists throughout the world join
with the members of this committee in voluntarily deferring experiments (linking) an i null viruses".
Clcmmesens prediction and the National Academy recommendation arc hardly surprising, for
earlier, in 1970, in a workshop jointly sponsored by the Fogerty International Center for
Advanced Study in the Health Sciences and the World Health Organization, i t was proposed that
" I n relation to the immune response, a number of useful experimental approaches can lx?
visualized. One would lie a study of the relationship of HL-A type to the immune response, both
humoral and cellular, to well defined bacteria and viral antigents during preventive uamnahom"
(emphasis mine) (D. B Amos, D. B . Bodmer, R. Ceppelim, et al.. "Biological Significance of
Histocompatibility Antigens". Fogerty International Center Proceedings, no. 15. Federation
Proceedings, vol 31. no. 3. May-June 1972, pp. 1087-1104, esp. 1102). And in 1972. a number of
scientists (including W H O and NIH personnel) had called for “ a systematic evaluation of die
effects of viruses on immune functions . . . . The effects of virus infection on different cell types
(r.g., macrophages. T and B lymphocytes) should be studied in greater detail , An attempt
should be made to ascertain whether viruses can in fact exert selective effects on immune
function, e.g,. by depression 7S vs 19S antibody, or by affecting T cell function as opposed t o B
cell function. The possibility should also be looked into that the immune response to the virus
itself may be impaired if the infecting virus damages more or less selectively the cells responding
to the viral antigens." (A C. Allison, et al.. The Bulletin of the World Hr al th Organization, 1972. pp.
257-274. See also John Higginson, in Seventh National Cancer Conference Proceedings (Philadelphia: J.
B . Lippincott. 1972), esp. p. 680.]
As t o the possible connexion to the hepatitis vaccination program, see Annals of Internal
Medicine, vol. 97, no. 3, 1982, pp. 362-369. I n 1984 the Centers for Disease Control admitted that
60 percent of those who had received the experimental hepatitis vaccine were infected with AIDS.
Since 1984 further information has not been released.
There arc some alarming coincidences here, and it is easy to see the vaccination programs as
having been designed to carry out precisely the "experimental approaches" and "studies" called
for. Vet I cannot bring myself to subscribe to the conspiracy thesis argued by Theodore A
Strecker and Robert Strecker of Los Angeles in mimeographed papers, radio talks, and video
cassettes—according to whom all of this was earned out according to a carefully laid plan. To lx*
specific, they suggest that the National Cancer institute, in collaboration with the World Health
Organization, deliberately made the HIV virus in their laboratories at Fort Detrick. Any such plan
would have required a bizarre admixture of medical malignity, extraordinary intelligence in
execution, and exceptional stupidity in goal (i.e„ hunching a n uncontrollable virus with a 10-15
year latency period!) that is hard to credit. On the other hand full information o n the matter
should be available t o the public, yet information on the Hepatitis B study has been seized by the
U.S. Attorney Generals Office and is no longer available from the Centers for Disease Control
54
cannot—because of the unfathomable content and the unpredictable

consequences that are silently interwoven into virtually every state-
ment we utter, into all our reflections, and into every act we com-
mit— know what we are saying or what we are doing. There is
every point to taking into account, when acting, the best-examined
information available, but there is no point to trying to base morali-
ty on calculations, positive or negative, that are impossible in princi-
ple. Even were one to agree ex hypothesi to the claim that whatever
was most conducive to the least suffering was good, this would be a
doctrine without utility in view of the hard logic of unfathomable
knowledge: one can calculate neither what will be conducive to
maximum pleasure nor what will be conducive to least suffering/ 5
The notion of unfathomed and unfathomable knowledge is useful
and neglected. What have 1 tried to do with it in this brief chapter?
1 have distinguished it from fallibilism, clarified the difference
between the common understanding of a theory, its economic value,
and its objective content, and rebutted determinism and Marx’s
" Not that negative utilitarianism was ever a promising account of moral evaluation:
Watkins's analogies between science and morality are crudely drawn, most especially his analogies
between decisions about basic observation statements, on the one hand, and decisions about
unsatisfactory consequences of moral standards, on the other. Nor, as he thinks, does one need
decisions for basic statements in science. Moreover, it is doubtful whether criticism even in natural
Science is centered chiefly on observational test statements. (See 7'Az Rrbeai la Commitwieni, op. ett.
Appendix 5, for support of these claims). Nor is it plausible that the way to reject hypothetical
moral postulates is by reference to negative feelings. Feelings of revulsion vary greatly from one
person to another. As George Bernard Shaw wrote in the preface to Major Barbara, " I t is
exceedingly difficult to make people realise that an evil is an evil". On controversial questions, it
ts hardly clear that our negative feelings really do, as Watkins suggested, tend to lead in the
direction of agreement, or that, in case they did. that that would even be relevant in constructing
an adequate account of ethics. M a n y people arc remarkably, if regrettably, callous about the
suffering of others— particularly where the violation of religiously-endorsed taboos is concerned. It
>s still sometimes argued that, if sexual practices lead to suffering (as. for instance, in A I D S
victims), then this is only proper punishment for sinners. N o r is the ineffectualness of the
existence of suffering as an argument for moral reform at all new. " I n the Victorian age", as
Turner reports, "a reformer stood a better chance of success if h e could present his reform i n
such a way as to show that the victims of injustice were in moral danger; ami even today this is
i’y no means the weakest card to play. What shocked the middle classes, who read the reports on
conditions in the mines, a little more than a century ago, was not so much the system under
which children crawled on all fours dragging sleds behind them, or in which men ruptured
themselves lifting loads on to their daughters' backs; it was the revelation that lightly-clad young
women working in proximity to naked men al the coal face made no strenuous efforts to save
•heir honour when molested, which was fairly often".
Incidentally, it ought to be noticed that Popper himself is not a utilitarian, and thinks of himself
*ts a modified or critical Kantian in ethical matters. His recommendation to "minimise avoidable
’“Bering". which by itself is hardly objectionable, was made i n passing in connection with social
P*™y. not as part of a n attempt to formulate a criterion for moral evaluation. Sec Unrnded Quest,
“p- dt., «2. 193; Thr oprn Soatty and lb Entrna. op. dt., p . 107. 108, 139. 235. 237, 2 3 8 . 239.
"6. 304. 324, 384-85; Conjecturts and Rrfutatums, op. dt.. pp. 181, 345. 361: Tht Stif and lb Brain.
°P- dt.. p. 168.
55
theory of alienation. I have introduced some new and readily

understandable examples of unfathomable knowledge—examples that
have obvious relevance to biotechnology and current social and
moral issues. 1 have sketched two promising lines of epistemological,
legal, and economic research: one having to do with the adequacy
of patent law for dealing, in exchange, with the unfathomable
character of knowledge; the other having to do with the relationship
between the objective theory of knowledge and the subjective theory
of economic value. And I have knocked out negative utilitarianism,
and perhaps most other forms of utilitarianism, into the bargain.
This is perhaps not a bad score. But what have 1 really said and done?
56
Chapter 3
INTENTIONS AND EXPRESSIONISM:
THE OBJECTION RECONSIDERED
1. Objective Knowledge and Our Subjectivist Tradition
In the preceding chapter I considered the objection that my

account of the unfathomability of knowledge is misleading in the
following sense. If a scientist did not intend his theory to conflict
with a theory that would be put forward long afterwards, and which
he could not possibly have imagined, it is quixotic to describe that
later theory as part of the informative content, and its denial as
part of the logical content, of the original theory.
This objection has, 1 believe, already been answered. We have
shown that knowledge is a product not fully known to its producers,
and thus one whose content can hardly be fully intended. I would
nonetheless like to return to the objection, and to address it more
fully by adding some background and context. I do so to make
clearer, and to emphasise, the differences between my own approach
and more conventional approaches to epistemology.
The objection rested on the question of the intention of the

author of a theory, a subjective matter. On the approach taken
here, intention is in most cases irrelevant, whereas the objective
content of a theory is crucial. “Subjective”, "objective"—what is
meant? To explain how these terms are being used, 1 need to add
to my discussion of unfathomable knowledge a fuller explanation of
the notion of objective knowledge.
The chief western approach to knowledge has been subjectivist in
the sense that it tends to explain knowledge as a relationship—that of
generation, or acquisition, mastery, ownership, control, be-
lief—between a subjective mind and a known object. Thus it takes
knowledge as something generated or acquired, mastered, owned or
possessed, controlled or believed, by a knowing subject, and focuses
on
such matters as the right of the subject to claim to know the
object that he has generated, believes, and such like (i.e., it focuses
the propriety of the subjective relationship). It often also treats
e
judgements or beliefs that figure in this relationship as the due
‘pcessions of the mental states of the subjective mind.
, 9 course the generation of knowledge does involve "knowing
—an d the expression, acquisition, control, believing, and
Session that they may engage in. But conventional epistemologies
overestimate the importance of this knowing subject, indispensable as

it no doubt is, and focus on it rather than on the object pro-
duced —rather as People magazine often focuses on personalities at
the expense of neglecting the contributions that they make. The
main questions of knowledge need to be treated independendy of a
knowing subject.
Usually, however, such questions and possibilities are not con-
sidered. One is virtually cut off from pursuing them by the expres-
sionism latent in the subjectivist approach. In the expressionist
theory of art, for instance, an individual's work is viewed as an
expression of his inner state,1 as something caused by this inner
state, and whose worth or quality depend on the artist's mental
health and other subjective qualities.
Such expressionism is found not only in art. The same line of
assumptions—and a similar subjective, causal, and possessive expres-
sionism—underlie most contemporary approaches to the history and
evaluation of ideas. In the psychology and sociology of knowledge,
for instance, one finds researchers utterly neglecting the content of
particular ideas, in order better to focus on the psychological,
economic, or social background of the individual or community in
which these ideas arose.
We already have an example of this from our discussion of
Marx's approach to alienation. Marx's work on alienation is written
in the subjectivist and expressionist tradition. This is evident from
the terminology: for Marx, one’s work, one’s products, are exter-
nalised expressions and reproductions of one’s self, through which
the individual actualises himself. Since these stem from one’s most
intimate self, it is even plausible to identify with them, as indeed
belonging to the self.
Such subjective and expressionistic approaches, however wide-
spread, are innocent of any understanding of biology or evolution-
ary theory; they are pre-Darwinian. Meanwhile, an alternative and
quite powerful evolutionary epistemology has been developed, which
' See K. R. Popper, Objectwr Knmtrdgr. op. ch.; my “Ein schwieriger Mensch: Eine Portrait
skizze von Sir Karl Popper", in Eckhard Nordhofen, ed.. /’Ay.oognomien. Philosophen dtt 20
Jahrhundrrt.1 in Portraits. op. du pp. 43-69; and my "Wittgenstein and Homosexuality", in
WmniBraoui/ity Samlrgr, fuion, Politics, in Salmagundi. vol. 58-59. Fall 1982-Winter 1983, pp. 166-
58
INTENTIONS AND EXPRESSIONISM: THE OBJECTION RECONSIDERED
pursues an objective approach to knowledge informed by and com-

patible with evolutionary theory.*
Evolutionary epistemology treats knowledge as an exosomatic

product, independent of its installation in any particular human
mind. Objective knowledge is comparable in some ways to the
exosomatic products of various animals—such as the spider’s web,
the beaver’s dam, the path worn in the forest by deer, the bird’s
nest. It consists of such things as expectations, when put into
language, and theoretical systems. Knowledge objects, stored more
importantly in books, articles, or programs than in minds, can be
studied, investigated, or examined critically, independently of any
question about who if anyone believes them or originated them. To
large parts of our objective knowledge—the table of logarithms is a
trivial example—any question of belief is irrelevant. Moreover,
important parts of our objective knowledge are manifestations of
"spontaneous orders" which were never originated or designed by
anyone. Examples are traditions, morality, the law, language, and
institutions such as the market, in all of which a measureless
amount of knowledge has been tacitly stored in the process of their
evolution. The market, for instance, is not a product of human
design, and those guided by it usually do not know why they are
acting as they are. They too “do not know what they are doing”.’
The market order is an objective product which is not fully under-
stood, a means on which mankind stumbled as a way of using
individual knowledge to deal with the lack of total or comprehensive
knowledge.
To be concerned with objective knowledge is then to be con-
cerned less with how ideas are produced, and more with their
function and objective content, with problem situations in which
they are useful, and with the current state of a discussion or critical
argument. It is to be concerned with the content, structure, func-
See C . Radnitzky and W. W. Bartley. I l l , eds., F.volutianan EbKtmolan Rationality. anil thr
hoaology of Knowledge. op. dt.
®ee Hayek, Law. Legislation, and Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973, 1976.
). vol. I, 1973, esp. chapter 2. It u not of course suggested that those engaged in the market
n
and' act .*n or,naI *on on
° intelligently or
their
market behaviour
prices people ismust
unintelligent.
be alert toQuite the contrary,
changes tn prices, toand
be must
guidedhave
by
riain specific goals, such as attainment of profit and avoidance of loss. But they do not and
cannot
con know
. .' I'trnces of the why andof how
actions prices are
themselves and changing,
others. Secand
alsoalso cannot
Hayek, Thr know the unintended
Fatal Conceit. op. dt..
Individualism and Economic Order. op. dt.
59
L’NFATHOMED KNOWLEDGE
tion, growth, use, and development of knowledge products. One can

study the structure and function of knowledge objectively just as
one can investigate the products of various animals. A biologist may
become interested in the nonliving structures that animals pro-
duce—such as webs, dams, and nests; and an epistemologist may
become interested in the nonliving structures—thought-struc-
tures—created by men. One can try to understand the chemical
composition, the physical characteristics, the geometrical properties,
the engineering soundness of a dam or a nest; and also the biologi-
cal function of these artifacts in serving the survival of the species in
question. Similarly, one can investigate the structure and function of
a theory, its integration and incompatibilities with other theories,
whether it solves a problem that has been posed in current dis-
cussion, its compatibility with observation, and what its function may
be in case it is retained in a situation where it no longer solves its
original problem or conflicts with the facts.
Questions such as these are matters of logic, independent of the
question whether, for example, anyone has noticed any incompatibil-
ities or desires the theories to be one way or the other.
The nature of this latter sort of knowledge—an understanding of
which demands a kind of connoisseurship of intellectual structures
independent of any belief in them—is virtually unexplored in
traditional subjectivist epistemology. Yet such objective knowledge
has to be more basic and important than subjective knowledge in
the sense that the subjective production of ideas can be understood
only after one had acquired some understanding of the nature of
the structures or products being produced.4
As we saw when discussing Marx, perhaps the most important
characteristic of objective knowledge is that, once created, it exists
autonomously, independently of any knowing subject. The larger
part of objective knowledge indeed arises as an unintended by-
product of the production of other items (such as books, essays, and
other cultural products). Like the path of the deer, such unintended
by-products come into existence without being planned, and, once
extant, may be pul to uses different from any that would previously
have been envisioned.
What is distinctive about an item of objective knowledge—a book,
for instance, or a vaccine—is its potential for being understood or
‘ See Popper. Objtctnx Knowltdgr. op. di., p. 1 14.
60
utilised in some way that has not yet been imagined. This potential
may exist without ever being realised. These potentialities, un-
actualised as they may well be, are nonetheless very real, as our
examples of the old drugs now being used to treat a disease, AIDS,
that was not imaginable when they were synthesised, illustrates.
Objective knowledge—including all the potentialities that are a part
of it—thus forms a major component of our ecological niche. The
niche itself may be considered as a field of potentialities.’ Objective
knowledge interacts with the individuals living in that ecological
niche, and may transform the niche itself. And it develops in a way
analogous to, although not identical with, biological evolution.
With the aid of these facts about objective knowledge we may

return to the objection with which we began this section — having to
do with the subjective intentions of the authors or inventors or
discoverers of knowledge, and with the notion that ideas are simply
the expressions of their producers—and review the position that we
have reached.
There are infinitely many situations, themselves infinitely varied,
to which a theory may be applicable. Yet many of these situations
will not have been imagined, let alone intended, at the lime the
theory is proposed; they are also unimaginable, and therefore “un-
intendable” in terms of the information available.
We saw this in our earlier examples: in the case of Einstein's
theory construed from the viewpoint of Newton’s; in the case of the
application of AZT (which had been developed as an anti-cancer
drug), of dextran sulphate (which had been developed as an antico-
agulant) and of compound Q or trichosanthin (which had been used
to induce abortions and to fight some types of cancer) to fight the
replication of the AIDS virus, which had not existed at the time of
the first development of these drugs, and whose very possibility was
inconceivable in terms of the immunological and viral theory then
available; and in other examples drawn from patent law, theory of
economic value, and morality.
Other examples could readily be added. For instance, Erwin
Schrddinger did not fully understand the “Schrodinger equations"
• See Popper's discussion of the propensity theory of probability, and of propensities, in the
three volumes of the ftubcn/H to the Logic of Scientific Discover,. ed. W. W Bartley. 111: Rrahm and
dim of Science. The Open Universe: d n Argument for Indeterminism. and Quantum rhron and t <■
Sdustn tn Physics, op. cit.
61
before Boni gave his interpretation of them (and then Schrodinger

expressed dislike for them—confirming that the result was unintend-
ed!). The content and application of these equations are indeed still
a matter of controversy.
All these examples show the lack of any close correlation between
intention and content, and in some cases the virtual irrelevance of
intention to content. To the extent that intention is involved, we
need to examine the self or agent that has that intention. Yet this
self . . . is also unfathomable!
2. The Self Is Abo Unfathomable
In concentrating on knowledge products, we have so far deliber-

ately neglected to discuss the self that produces these products. Yet
our results lead to some pertinent reflections about the nature of
the self.
Since it is logically impossible, consciously or unconsciously, to
anticipate the unimaginable and unintendable consequences of a
theory on the basis of what is known about its inventor or discover-
er, it is absurd to think of knowledge products in terms of subjec-
tive self-expression, rhe consequences of an idea may not only be
unforeseen but also unwelcome to, contrary to, the uneducated self-
expression of the inventor. The unexpected ramifications of one’s
own ideas about the world, about society, about the individual,
about one’s own aims and preferences, may, however—as one
pursues them, as one works with them, as one adopts them as
problems—have a radical impact on one’s self-conception, and even
on one’s instinctive life.6 Far from expressing one’s old self and self-
conceptions, these unexpected ramifications may be radically at odds
with them. Without needing to deny that one’s ideas may sometimes
be, in some sense, self-expressive, our argument makes clear that
very often one’s ideas work against one’s self-expression. At this point
expressionist accounts of knowledge utterly founder?
‘ For examples see J. D. Unwin's amusing introduction to his Sex and Culiurr (London:
Oxford University Press, 1934), and my "Fin Schwieriger Mensch", op. dt„ esp. p. 59.
This is true even, or especially, of Marx himself: a writer uses his notes and diaries, his
musings, just to transcend them and himself. I t was after he had p u t down and worked through
his early jottings and notes that Marx became ready in part to transcend his Hegelianism, and to
begin to publish in a rather different vein As die years went by. he dropped more and more of
ie Hegelian background. For example, after his encounter with Darwin's work in 1859 and
62
Indeed expressionist accounts of knowledge production and the

self must fail in three fundamental ways. First, they assume that
there is a determinate core to the individual, of which his work and
thought are an expression. Second, they neglect the objectively
unfathomable depths of the knowledge product. And third, they are
consequently unable to capture the nature of the relationship
between a man and his work. In sum, subjective, expressionistic
approaches to knowledge misunderstand the nature of the individual
self, the nature of intellectual work and creativity, and the nature of
the relationship between the two. The result is altogether too
We have focused so far on the second point—the objectively

unfathomable content of intellectual products or ideas—on which the
entire argument hangs. The first and third points may be sketched
in briefly. The human self, while no doubt partly resulting from
inborn dispositions, is also al least in frart held together by theories: these
help to provide its unity, its individuality, and its continuity; and it
is rich, unfathomable, and growing to the extent to which these
theories themselves enjoy these characteristics.” Moreover, once one
has acquired descriptive language, one becomes not only a subject
but also an object for oneself —an object about which one can
reflect, which one may criticise and change, and thus transcend.
Self-transcendence, a familiar characteristic of human life, is attained
largely by the reflective criticism and examination of the theories
that hold the self together; by the destruction of some of those
theories; and by the creation of new theories in their place. Hence,
for the reasons already mentioned, we can never fully know ourselves
any more than we can know what we are talking about in other areas. For
both poles are anchored in descriptive, theoretical, and hence
unfathomable language. “Know thyself!" is thus a counsel of perfec-
tion.9
The relationship between the unfathomable self and the unfath-
omable theories which it has somehow produced can then hardly be
°ne of expression of the one by the other. Such an account fails to
take account either of the nature of theory, or of the constantly
I860, he began to try to interpret his dialectic not in Hegelian but in Darwinian evolutionary
terms
Sec Popper and Ecdes, The Self and tts Brain, op. dt., chapter P4, especially section 42.
nipare John Rawls, A Theory of Jiutue (Cambridge; Harvard University Press, 1971).
. hich does not necessarily make it objectionable. On counsels of perfection sec my Morality
(London: Macmillan, 1971), chapters I and 4.
63
changing flamelike quality of the individual, as expressed in his

active cybernetic relationship with his cultural world, including his
own cultural products, and the creative, unpredictable character that
is intrinsic to that relationship. This relationship is one of give and
take between the individual and the work; it depends upon “feed-
back” (as one must expect in any growth process) amplified by self-
criticism.
5. Alienation in the Service of Knowledge-Production
Such thinkers as Popper and Hayek, on one hand, and Marx, on

the other, disagree profoundly about alienation and the self.10 For
the former, theoretical language provides man with an opportunity
that permits him to dissociate from, to detach from, to objectify and to
alienate himself from his own subjective states: to make them into
objects, not identified with himself, which may then be examined.
This process of examining such objects is one of rendering them
strange, and of passing beyond a merely subjective relationship with
them. This approach allows us to “have done with" some subjective
states, to pass beyond them, to become free of them, to transcend
them. Whereas for Marx, a “materialist” imprisoned without being
aware of it in a subjectivist epistemological tradition, “objectification"
is “the practice of alienation" (p. 39); whereas “communism is the
positive abolition . . . of human self-alienation” (p. 155).
Marx’s concern with “losing control" of his products no doubt
relates to his “constructivist" rationalism11—to the attempt to keep
everything, and particularly economic events, under control, whether
individual or collective. Marx has to assume that the original pro-
ducer understands his product best, indeed that it is manifestly or
perfectly well known to him, and that he can best plan for it, and
even control its destiny. Yet the object could not be perfectly well
known to its producer any more than some central planning board
could enjoy total information and control. Kolakowski misses this
10
For a critique of Marx's account of alienation that explores additional difficulties not
covered here, see William R- Beer, “The Fault Lies Not in Our 'Starrs' But in Our Sociology",
Aaidrttuc Questums, vol. 1, no. 3. Summer 1988. pp. 68-69.
" See F. A. Hayek. Tht Counter- Revolution of Science (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1955); Studies tn
Philosophy, Poliiu, an j economics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1967). esp. chapter 5; Neu1
Srudiw tn Philoiophy Polina. Economics and the Union of Ideas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1978). esp. chapter I, and The Fatal Conceit. op. at.
64
point in his study of Marxism when he writes: "Exploitation consists

i n the fact that society has no control over the use of the surplus
product, and that its distribution is in the hands of those who have
a n exclusive power of decision as to the use of the means of pro-
duction.” These decision makers do not, and cannot, control the
product either.
There are mechanisms quite different from conscious control in

terms of which the effective acquisition and economical use of
knowledge take place. I n his classic essays "The Use of Knowledge
in Society" and “Economics and Knowledge", l* Hayek begins to
show how the market acts as a discovery process. He identifies, as
one of the main problems of economic theory, the problem of how
to secure the best use of dispersed resources, such as uncommon
knowledge—information, say, about temporary unique opportunities
known to some particular members of society but not available in its
totality, even in principle, to any individual or any central planning
board.
One can generalise and correct Hayek’s approach in full harmo-
ny with his intentions. Hayek's problem, in the late ’30s, was how
uncommon existing dispersed knowledge is utilised. Taken literally,
this would be to restrict oneself to what I have been calling “the
accessed slice”. The more fundamental problem is how to utilise not
only such existing dispersed knowledge, but also how to elicit
implicit and not yet fathomed or accessed knowledge—whether
common or uncommon —in the product itself. The solution to both
problems seems to be the same. Competition not only makes the
best use of existing dispersed knowledge, but also generates knowl-
edge that none of the participants in the process as yet possesses. I n
their interaction, various participants can bring to bear their dis-
persed, specialised, individual knowledge on the unknown and
unfathomable object-product. I n doing so they may discover more of
its potentialities and utilise it accordingly. Better understanding of
existing objective knowledge results from this competitive interaction,
which is itself a knowledge production process. That is, the market
process elicits or creates not-yei-existing knowledge about already
existing products, as well as creating new products. If there were a
central planning board charged with the responsibility for maximally
Both reprinted in F. A Hayek, Indniduahsm and Economit Order, op. dt.
65
fathoming the unfathomable depths of existing objective knowledge,

that planning board could hardly do better than to delegate the
task to something like a market process—which could not only tap
“uncommon knowledge” not available to any central board, but
could also use that uncommon knowledge in prospecting for knowl-
edge not yet available to anyone at all.
(A cautionary remark is in order here on the way in which
Hayek’s theory of prices is frequently misunderstood. Hayek correct-
ly notes that prices are not simple reflections of such things as
scarcity, but perform an informational role as signals. His account is,
however, often wrongly interpreted statically, passively, and deter-
ministically-ignoring Hayek’s own caustic remarks about “given
data"—as if prices worked this informational role automatically and
mechanically. Such interpretations leave out both the role of the
acting individual and the multi-layered character of language. As the
cognitive psychologist Karl Buhler has shown, signs (such as prices)
function first as expressions or symptoms,and then, on the next dimen-
sion of analysis, as signals that steer the behaviour of those who
watch them. But they also function as symbols or descriptions of
states of affairs. On this level interpretation is all important, and
thus the signals at play in the market are interpreted signals, actively
interpreted by the various actors in the marketplace, conjecturally,
as descriptive information about certain states of affairs.15 Signals in
the market, such as prices, will be interpretation- or theory-impreg-
nated, i.e., interpreted in terms of additional knowledge, and are
never self-sufficient. Esteban F. Thomsen misunderstands this point
when he writes of the informational problem of “whether or not
agents may extract or infer information effectively from the prices
they observe". This approach is inductivist: the observations—in this
case, price-signals—are theory-impregnated from the outset.14)
*’ For Buhler's work see my discussion in The Retreat to Commitment; Popper's numeral 1*
discussions in Conjectures and Refutations. The Self and /ti Brain, and elsewhere; and Karl Buhler
Sprachlheorie: Dir Darstellungsfunktion dor Sprache, 2nd edition (Stuttgart- Gustav Fischer Vcrlag-
1965).
14
See his admirable article on “Knowledge. Discovery and Prices", Humane Studies Review. vol
5, no. 1, Fall 1987. pp. 1-17. The passage cited appears on p. 15.
66
jNTENT1°ns AND EXPRESSIONISM: THE OBJECTION RECONSIDERED
freud and the Psychology and Psychoanalysis of Knowledge
There is another, darker explanation for Marx’s concern about

“losing control" of his products. Marx’s reflections on alienation are
favourites not only of sociologists and philosophers but also of
sychologists and psychoanalysts of knowledge. Thus the psych-
ologists Karen Horney and Erich Fromm, my former colleague
Herbert Marcuse, and many other writers have used the notion of
alienation to link Marx’s ideas to those of Freudian psychology and
existentialism.
Although sophisticated in psychoanalysis, these writers nonetheless
resist training their analytical skills on Marx himself, and thus fail to
notice the apparent underlying psychopathology of Marx’s discus-
sion—or the way Freudian and Marxist ideas conflict here.
For anyone committed to the psychology of knowledge should
not fail to notice that, from that point of view, the early Marx has
an odd attitude to human products: we must not let them go. We must
not relinquish control of them, and, if we do so, we lose ourselves.
But this sort of attitude—at least in Freudian theory—involves an
absurd, unhealthy, and even pathological identification with one’s
products.
I do not myself admire psychoanalysis, and have elsewhere
strongly criticised the attempt to reduce a thinker’s ideas to psycho-
pathology.** Yet I could understand why a Freudian might, from his
or her own point of view, be forced to suspect Marx of something like
“anal retentiveness” to a pathological degree. 16 I n his “Character and
Anal Erotism”, Freud reports his patient's discussion of how the
shameful substance which has to be concealed turns into a secret
which enriches the world . . . the world was trying to get this
valuable secret from me, but . . . 1 carefully kept it to myself. It is
indeed often said that Marx suffered from hemorrhoids. Marx
nunsell, in his discussion of alienation, takes what a Freudian would
the “Afterword" to the second, edition, revised and enlarged, of my W/grruta'n, op.
pp 47 Sigmund Freud. Collected Pspm, vol. 2 (New York: Basic Books, 1959). pp. 45-50, esp.
Mam j 4 footnote on those pages. On the apparent difference between the attitudes of
Anal here, see Freud, “On the Transformation of Instincts with Special Reference to
Process’□fd” .* fiapm, vol. 2. pp. 164-71, esp. p. 168. where Freud writes: “The
tic and ’JJ’7ae cation affords die first occasion on which the child must decide between narcissis-
UI
love Ot * “"ject-loving altitude. He either parts olxrdiently with his faeces, ‘offers them up' to his
*fcrti ng fotown l n1| - lbCm for purposes of auto-erotic gratification and later as a means of
67
almost have to interpret as a “fetishistic" attitude to human prod-

ucts. But Marcuse, Horney, and Fromm never notice—or at least do
not mention—anything of the sort. Were they too bourgeois to
make such a connection? Have such features in Marx become un-
menlionable?
I hope that readers will not misunderstand what I am doing. I
do not myself suggest that there is any connection between Marx’s
alleged hemorrhoids and his views on alienation. Rather, I am
teasing Freudian-Marxists, such as Marcuse and Fromm, for whom
such connections are all-important, by demanding to know why they
overlook them tn this particular case— that is, in the case of Marx.
In matters such as these, Hegel, from whom Marx had borrowed
the idea of alienation, was evidently healthier. For Hegel, the act of
turning something over to another, and thus “alienating" it from
one’s self, may be simply giving it up. For Hegel, nothing essential is
lost; whereas for Marx, one surrenders one’s product, and in so
doing one gives up an essential part of one's being. Marx also
differs from Hegel in supposing that surrendering one's product to
another implies denying one’s own interests and submitting to those
of die other, thus necessarily allowing one's own product to con-
tribute to one’s own oppression.”
Apart from any question of psychopathology, Marx's approach is

also socially and economically primitive. This can be seen for exam-
ple in the reports made by Helmut Schoeck, Gerardo and Alicia
Reichel-Dolmatoff, and others about patterns of existence and inter-
relationship in primitive societies such as the Aritama of North
Colombia.18 Aritama society appears to be frozen by envy: frozen, for
it is controlled by assumptions and traditions that prevent economic
and cultural institutions from developing. For example, there is the
assumption that there is only one explanation for any misfortune:
namely, the envious black magic of another villager. And to be sure,
the individual practice of just such black magic, intended to harm
others, is widespread.
How does this relate to Marx’s discussion of the act of exchange?
Someone who buys something among the Aritama must assume that
” On inch matters. consult th? rich material Helmut Schoeck has assembled in his Emrj: d
ThtoTy of Sonal Rrhaxwur (London: Seeker 4 Warburg. 1969).
” See Gerardo and Alicia Retchel-DolmatofE. Thf PropU of Antama Tht Cultural Ptnmudity of a
Colombian Mtshw ruiagr (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961).
68
the seller will hate him, and will pursue him vindictively, with black
ffrtgic and otherwise, for the remainder of his life. He must take precau-
tions accordingly. The seller here also “cannot let go”. His claim to
his property persists; he envies the buyer’s superiority in being able
to pay. and feels that he has been cheated of something substantial
in return for something as evanescent and transitory as money.1’
In modern exchange societies, it is harder for such primitive
emotions to arise: the institutions themselves foster a more benign
attitude. Anonymous production of goods enables one to purchase
practically anything without having to reckon with the envy of the
producer or supplier. Such a relatively anonymous exchange economy
has, at least in this respect, a civilising effect. Yet it is still common
amongst romantics to glorify primitive society. They deplore the
impersonality of modern relationships, and plead for a return to the
days when one had a personal relationship in economic transactions,
when nearly every article had to be purchased from some known
individual. In such a setting, as Schoeck puts it, “the romantically
inclined . . . have no idea how subtly the relationships between
producer and customer strangled the circulation of goods".
Amusing and enlightening as these reflections may be, the key

problem here is not simply one of psychopathology and primitive
social and economic thinking, and I do not wish to lead the reader
astray. The key problem is far more serious: Marx's account of
alienation demands something that is not only physically but also
logically impossible. The key to his argument, exhibited in this
chapter and the last, is his opposition to permitting our products to
become autonomous powers that will "outgrow our control, cross our
expectation',, and nullify our calculations". Yet no alternative exists.
i Acknowledgement and Alienation
Suppose I am right. Am 1 nonetheless not heartless? Am 1 not

neglecting the pain and horror of alienation? It may be worthwhile
recall something of what is involved in the experience of alien-
ation.
He|
rnut Shoeck, op. dt_. pp 52-5S.
69
It is important to acknowledge what individual people do, how

they contribute to the processes and activities in which they engage.
Every individual possesses unique information and enjoys an ad-
vantage in that this information cannot easily be used beneficially
without his or her co-operation. People are made dreadfully unhap-
py—indeed plunged into a sort of insanity—when their work is not
acknowledged: when it, or their co-operation, is taken for granted.
They also may become distraught when they are not acknowledged
as individuals—when who they are, their humanity, is not recog-
nised, as when their time is casually stolen by bureaucrats or their
work is stolen by thieves or bosses or colleagues.
Appropriate acknowledgement will differ depending on the
circumstances: sometimes payment of some sort is in order. Fre-
quently a “thank you” or credit of some sort, combined with com-
mon courtesy, suffices; sometimes the only fit acknowledgement may
be loud and sustained applause. There are of course occasions when
no acknowledgement could adequately pay tribute to a magnificent
action or piece of work; but even then some acknowledgement,
however inadequate and halting, is due, if only as a gesture in the
direction of the impossible. In fact, the contribution that ordinary
working people make to our society often does go unacknowledged;
such people are often taken for granted and also made to feel so.
Of course they are sometimes exploited in other ways as well.
Those who do feel acknowledged and appreciated will often
willingly and indeed enthusiastically give their products away—pro-
vided that they suppose that by doing so they can make a contribu-
tion to the community in which they are living. It is often difficult
to find a way in which to make a contribution, and thereby in part
to overcome the sense that one’s life makes no difference.
Although those who are not acknowledged in these various
ways—or who do indeed feel that their lives make no differ-
ence —will often have the sort of experience that Marx refers to as
“alienation", I have preferred, in stating my own simple views, to
avoid his term as much as possible since there is so much mystifica-
tion and partisanship connected with it.
What I have just written hardly exhausts the subject. I would
like to add one final word to emphasise that, although alienation
surely does bring pain, it is not entirely a bad thing. Quite the
contrary.
Alienation—distance, separation—is produced in that process of
passing from the closed to the open or abstract society—a society in
70
which (see the Prologue) one is free to supply and receive, and to
refuse to supply and receive. It is produced whilst treading a path
that involves increasingly “abstract or depersonalised" relationships
with one’s fellows.20 This path involves great strain. Marx himself
seems to have suffered from it, and craved personal contact—as may
|x? seen in the way he differs from Hegel in insisting that social
institutions never suffice to mediate man's social nature, but that
one must (again, to overcome alienation) forge direct bonds of
fellowship with individual fellow workers.
Yet, strain or not, such alienation or estrangement from nature,
society, one’s fellow men, and oneself is an essential part of growing
up. Certainly it has everything to do with freedom. We must detach
from the womb—from the assumptions of our environment and our
communities—in order to become independent persons, individuals.
In this process we may come to look upon ourselves, others, and
the world about us as strange and perplexing—as indeed alien.
Many thinkers, just like Marx, have called on man to transcend
himself, his past, his origins. Yet few comprehend that it is only
through something like alienation that we can do any such thing.21
Still fewer have perceived that it is the objectivity and autonomy of
our products that enable us to alienate ourselves from them, and
thus to attain such transcendence and increased liberty.
, - Sce r
’’*>PPc r. Th/ Open Socwtj and Its Enrrnrs. op. tit., Chapter 10; and Hayek. Emu.
‘"'i liberty. op. dt.. Vol. III. "Pbsiscript”. See also note 14 above.
w
Walter Kaufmann. Brwnd Guilt and Justice (New York: Peter H. Wyden. 1973).
71
Chapter 4
T H E SOCIOLOGY AND ECONOMICS O F
KNOWLEDGE
The most characteristic trait of modern epistemology is its

entire neglect of economics.
Ludwig von Mises'
/ The Sociology of Knowledge
The most important university discipline that ignores the unfath-

omable nature of knowledge is the sociology of knowledge.
Although sociology of knowledge is quite diverse, its practitioners
typically aim to chart causal relationships between personal or
political conditions or interests and knowledge, to demonstrate that
all knowledge is the expression of and determined by special inter-
ests, and is even in the last analysis wholly conventional. Marx
himself, whose historical determinism cast ideology as a function of
material conditions, is the intellectual ancestor of this subject; other
chief figures include Georg LukAcs, Karl Mannheim, and Lucien
Goldmann. Dependence on Marx and Marxism is however denied
by many sociologists of knowledge, and the basic ideas of the subject
can be pursued without any specific reference to Marxism.1
Some early practitioners of the subject, such as Mannheim,
exempted some forms of knowledge, especially mathematics and the
natural sciences, from their approach. These, they allowed, could be
evaluated independently of social context. But many current sociolo-
Ludwig von Mises. The Ultimate Eoundahon of Economic Same (Kansas City: Sheet! Andrews
and
McMcel. Inc., 1978).
there is a vast literature on the sociology of knowledge. To start see Karl Mannheim.
0
and Utopia (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1936); Barry Barnes. Interests and the
I- Knowledge (London: Roudedge Direct Editions, 1977); David Bloor. Knowledge and Social
(London. Routledge Direct Editions. 1976); Barry Barnes and Steven Shapin, cds., Natural
ulona
8 2 ' Studies of Scientific Culture (London: Sage Publications. 1979); Martin Hollis and
Qf -u cs. Rationality and Relativism (Cambridge: The M i l ' Press. 1982). See Popper's critique
lcini and
*be sociology of knowledge in The Open Society, op. dt.. Chapter 23. and in The
Rond \ Hutorvism . op. d t . . esp. sections 2 1 and 23. See Hayek's critique of Mannheim in The
phn " (London: Routledge 4 Kegan Paul. l a d . . 19+4). pp. 21. 68, and 158. The
lr
sorneti L g r n Habermas, Michel Foucault. Richard Rorty. and Thomas S. Kuhn are also
conl
Stiener'" “lered to be sociologists of knowledge. See Barry Barnes, T. S. Kuhn and Social
ndon;
hter a r . <■ Macmillan, 1982); and Ernest Gellner. "The Paradox in Paradigms". Timer
thi, , [l a April 23. 1982, pp. 4 5 1 + 5 2 . M y discussion of the sociology of knowledge in
r
Practiu, onc' Crs. on
b w,dl ofunderlying
See my discussion Kuhnassumptions,
Thomas S. false Part will
in the next and not book.
of this single out individual
gists of knowledge go further, putting all knowledge on an equal,

socially contaminated, footing?
There is hardly any doubt that social interests and interest
groups, including academic professions, in various ways do affect
and distort science, just as they affect other areas of ideology. Lest
there be any doubt, the remaining parts of this book will present
examples. Sociology of knowledge corrects naive popular conceptions
of science that present the individual scientist as a “man in a white
coat"—a wholly objective and passive observer of reality who is
somehow immune to the sway of social and other influences.
Yet sociology of knowledge is badly defective. Most of it, despite
its materialistic pretensions, is in the subjectivist tradition discussed
in the previous chapter, and concentrates its attention on the
production of knowledge while neglecting the nature, content,
function, and structure of the knowledge product. Bringing to bear
obsolete subjectivist methodology, and uneducated about crucial
features of knowledge products, it provides putative causal accounts
of the genesis of products that not only fail to take account of but
are incompatible with the nature of the products themselves. It can
be decisively refuted, straightaway, by applying the arguments
already developed in the preceding chapter. Ideas cannot simply be the
expression of a group or community any more than they can be so of an
individual, and for all the same reasons. Ideas are not fully known to
their inventors or to the communities that first sponsor them; they
are autonomous and may turn out to have implications and unin-
tended consequences contrary to the interests of their inventors or
sponsoring communities. Ideas not only express the interests of the
communities; they often contradict and sometimes transform the in-
terests of the communities in which they originate. Indeed, from an
evolutionary perspective, this is the distinctive function of ideas: we
serve our survival by allowing ideas to perish in our stead, and thus
we transcend our earlier selves, of which these ideas possibly were
indeed in some sense an expression?
’ E.g., David Bloor, “The Strengths of the Strong Programme”, Philosophy of the Social Sciences.
vol. 11, 1981. pp. 199-218. Sec Ian C. Jarvie's critique in “A Hague on Both Your Houses", in
J . R. Brown, ed., Scientific Rationality: The Sociological Turn (Boston: D. Reidel, 1984), pp. 165-182.
' See K. R. Popper. "The Death of Theories and of Ideologies", in Im reflexion sur la mart. 2c
symposium international de philosophic. £cole fibre de philosophic “Plethon” (Athens: 1977). pp
296-329; and "The Rationality of Scientific Revolutions”, in Rom Harri. ed., Problems of Scwntipr
Revolution, Progress and Obstacles to Progress tn the Sciences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975)
pp. 72-101. See also my discussion in the "Introduction 1984" to my The Retreat to Commitment,op
dt
74
THE SOCIOLOGY AND ECONOMICS OF KNOWLEDGE
Readers will easily be able to repeat and reapply this argument,

jn these only slightly different circumstances, for (hemselves. 1
should now like to introduce a different kind of argument —an
argument that once again concentrates on objective knowledge, yet,
rather than considering again unfathomable content, instead concen-
trates on what Donald5 T. Campbell calls the structural and vehicular
characteristics of ideas.
2. Sociology of Knowledge Misconstrues the Problem
Although knowledge is in some respects affected by social inter-

ests, sociologists of knowledge seriously overinterpret their results by
studying social distortion of knowledge out of context, and by failing
to notice that it is part of a broader problem.
Earlier, we discussed the unfathomable content and consequent
autonomy of knowledge products. Now we need to turn to some-
thing that has not yet been considered: namely, the nature of the
vehicles in which this objectively unfathomable knowledge is embodied.To
make a statement about the world (or about anything else) one
needs a vehicle or carrier for the message. Among the vehicles used
to represent reality are paintings and various other art forms, as
well as spoken and written language. Such vehicles cannot be
avoided, and any such vehicle can distort the resulting represen-
tation or message. All such vehicles possess physical and structural
characteristics—vehicular characteristics—that have nothing to do
with their intended message and may indeed even be alien to it.
These characteristics may distort the accuracy of the message and of
our perception of the reality it purports to describe.
My first example is adapted from Donald T Campbell’s William
James Lectures.6 Imagine a mosaic representation of a simple
country scene: a meadow, say, with cows and trees and grass, and
his essays in Radnitrky

Radniuky andand Hanley.
Hanley. Evolutionary
Evolutionary Epistemology
Epistemology ,, op.
op. cit.,
cit., and
and also his
also his
“nd Epistemology for Social Science: Selected Papers, ed. E. Samuel Overman (Chicago:
Jnivcnitv (
■ « Chicago Press, 1988).
fa Snr n l' K “'’'“hed in pan in chapters 17. 18, and 12 of (ampbell's Methodology and Epistemology
op. cit. For an account of structural and vehicular requirements, see Campbell’s
M'hm ' ."? <*‘5cu *’l o n °f "Descriptive Epistemology" in the work just cited. See also his “A Tribal
’ ***' Social System Vehicle Carrying Scientific Knowledge", in Knowledge, Creation.
cal F n ?’ N°- 2. December 1979. pp. 181-201, and liis "Varieties of Neurologi-
!i
ymbn<' * ‘n l e , , < s • < n A Shimon y. D. Nails, and R. S. Cohen, eds.. Naturalistic Epistemology: A
| °f Two Decades, fonheoming.
75
perhaps a frolicking lad and lass. This mosaic mural is made of

stone fragments which will, in one way and another, limit and
distort the accuracy of the portrayal. The size of the stones, their
smoothness and “shininess”, the colour and thickness of the cement
used, the range of colours available, restriction to a two-dimensional
surface, the requisite rigidity in the total structure, all may contrib-
ute to reduce the accuracy of the portrayal. This is obvious when
colour is considered, and both colour and the illusion of three-
dimensionality may be further distorted by the circumstances under
which the mural is displayed. Lighting, surface reflection, and angle
of viewing will obviously affect both. The problem will be increased
by the size of the basic components, here the stone fragments, li
will be impossible to represent elements of the scene to be por-
trayed that are smaller than the smallest stone elements. Rigidity
may also be a problem. The vehicle cannot be unlimitedly flexible,
but must be kept sufficiendy rigid to hold itself intact, even if this
involves distortion of the representation. At least this will be so if
any representation, any map, even distorted, is better than none at
all.
All these conditions form part of a general problem arising in all
representation and familiar in very common forms of representation
even when not recognised as such. The problem is perhaps best
known as it appears in the small dots used in ordinary illustrations
and newspaper photographs rendered with a photoprint screen
People who are unaware of the processes involved may not know
that these dots are there; but they can quickly learn of their pres-
ence by taking an ordinary magnifying glass to a newspaper photo-
graph. The photograph, like the mosaic, will not be able to repro-
duce parts of the object represented smaller than are permitted by
the net or grid or screen being used. No matter how much the
photograph of a politician is enlarged, the threads of his jacket will
not become visible.
Our neural apparatus, our retinal rods and cones, resembles a
photoprint screen in some respects and is similarly limited. As
Konrad Lorenz put the matter:
If one examines methodically what the cross-stitch representation

permits to be stated about the form of the thing-in-itself, the
conclusion is that the accuracy of the statement is dependent upon
the relationship between the size of the picture and the grain of
the screen. If one square is out of line with a straight-line contour
in the embroidery, one knows that behind it lies an actual projec-
76
T H E SOCIOLOGY AND ECONOMICS OF KNOWLEDGE
tion of the represented thing, but one is not sure whether it exactly
fills the whole square of the screen or only the smallest pan of it.
This question can be decided only with the help of the next finest screen.'’
One could give many examples of the phenomenon—using

language both spoken and written, mathematical notation, molding
clay, magnetic tapes, television, photosensitive chemicals, plaster-of-
paris casts, fixing processes in photography, the choice of woods and
stone for sculpture, and so on—but the point has been made. As
Campbell sums up: “The end product, knowledge, at its realised
best, is some compromise of vehicular characteristics and of referent
attributes.”8
The next point is crucial: in order to correct such vehicular
distortion, to remove “noise" and sialic, and to increase the accuracy
of representations using such vehicles, certain steps may be taken,
and have been taken both in natural history and in the history of
representation and engineering. What are called “monitor-and-
modulate circuits" may, for instance, be introduced. These “improve
our picture of reality not by being new detectors of aspects of
reality, but rather by transforming the otherwise detected reality on
the basis of assumptions about the nature of the world built in in
the course of biological evolution".* 'lake the Gestalt brightness and
constancy mechanisms for example.10 In vision, downstream optic
nerve rates of firing are inhibited in response to high levels of
firing monitored upstream nearer the eye. Along with adjustment of
the iris and other mechanisms, this effects a systematic improvement
of brightness and colour constancy in the perception of objects by
reducing distracting changes in level of illumination. These constan-
cy mechanisms, while of inestimable value, yet create distortions of
their own. They introduce a variety of contrast and optical illusions
which simpler systems would not show. Ordinary cameras illustrate
how this can work. A sophisticated camera with a photocell light
sensor that continually readjusts its aperture will generally take
Konrad Lorenz. “Kants Lehre vom Apriorischen im Lichte gegenwlrtiger Biologic", Blatter
DruiwAr Phdosophu. 1941, pp. 94-125; reprinted as “Kant’s Doctrine of the A Priori in the
~*8hl of Contemporary Biology", in Ludwig von Bertalanffy and A Rapoport, eds.. Genera/
stfwu
WurAook of Ou Society for General Systems Research, vol. 7 (New York: Society for General
Systems Research. 1962). pp. 23-35.
Donald T. Campbell. William James Lectures, op. cit
Ibid. p. 42.
Lorenz's discussion in “Gestalt perception as a source of scientific knowledge", in
m Annual and Human Behaviour. 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1971).
77
superior photographs; yet circumstances can be constructed where

an old box camera with a fixed aperture would do a better jo
Thus a photocell will interpret lightness and brightness of th
overall visual field in terms of presumed background illuminatioi
but it will fail in unusual situations as, for example, when contra;
in brightness stems from the objects in question rather than fron
the background illumination.
Many other examples are available. For example, when wav<
forms are being transmitted (as in radio), resonances of the trans
mitter substance typically get added to, and distort, the message.
This may be corrected by filtering out specific vehicle harmonics. Of
course in cases where such harmonics were part of the original
message, the result may involve further distortions: for it was
presumed in the device adopted for correction that such harmonics
are not part of the original message but are peculiar to the vehicle.
In sum, steps taken to correct the vehicle's limitations and to
render its representation more accurate may have unintended and
distorting effects of their own. Nonetheless, however imperfectly and
incompletely, these means of representing and carrying knowledge can be
improved.
How does this relate to the sociology of knowledge?
The scientific community itself is in some sense a vehicle or

carrier of knowledge, and is thus subject to similar conditions. That
is, certain characteristics of the community, its structure and organis-
ation, may distort its product; and various correctives to that distor-
tion may, in some circumstances, introduce further unintended
distortions.
Many examples will be given in the remainder of this book, but
some simple examples can be introduced here. In order to further
the conduct of science, so Campbell has suggested, a certain cohe-
siveness as well as proper acknowledgement is important, and
recognition awards, and incentives of various kinds are introduced
to further this. Such activities hold the community together — they
serve to make the knowledge vehicle more stable. But since these
devices also encourage other ordinary human emotions such as
ambition, they may restrain criticism and further group loyalty,
partisanship, and even dogmatism. In some circumstances the result
78
in in ay come to resemble a kind of tribalism." That is, particular

b. vehicular characteristics, the sorts of things that are essential to
te maintain any human community, may result in distortions of knowl-
i; edge, and may tend to hinder its advancement.
st If the problem that attracts sociologists of knowledge is distortion,
n then these sociologists need to take account of all kinds of distorting
influences that attend knowledge vehicles, and not only distortions
a of a social character. Moreover they need to show why social distortion
cannot be corrected, modulated, compensated for (however imperfectly),in the
same kinds of ways that are possible in all other vehicles for knowledge and
human action. Yet sociology of knowledge has not seriously attempted
these essential tasks. To the extent that it neglects them it is just
ideology, not science. In restricting its attention to social distorters,
the sociology of knowledge itself provides a distorted picture of the
problem. Should I tease again and say that it does this for its own
interest?
To the extent that it is legitimate, the sociology of knowledge
needs to be made a sub-branch of a more basic subject that might
be called the theory of knowledge vehicles or—again—the theory of
objective knowledge. This theory should include an account of what
Campbell calls “optimal vehicles”, an account developed on both
physical and social levels. Such an account would address the
question of how to optimise the rules and practices of the communi-
ty so as to diminish distortion, and would also investigate the unin-
tended distorting consequences of those very rules. Elsewhere I have
called this “the ecology of knowledge”.12
Is there any reason to suppose that it would be impossible to
treat academic communities in this way? 1 do not think so; on the
contrary, there is every reason to suppose that academic and intel-
lectual communities are at least as amenable to correction of distor-
tion as are other communities. Thus much of the relativism, conven-
tionalism, cynicism, and hand-wringing about academic institutions
governed and warped by special interests (while certainly partly jus-
tified, as the remainder of this book will show) is exaggerated. The
resulting hopelessness about objective standards and truth is unjusti-
fied and out of proportion to the situation. 1 believe that it stems
See Campbell, op. dr

cc
Igg "Rationality, Criticum and Logic", Phtlmophia (Israel), vol. H , nos. 1-2, February
cit, cs 121-221, esp. sections III, IV, and XX; my The Rrtnai to Commitment. 2nd edition* op.
‘ p- Appendic es I and I L See also Part I I I of the present volume.
79
mainly from two sources: 1) the archaic methodological and philo-

sophical assumptions embedded in professional sociology, as just
discussed; 2) the feudal economic structure of academic institutions
themselves (for which see the next Part).
Such pessimistic conclusions would never have been reached had the
investigation of academic institutions been initiated by economists rather than
by sociologists.
To give just a few examples: vehicular and institutional problems
of distortion, and the correction of distortion, are general, and are
in no way confined to vested interests at work in the ‘‘knowledge
community”. They arise, for instance, also in politics, when political
institutions are found to have departed radically from their original
aims; or, on a more particular level, when policies are found to
have produced results directly contrary to those intended. Hayek
clearly indicated the sort of problem involved in the opening para-
graphs of Law, Legislation and IJberty:
When Montesquieu and the framers of the American Constitution

articulated the conception of a limiting constitution that had grown
up in England, they set a pattern which liberal constitutionalism
has followed ever since. Their chief aim was to provide institutional
safeguards of individual freedom; and the device in which they
placed their faith was the separation of powers. In the form in
which we know this division of power between the legislature, die
judiciary, and the administration, it has not achieved what it was
meant to achieve. Governments everywhere have obtained by
constitutional means powers which those men had meant to deny
them. The first attempt to secure individual liberty by constitu-
tions has evidendy failed . . . . To me their aims seem to be as
valid as ever. But as their means have proved inadequate, new
institutional invention is needed.
The problems and program that Hayek indicates have been

pursued not only in his own work, but in the economic theory of
institutions and by “public choice theorists", such as James M.
Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, William A. Niskanen, Jr., and Thomas
E. Borcherding—thinkers concerned with such questions as why the
state grows while increasingly failing to serve the goals for which it
was created; or why, in terms of cost-benefit analysis, a society
equips itself with one system of collective choice rather than an-
80
other.” Public choice thinkers are attempting to develop a theory of

collective choice, a general theory of the type that has already long
existed for microeconomics. They frankly acknowledge, from the
outset, the presence of special interests, and the tendency of in-
dividuals to advance their own goals. They reject the naive assump-
tion, common in older political theory and some economics, that
private individuals and enterprises are governed by avarice, whereas
public institutions are run by high-minded idealists and upright
“civil servants”. If they should turn their attention, as they occa-
sionally do, from government to the public and semi-public institu-
tions of academic and intellectual life, they would at once insist that
members of these institutions also lend to pursue their own self-
interests, and are no more likely to be high-minded, objective,
selfless searchers for—or "servants of’ —the truth than are individu-
als in other professions.
So far, there is some agreement between economics and the
contentions of the sociologists of knowledge. There is another point
of agreement: just as in discussions of classical economics the state
tends to be absent, similarly in some pre-Kuhnian sociology (or
philosophy) of science, educational institutions are hardly discussed.
This is not so for Popper, who had attacked “Robinson Crusoe”
individualistic approaches to scientific and social questions; but
Thomas S. Kuhn does deserve credit for making methodologists
more widely aware of how institutions may be exploited by interest
groups, and of the role of interests in the scientific community in
selecting for advancement one theory rather than its rival.
These points of agreement are encouraging. Yet there is utter
disagreement between sociologists of knowledge and the economic
theorists of institutions—not only in basic philosophical and method-
ological assumptions (the public choice theorists tend to be influ-
enced by Popper and Hayek), but also about what can be done,
about the possibility of correction and reform. Public choice theo-
** See James M. Buchanan, Freedom tn Cotu/Uu/khw/ C’tmfrazf, of a fWihca/ Econaflitsf

h Station and London: Texas A & M University Press, 1977); Cost and Choice: An Inquiry in
Theory (Chicago: Markham, 1969); The Limits of faherty Between Anarchy and leviathan
University of Chicago Press, 1975); The Calculus of Consent (Ann Arbor: University of
Press, 1962); Thomas E. Borcherding, cd.. Budgets and Bureaucrats: The Sources of
Urwdi (Durham: Duke University Press. 1977); William A. Niskanan. Jr.,
Tmi”* Master! Lessons from America (London: Institute of Economic Affairs. 1975); Gordon
hr Politics of Bureaucracy (Washington: Public Affairs Press. 1965). For popular accounts
Hl ’• pen Court, 1982),
Henri and
Lepage. Tomorrow.
Drmarn Capitalism:
le liberalisme (Paris: The Economics
Libraire of Economic
Generate Freedom
Frantjaisr, (La Salle.
1980).
81
rists, unlike most sociologists of knowledge, are reformers. While

they conclude that western democracies are, at present, imprisoned
in outmoded political technologies whose framework forces the state
to expand while benelitting privileged classes of bureaucrats, they
also contend that these same institutions could be reformed so as to
channel individual self-interest, within an appropriate system of
rewards and punishments, to produce what benefits the public at
large, rather than to conflict with it—and at no extra cost. In short,
they believe that institutions can be evaluated in terms of their
success or failure in guiding individual intentions to align with
general interests. They believe in the possibility of institutional,
vehicular correction of interest-generated distortion.
Such questions of reform, when applied particularly to intel-

lectual communities, demand answers to ecological questions such as
the following: How can our intellectual life and institutions, our
traditions, and even our etiquette, sensibility, manners and customs,
and behaviour patterns, be arranged so as to expose our beliefs,
conjectures, ideologies, policies, positions, programs, sources of ideas,
traditions, and the like, to optimum criticism? How can these at
once counteract and eliminate as much intellectual error as possible,
and also nurture, and ensure the fertility of, the intellectual ecologi-
cal niche? How can they create an environment in which not only
negative criticism but also the positive creation of ideas are truly
inspired?
It is not easy to answer such questions, for existing scientific and
educational traditions and institutions have evolved gradually. They
are “complex phenomena” enjoying a spontaneously-ordered charac-
ter and a usefulness that transcend anything that could have been
produced by deliberate invention: they are the product of human
action but not of human design.14 Such spontaneous orders may be
fragile and difficult to maintain. Tampering with them is hence
fraught with the danger of unintended consequences, the danger of
making tilings worse rather than better.
'* See Hayek. Law. legislation and hberty. op. at., and The Fatal Conceit, op. dt.
82
J. Ecological Questions
A first step in approaching such questions is to begin to identify

those existing traditions and institutions that already contribute to
the elimination of error and distortion and to enhancing the ad-
vance of knowledge, and those which work against these same goals.
To do this will be one of the chief aims of the remainder of this
book.
Such identification need not be complicated. Some apparently
trivial existing institutions in fact serve such goals rather subtly,
economically, and effectively. These include some linguistic customs,
for instance, which of course were never developed for such pur-
poses. There is, for instance, what I call marked knowledge, which is a
kind of evolutionary precursor to falsified knowledge. We often use
standard qualifiers, such as the phrase “so-called", to mark concepts
or theories or practices about which there is already some doubt or
question, which are not yet examined properly, or which are for the
moment out of fashion. There are many such markers, such as the
use of the phrase “First Draft” on a manuscript that is being circu-
lated for critical comments, or the phrase “trial balloon”, which one
may use self-deprecatingly to offer a fresh but as yet unexamined
idea. This sort of device should probably be used much more often.
It could only help if every published manuscript were prominently
marked “Damaged Goods". Or perhaps promoters of ideas could, in
their own self-interest, stamp them: “We are not sure that it is in
our interest to market these ideas or in your interest to accept
them. Caveat emptor." The use of such markers in the marketplace of
ideas proclaims to others that we are savvy, critical, and aware of,
or anticipate, such defects. We use such devices to get optimum use
out of such ideas: for our purpose is not to delete them too fast,
not to eliminate what might be called defective knowledge before we
have got as much as we can from it, but just to mark it as defective.
Such knowledge can be transmitted so marked; whereas in natural
election in nature there is reduction in gene frequency and, ulti-
mately, deletion (extinction).
lb begin to become aware of, and to face, such ecological ques-
°ns is to begin artificially to construct and to probe possible envi-
r n
° ments for the advancement of science and learning, to imagine a
institution not only for liberty but for learning. Paramount in such
°nstruction will be the question of balance among the evolutionary
83
rhythms (variation, retention, selective elimination). In nature, these

are at odds with one another.
In using the language of evolutionary theory to confront and
treat problems relating to the advancement of knowledge, one
should not forget that the mechanisms of natural selection and those
of cultural and intellectual evolution are not identical, despite some
close parallels. We have just mentioned that marked knowledge has
no real organic counterpart. There is also no meta-aim governing
the evolutionary development of organisms in accordance with
which variation or lethal elimination needs artificially to be encour-
aged. The evolutionary development of ideas may however be
governed by just such a meta-aim, a culturally instituted and main-
tained “plastic control”, namely: the deliberate production of varia-
tion and the deliberate elimination of falsity and poor fit.
Such questions as these force the epistemologist out of the ivory
tower, and make of him an economist, a psychologist, an inves-
tigator of objective knowledge and its vehicles, a political theorist, a
social reformer—even a sociologist of sorts. Since the advancement
of science and learning is not the only desirable goal of social life,
the epistemologist and economist of knowledge, like all reformers,
will meet with opposition and conflict as well as opportunities.
If the sociology of knowledge, as it exists at present, does not go

far enough, it also goes far too far. Its proponents frequently begin
from the assumption that knowledge can be reduced to social inter-
est, and that objectivity and validity, progress in knowledge, critical
rationality, and the quest for truth itself are illusory. As Kuhn has
expressed this notion (in one of numerous contradictory remarks
about the matter): “It is precisely the abandonment of critical
discourse that marks the transition to science”. The difficulties in
this line of argument have often been discussed, and I have not
repeated them here. Rather, I have drawn attention to other strong
arguments that are rarely noticed. I shall turn to some other diffi-
culties in Kuhn's approach in the next Part of this book.15
'* See Kuhn's The Essential Tension (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1977), Man'
additional arguments can be turned on (he sociology of knowledge. One, which interests
particularly, has to do with the justificationist form of argumentation, and the exploitation of the
so-called “hermeneutical drde” which is common in such literature. (For this see my “Rationalii'
Criticism and Logic", op. dL. The Retreat to Commitment, op. dL, and chapter 14 of this volume )
Another is its dependence on reductionism and determinism. For a critique of the last two ideas.
*ee K. R. Popper. The Open Universe, op. dL. and Quantum Theory and the Schism tn Physics, op. dt-
84
4, The Goal: Unlearning
To sum up the conclusions reached in the first Part of this

study: what we think we know, the knowledge that we have, is
unlikely to be right; even if it is right, it is autonomous, indepen-
dent from us, and imperfectly known to us. Far from being manifestly
true, it is unfathomed knowledge. And whether right or wrong, perfectly
or imperfectly known, it is subject to distortion arising even from
the very form in which it presents itself.
Rather than being a cause for despair, these circumstances give
point to rational investigation and, especially, to education. For the
fundamental task of education is unlearning; making ourselves, and
the ideas by which we conceive and create ourselves, strange and
alien, and thus transcending our old selves.
Hence it is worth recalling that theories of education today often
wrongly, yet in accordance w'ith the sociology of knowledge, charac-
terise the educational process as little more than a good oppor-
tunity, provided by the state, for teacher and student to express
themselves. No doubt part of the intention is thereby to reduce
alienation. But education, because of the nature of objective knowl-
edge, is far more than organised mutual self-expression. It is at
once the enactment, the reconstruction, and the creation of culture.
The teacher must present a structure of knowledge that he does not
fully understand to a student who also cannot hope fully to under-
stand it. Such a relationship is perhaps the smallest social unit in
the “marketplace of ideas", but it illustrates, once again, how—des-
pite all distortions—such a market acts as a discovery process in a
situation in which none of us knows what we are doing.
85
Part II
ON UNIVERSITIES AND THE WEALTH

OF NATIONS
Chapter 5
EPISTEMOLOGY AND ECONOMICS1
The central problem of epistemology has always

been and still is the problem of the growth of
knowledge. And the growth of knowledge ran be studied
best by studying the growth of scientific knowledge.
K. R. Popper1
/. The Theory of Knowledge Is a Branch of Economics
The central concern of that branch of philosophy known as epis-

temology or the theory of knowledge should be the growth of
knowledge. This means that the theory of knowledge is a branch of
economics.
That this should be so is not surprising. After all, the first econo-
mist, Adam Smith, was a professor of philosophy; and undergradu-
ate programs in “Philosophy, Politics and Economics” still play a
major role in British universities. But why should this be so? It is so
simply because knowledge is a form of wealth—indeed, perhaps its
most valuable form. Economics and epistemology are both con-
cerned with growth and contraction in wealth, and are further
connected in that knowledge often, if not always, advances arm in
arm with increase in other forms of wealth, and retreats when
wealth declines. Knowledge is a primary component of cap-
ital— which makes epistemology the economics of knowledge. To
investigate how this particular form of wealth is discovered, aug-
mented, transformed, and transmitted is the business of both episte-
mology and economics.’
Economics and epistemology, in turn, form part of a still larger
undertaking which as yet has no agreed name (though it might be
distinguished Schot ir< « . *• ?mon of lectures first gi\en in tht
1 d Gowrnm
l2-!5 I0R7 T L - , ? " . cnt Sponsorship of H.gher Education". Bermuda. February
antl
■mrenchmen. •»>' Wealth of Nations: The Market in Ideas, and the
!u Ph, h,c R an
Pfion 0/ Z UeatUm °PGnwm ’'' > C. Amacher and Roger E. Memers, eds . Federal
9«9) o n <»oo g to Intellectual Freedom (New York. Paragon House.
*Z * °PP cr: L rV ‘ J V t °f Scientific Discovery. op. cit„ p. 15.

ther wav ' y P rc er ,o *ce economics as a branch of epistemology, but not the
Th
Howled,, “ Wl11 n o * work Economics has always been concerned with the growth of
< ,5 emoloRy rard
lierest economist ‘P ' *“ >' concerned itself with those other kinds of growth dial
called ecology4): that broad investigation of the general conditions

nurturing growth, hindering it, and leading to contraction, not only
amongst organisms and their products, but even in the inorganic
realm. Biology, the theory of evolution, and general systems theory
are part of this larger undertaking.5
Hardly any professional philosophers are aware of these con-

nexions, and thus nearly all miss their liberating effect. Philosophers
and epistemologists not only rarely know any economics, but do not
realise that an economic approach might solve some problems that
engage them. Some philosophers, such as John Rawls and Robert
Nozick, have used economic ideas in their work, but they neither
perceive nor discuss how basic is the role of economics in encom-
passing epistemology.
This neglect of economics by philosophers is the fault both of
philosophers and of economists. It is due not only to specialisation.
It happens because the theory of knowledge traditionally taught in
universities neglects direct investigation of the growth of knowledge,
and concerns itself rather with matters both static and sterile, such
as “justified true belief’, attempts fruitlessly (because logically impos-
sible) to calculate probabilities of theoretical statements on the basis
of observation statements, and related attempts to construct worlds
out of sense perceptions6. However large a role such investigations
have played in the history of philosophy and still play in depart-
ments of philosophy, they have no contemporary scientific relevance,
are lamarckian in presupposition rather than Darwinian, are contra-
4
On ecology in such contexts also see the preceding chapter of this book, as well as my The
Retreat to Commitment, 2nd edition, op. dt.. Appendix I. and my essays in Evolutionary Epistemology,
Rotiona/tty, and1 dir Sociology nf Knowledge,op. dt.
4
See Gerard Radnitzky's efforts to integrate economic and epistemological thinking
“Towards an 'Economic* Theory of Methodology*, Methodology and Science, vol. 19, 1986, pp. 124
147; “Erkenntnis-dicoretischr Problemc im Lichte von Evolutionsthcorie und Okonomic: Die Ent-
wicklung von Erkenntnisapparatcn und epistemischcn Ressourcen", in R. Riedl and F. Wuketits.
Dir Evolutiondre Erkenntnistheorie: fiedingungen, Lasungrn, Kontroversen (Berlin und Hamburg: Vcrlag
Paul Parry. 1987). pp. 115’131; ’'Cost-Benefit Analysis in the Methodology1 of Research; The
'economic approach' applied to key problems of die philosophy of science*, in Gerard Radnitzks
and Peter Bcrnholz, rds., Economic Imperialism. The Economic Method Applied Outside the Field oj
Economies (New York: Paragon House, 1987); and "Uber die Nfltzlichkeit des ‘Economic Approach
in dcr Wissenschaftstheorie: Handlungsrationalitiit. Basisproblcm und Theorienpriiferenz”. in R
Born and J. Marschner. cds., Festschrift fur Rudolf Wohlgenannt (Berlin: Springer Verlag. 1987), in
the series “Linzer Universitatsschriften. Festschriftcn. Monographien. Studirntextc”.
See Gerard Radnitzky and W. W. Bardcy, III, cds., Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality and
Sociology of Knowledge,op. dL. chapter I. and Part 111 below.
90
EPISTEMOLOGY AND ECONOMICS
dieted by the achievements of evolutionary epistemology, and also

conflict with both economics and biology.’
The prevalence of expressionistic accounts of knowledge also
contributes to the neglect of economics by philosophers. If ideas and
institutions were no more than expressions determined by individual
or social cores or "essences”, there would hardly be any need for
competition to produce ideas. Nor would there be a need for
economics, although of course economics might appear as an indiv-
idual or social expression!
Yet philosophers alone are not to blame for their failure to

exploit economic ideas. There are kinds of economics apart from
the one I have mentioned (i.e., that in which economics studies the
booms and the slumps in the generation of wealth), kinds in which
epistemology is not, or is only very indirectly, or is in a very differ-
ent sense, related to economics. Sometimes economics is seen as
studying only the allocation of scarce resources to satisfy competing
ends; or as a problem of choice in a situation of scarcity; or as
confined to the market or to the study of the allocation of material
goods to satisfy material wants; or as the confrontation of conflicting
ends. There is Pareto’s general sense in which one has an economic
problem whenever one has a goal and obstacles to its achievement.
Indeed, much that passes under the name of economics in contem-
porary departments of economics—particularly econometrics and the
deployment of general equilibrium theory—is also not directly
concerned with growth either of knowledge or of wealth. I agree
with James M. Buchanan’s caustic rejection of this sort of economics:
The economists of the 1980s are illiterate in basic principles of their

own discipline . . . . Their motivation is not normative; they seem
to be ideological eunuchs. Their interest lies in the purely intellec-
tual properties of the models with which they work, and they seem
to get their kicks from the discovery of proofs of propositions
relevant only for their own fantasy lands. . . 1 do not question . . .
IM views 1 argued in The Retreat to Commitment. 2nd edition, op. de The first edition
u
** York: Alfred A Knopf, Inc., 1962), is half the length of the 2nd edition and lacks
<r>erous developments of the original position; so I should prefer that the reader consult the
edition. J elaborated the approach, and applied it to questions of evolutionary theory.
“logs and economics, in Gerard Radnitrky and W. W. Bartley. III. eds., Evolutionary Epistemolo
15 ““"nality, ttni i fa Sociology of Knowledge. op. at, chapters I and 18. See also chapters 14 anil
91
the brilliance of the modern ‘scientists' who call their discipline by

the same name that I call my own. 1 do deplore the waste that
such investment of human capital reflects. The intellectual achieve-
ment comes at major resource cost, and, as with any such commit-
ment, the opportunity cost is measured in benefits that might be
expected from the alternative that is sacrificed. In modern econom-
ics, that which is sacrificed is an understanding of the principles of
the market process, and of the relationship of this process to the
institutional setting within which persons choose.*
I shall return to discuss contemporary professional economics and

why it often does not relate to problems of growth, or to this book,
in chapter 8. First I wish to consider the sort of economics that is
relevant to my pursuit.
2. Localisation and Differential Growth in Production of New Knowledge
Modern economics began with Adam Smith’s Inquiry into the Nature
and Causes of the Wealth of Nations9. Smith investigated and tried to
account for the differential growth of wealth from place to place and
time to time. Real economic growth—in the sense of increased per-
capita production—came late in the history of mankind. It appeared
in the sixteenth century, first in the Netherlands, and then a little
later in England, where and when a rise in the standard of living
coincided with an expansion of population. This increase in wealth
was localised. Elsewhere, as in nearby France and Spain, standards
of living stagnated or even declined. In later years, conspicuously in
our own century, England and the Netherlands have also under-
gone economic decline relative to other lands. The rise and decline
in relative wealth, both within and amongst economies, continue
today as Americans now witness a relative decline of their wealth vts
a vis that of Japan and other lands; and as the countries of the
Eastern block turn away from socialism—moved less by theoretical
arguments than by the practical failure of socialist ideas reflected in
the relative poverty of these lands.
The same sort of localisation and differential growth, or relative
rise and decline, occurs in the production of knowledge as well. 1
• Pathfinder. May 1987. p. 4 .

Adam Smith, do Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. R •*
Campbell. A S. Skinner, W. B. Todd (Indianapolis: LibertyOtunri, 1976).
92
EPISTEMOLOGY AND ECONOMICS
amreferring now to production of new knowledge, not to access to

knowledge already produced (a problem on which we touched in
the Prologue and in Part I). Of course relative ease of access to
knowledge is also localised. It is far harder, and more costly, to
obtain access to knowledge in some places than in others; it is also
easier to hide knowledge in some places than in others. Yet infor-
mation networks are now so rich and sophisticated that—provided
one is willing and able to invest enough time, study, money, and
trouble—one can find out a great deal indeed from almost any
point on the surface of the globe. 10 The half-life of trade secrets,
national secrets, personal secrets, and of classified information
generally, is relatively short—even though, in particular circum-
stances and for particular purposes, to obtain such information may
remain prohibitively expensive.
Although it is relatively easy to learn how to gain access to exist-
ing knowledge, traditions of research aiming at the increase of
knowledge or the production of new knowledge are difficult to
create and costly to transplant”. Hence great differences in knowl-
edge production exist not only across boundaries of adjacent coun-
tries, but within small areas inside individual countries. Nor do
economic growth and the growth of knowledge keep strictly in pace.
Some countries that have been gaining in material wealth relative to
other countries, such as Japan, remain behind in the production of
new knowledge, and still rely more on access to knowledge pro-
duced by others than on their own generation of knowledge (see
Part IV below). To explain these differences, epistemology must
seek better to understand the expansions and the contractions, the
booms and the slumps, in the generation of knowledge. It must
seek to identify what contributes to the growth of knowledge, and
what stands in its way. It must seek to understand the principles
underlying the competition of ideas in the marketplace of ideas, and
t° identify ideas and institutions that do, and that could, contribute
to such a competitive market, and those that hinder it. The argu-
ment of the remainder of this book aims to do just this.
10
* Soe Part I V below. See also “ F B I Woos Librarians to Spy on "Commie' Headers". Thf Wall
Journal, May 19. 1988. p. 28.
See K . R. Popper. “Towards a Rational Theory of Tradition", chapter 4 of Conjirturrs arid
Op c j
93
Although the connexions between economics and epistemology,

understood in this way, are themselves productive, I am not particu-
larly interested in the words that are used, and if anyone should
prefer, while following my argument, to adopt some other terminol-
ogy, there could be no objection. At stake is something more impor-
tant than naming, classifying, and hierarchically ordering academic
subjects. The classification of university disciplines and organisation
of departments is indeed largely a matter of convenience for admin-
istrators, and of little theoretical importance, whereas the identifica-
tion and solution of theoretical problems that are of prime impor-
tance to the advancement of learning often leap disciplinary bor-
ders.15
Sec K. R. Popper. Rralum and Ou Atm of Scttnct, op. tit., p. 5.
94
Chapter 6
AN END RUN: WHY DO PROFESSORS LIKE
KUHN SO MUCH? OR—WHY IS KUHN A
SOCIOLOGIST O F KNOWLEDGE AND NOT AN
ECONOMIST O F KNOWLEDGE?
The majority of workers in the arts and sciences act like

jealous technicians with a strong anti-intellectual bias. It is
as if the guild spirit, which is the spirit of trade, had
infected the declared enemies of commercialism.
Jacques Barzun*
1. How Intellectuals Tend to Want Free Markets Only for Themselves
To comprehend the market of ideas, and an economic approach

to the growth of knowledge, two facts need to be considered —facts
not usually juxtaposed. First, western intellectuals, and especially
university professors, advocate, and usually believe themselves to
enjoy, a free market of ideas. It is simply taken for granted. Much
(fortunately not all) of what they construe as manifestations of such
a free market is in fact one of two sorts of behaviour. The first is
the genteel chatter of the ordinary common room. But this is
anything but characteristic of the marketplace. In a market, people
are seriously selling and buying, whereas the commonroom intellec-
tual will hesitate to “sell” his ideas lest he look pushy, and hesitate
to “buy” anyone else’s—unless they are already in fashion—lest he
appear susceptible of being gulled. Commonroom chatter does not
often enough put money on ideas; it is not serious business. It is
often no more than gossip and hearsay about a market somewhere
else. The conventions in many common rooms are such that, if one
does take argument seriously, if one does attempt seriously to buy
or sell arguments, one is dismissed as one who is “not a good con-
versationalist" in Richard Rorty’s terribly genteel sense,2 or as a
“difficult man".’
1
Jacques Barzun, The House of Intellect (London: Mercury- Books, 1959), p. 18.
’ Especially genteel from the author of “Postmodernist Bourgeois Liberalism". Journal if
tulmophy, 1983. pp. 583-589. On Rorty see Peter Munr, "Philosophy and the Mirror of Rorty . in
c. Radnitrky and W. W. Bartley, 111, Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of
Knowledge. op. cit., chapter 16.
.. ’ See my "Ein Schwieriger Mensch: Eine Portratskizze von Sir Karl Popper", in Eckhar
Nordhofen. ed.. Physuignamien Philosophen des 20. Jahrhunderts in Portraits, op. cit., pp. 43-69, an
™»P'ers 9 and 17 below.
Another sort of academic behaviour that might be mistaken as a

manifestation of a market place of ideas is the bad-tempered squab-
bling (usually not about ideas but about perquisites, appointments,
and power of various sorts) that Nietzsche associated with the
“priestly" mentality—behaviour that thrives in totalitarian societies
too.
The second fact to be considered is that western intellectuals tend

to follow, or at least to praise, the sociology of knowledge of Thom-
as S. Kuhn.
These two positions are incompatible.That is, Kuhn’s sociology of
knowledge is incompatible with a free market of ideas. I shall turn
to Kuhn in the next section. Here I want to consider the market of
ideas.
Analogies have often been drawn between a free market in ideas
and free markets in goods and services. Yet intellectuals tend to
dislike such comparisons. They see the free market in ideas as
something on a higher plane, qualitatively different from free
markets in commodities and the like. Many of them indeed even
hate the marketplace as traditionally conceived, and would want
nothing to do, even analogically, with a free market in coal, hous-
ing, fish or petroleum.
Take a few examples. Several scholars, including Edward Shils, of
the University of Chicago, strongly protested the analogy when it
was drawn by Michael Polanyi at the Congress for Cultural Free-
dom? One called Polanyi's comparison between free markets in
goods and in ideas “clever but questionable" in that a man who
offers commodities in the free market “is not bound by anything”,
whereas in science one is bound to an objective method. Shils added
that members of the scientific community, by contrast to business-
men and traders, act in accordance with overriding standards, a
“common law” above and beyond individuals.
* Congress for Cultural Freedom, Sc™* and Freedom (London; Martin Seeker & Warburg.
Ltd., 1955). p. 47. Another statement of the difference between the university and bufine
organisations appears in Association o f American Universities, The Rights and Responsibilities oj
Universities and Their Faculties. March 1953, reprinted in the University Bulletin of the University fl
California, vol. I, no. 33, April 20, 1953, pp. 162-64. See also the debate in Minerva, 1963 an<l
1964. by Michael Polanyi. Stephen Toulmin, C. F. Carter, and Alvin M . Weinberg; C. F. Carte’
“The Distribution of Scientific Effort". Minerva, vol. 1, 1963. pp. 171-172; Michael Polanyi, ”
Republic of Science—-Jis Political and Economic Theory”, Minerva, vol. I , 1963, pp. 54-*
Stephen Toulmin. "The Complexity of Scientific Choice: A Stocktaking", Minerva, vol. 2. 1964. p
343; and Alvin M Weinberg “Criteria for Scientific Choice”. Minerva, vol. 1. 1963, pp. 159-17 1.
96
WHY DO PROFESSORS LIKE KUHN SO MUCH?
Such a position does not withstand examination. Someone offer-

ing commodities in a market—far from being “not bound by any-
thing"—is governed by enforceable law relating to fraud, credit,
contract, and such like. The analogy does have limits, but of a
different sort: in the marketplace of ideas, fraud, plagiarism, theft,
false advertising (including false claims to expertise and the whole
mystique of expertise), “conspiracies of silence", casual slander and
libel, breach of contract, deceit of all sorts are more common than in
business—simply because there are few readily enforceable penalties
against offenders, whereas “whistle-blowers" are severely punished.5
This is so especially in those areas (the humanities, social sciences,
the arts—as opposed to profitable fields) where the transaction costs
of enforcing such things as property rights, priority claims, or even
accurate reporting usually outweigh the advantage in doing so, and
where the transaction costs of trying to defend oneself against such
things as slander are prohibitive. In the humanities, such tilings as
property rights and priority claims rarely express themselves, or are
expected to express themselves, in terms of direct financial reward.
Possible indirect financial awards, such as promotions and prizes, are
understood to take time and to be subject to chance. What is
needed, meanwhile, is some form of acknowledgement which, if it
were forthcoming, would increase protection from theft of one’s
contributions to knowledge—and preserve one's place in the line for
promotion, prizes, and the whole "immortality sweepstakes’’ that
overshadow creative work. Such acknowledgement, however, is not
something which academics traditionally dispense freely to one
another. Academics are notoriously stingy in their praise.
How would one enforce such acknowledgement? Hardly in the
courts. It would be difficult to identify some person who legally
owed one any acknowledgement. Yet suppose one did succeed in
identifying some such person. If one then went to court to enforce
one’s claim, the initial real financial costs would be prohibitive.
Moreover, one would be unlikely to win any such suit unless one
could prove some direct financial damages from the lack of acknowl-
edgement—a possibility that is, in most cases, virtually excluded
from the start. There are additional difficulties. For example, it is,
w
*thin the university, generally considered to be unacceptable
William Broad and Nicholas Wade, Artagrrs of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit 1*1 dir Hails *}/
Simon and Schuster, 1982). Sec also "Nobel winner's research to be probed
’Whistle-blowers pay the piper" in The San Francisco Chronicle, April 10. 1988, p. A-3.
97
behaviour to accuse another, even rightly, of theft. This increases

the cost of claiming credit for one’s own ideas and attempting to
enforce one’s claims to include exposure to ridicule, retaliation in
the form of slander, loss of appointment and grants, and ostracism.
As a result, there can hardly be any such thing as intellectual prop-
erty in many areas of knowledge.6 These circumstances alone ensure
that educational institutions, as structured at present, are unlikely to
contribute as much as might otherwise be expected to the growth of
knowledge—except in those few fields, such as technology and
medicine, where some very clear financial stake is involved. As
Douglass North writes:
The reason that property rights are the determinants of perform-

ance is that they provide the basic set of incentives which encour-
age or discourage economic activity. Savings and investment in
human capital, invention and innovation, are all fundamentally in-
fluenced by the way in which property rights are specified.
North also points out that even those who discuss such matters
often wrongly assume that property rights are perfectly and costless-
ly specified and enforced, i.e., they assume zero transaction costs
and no externalities. Others, however, have seen matters more
realistically. The sociologist Robert K. Merton has noticed the
roughneck character of academic behaviour, although he does not
put it in economic terms.’ Sir Karl Popper has described the history
• See Proceeding! of the Seventh /ntematumaJ Economic Hillary Congreu. ed. Michael Flinn, op.
dt., p. 211. See also Michael Ricketts. “The New Institutional Economics and the Structure of the
Firm". Economic Affain, April/May 1989. pp. 23-26. One thinker willing to pay the costs of
attempting to enforce priority and intellectual property rights has been Popper. H e had to pay
dearly — through “retaliation by conspiracy of silence", by further plagiarism, and by deliberate,
systematic misreporting of his ideas — for his priority controversy with Neurath (started by
Neurath, after Neurath had plagiarised from him); for helping Tarski to defend himself against
an attempt by Carnap to plagiarise his work; and for his own accusations of plagiarism against
Carnap. Lakatos, Reichenbach and others (sec Part Hl below). There is an alleged social
convention amongst academics (rationalised as if for the sake of modesty and generally called o n
only to dismiss or chastise the claims of others) that one not make claims about the originality of
one's own work. To the extent that this convention is imposed, it outweighs the sense of owner
ship and increases the cost of enforcing any claim. I t is rather as in Austria after the abolition of
titles in 1919. Others might be expected to refer to one by one's title (there was no law against
that), but one could not so refer to oneself. Deployed in conjunction with this convention is the
myth that intellectual innovation is, these days, always a result of team work.
' Merton, in “Priorities in Scientific Discovery: A Chapter in the Sociology of Science". Amen
can Sociological Review, vol. 22. December 1957. pp. 635-59; and Campbell, "The Universities and
National Priorities", address a l Stanford Campus Conference on Relevance, May 22. 1971. op. cit
Like many academics. I have myself often been slandered (but not so often as 1 have been
plagiarised) The most amusing example of slander was provided by a certain Bernd Frohmann
98
of philosophy in the twentieth century as “a history of plagiarism".

W. Glenn Campbell, when director of the Hoover Institution at
Stanford, noted the casual character assassination that takes place on
university campuses, where “verbal pollution has reached a danger-
ously high level". Further examples are reported by William Broad
and Nicholas Wade in Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deception in the
Halls of Science* There are also the enlightening economic treat-
ments of the “predatory behavior” of academics in Richard B.
McKenzie, The Political Economy of the Educational Process, and in
Charles J . Sykes, ProfScam: Professors and the Demise of Higher Educa-
tion.'1
Shils not only ignores such problems, such facts, such viewpoints.
He also takes an inaccurate view of the world of business, implying
that there is no sense of community amongst businessmen, that
commercial activity is no more than “a mere collection of separate
individuals". Of course businessmen are not saints. But the idealisa-
tion of academics at the expense of businessmen conflicts with
Montesquieu’s wise observation (1748) that “Ou il y a du commerce,
il y a des meurs douces” (i.e., roughly, “Wherever there is com-
merce, there one finds gentlemanly behaviour"), and with everyday
experience in the civilised world. It also conflicts with most psycho-
logical and sociological studies of the priestly and academic mentality
undertaken since Nietzsche wrote on ressentiment . It conflicts also
with the conclusions of the public choice school (see chapter 4
above) about the contrast between the moral pretence and the actual
behaviour characteristic of politicians, bureaucrats, and academics.
Public choice theorists, led by James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tul-
lock, insist that academics, like public “servants”, act as much in
*hu in the 1987 Russell. having misread my IFiHgmrtrtn and ignored the evidence, including
evidence from Wittgensteins own pen, described my book as “discredited" and me as “the
Lyndon Larouche of professional philosophy”* Should 1 sue the man (who, for all I know, may
have no assets anyway)— and give up my time for research and writing for the next year or so?
Better to refer others to his article and let them enjoy the human spectacle. Sec my
second edition, op. dt. See Frohmann, Russell, vol. 7, no. I, Summer 1987, and Frohmann s
exchange with David Ramsay Steele in Russell, vol. 8. no. 2, Winter 1987-88. Russell declined to
print other replies to Frohmann, a member of the Russell archives staff. Bertrand Russell, if his
philosophy did not prohibit such behaviour, would be spinning in his grave. For a defence of my
position see William H. Gass's review of Brian McGuinness’s 4 Lt/r m A Life at
Death’s Door”, The New Republic. May I . 1989. pp. 35-40.
* Op. ql Sec also Jean Lindenmann, "Lcichen im .Schrank der Wisserwehaft? C her e
c mtwortung von Mitautoren”, Neue Ziirther Zeitung, April 1, 1987.
* Richard B. McKenzie, The Political Economy of the Educational Process (The Hague: Mar tin us
‘ ‘jhoff, 1979), chapter seven; Charles J . Sykes, ProfScam: Professors and the Demise o/ ig - r
ucaiton (Washington, D.C.: Rcgnery Gateway, 1988).
99
their own interest as do businessmen. In a similar vein, Winston

Churchill cautioned against the “civil servants” who would be our
“uncivil masters”.10
There is little hope of accelerating the advancement of learning
and the growth of knowledge until it is more widely acknowledged,
as Shils does not, that individuals working in educational institutions
are as self-interested as businessmen, but that the organisational
framework in which they operate—the network of incentives, con-
straints, and sanctions—tends to work against public benefit, and
does so just because educational and professional institutions work
contrary to market principles.
(It should be noticed that the objection is not to self-interested
behaviour, but to organisational frameworks wherein such self-
interested behaviour is not channelled properly, i.e., wherein it
works against both the increase of wealth and the advancement of
learning.)
Ronald H. Coase was one of the first to notice the contradictions
embedded in the positions of academics who hate commercial
markets. In a series of essays," he gently exposes and chides their
self-servingly contradictory behaviour in insisting on government
regulation in the market for goods, and deregulation in the market
of ideas. He sums up:
The market for ideas is the market in which the intellectual con-
ducts his trade. . . . Self-esteem leads the intellectuals to magnify
the importance of their own market." That others should be regu-
lated seems natural, particularly as many of the intellectuals see
themselves as doing the regulating. But self-interest combines with
self-esteem to ensure that while others are regulated, that regula-
'• See his remarks as quoted in K . R. Popper and Konrad Lorenz, Dir Zukunft ut offtn: Dai
AUmbrrgrr Gnfrriuh ml dm Trxtrn drs Wimrr Popprr-Sympmmmi, ed. Franz Kreuzer (Munich and
ZOrich: Piper Verlag. 1985). On the development of the commercial morality and traditions that
created the conditions for civilisation, see F. A. Hayek. Tht Fatal Concrd. op. cit.
11
Op. cit.
” This is so even of many free-market intellectuals, who do not hesitate to quote the devil
when useful. Thus one of the few Keynesian sentiments generally approved by free-market
thinkers is Lord Keynes’s declaration, in the famous closing passage of Thr Gmrral Thran, that
“the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they arc
wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else."
But are ideas really so influential? Almost all economists are in favor of free trade, and the
evidence is all o n their side; yet the idea of free trade has, recently, faltered more than it has for
many decades. What are we to conclude? That the marketplace of ideas has not been free and
open? Or that decisions arc being made elsewhere, without much reference to that particular
100
lion should not apply to themselves. . . . It may not be a nice

explanation but I can think of no other for this strange situation.1’
Our first lesson, then, is that professors are as self-serving as busi-

ness folk, and that many intellectuals—like many business
folk—seem to construe a free market chiefly as freedom for them-
selves. Our second lesson is more sobering, since it passes beyond
belief to action. It is that the record of many intellectuals suggests
that, whatever they may say, in practice they tend to work against
free markets of any kind—including free markets in ideas. This is
true at least wherever they have the opportunity to enforce their
own ideas with relative impunity, or low cost, on others, including
fellow intellectuals. What they call intellectual freedom in practice
means protection from intellectual competition.
The establishment of professional “disciplines”, and with it the
dogma that one discipline may not stand in judgement on
another—a dogma which is given a theoretical undergirding in the
philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein (see chapter 14 below)—are
examples of this. Both have been part of the effort of university in-
tellectuals to insure not only that they not be regulated, but also to
prevent or diminish competition from within or without. Thomas L.
Haskell reports: 14
“ National Review. op. dt., p, 1096. Sec also Aaron Director. “The Parity of the Economic
Market Mace", Journal of Law and Economics 7, October 1964, pp. 1-10. See also George J. Stigler's
The Intellectual and the Marketplcue, enlarged edition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984).
•An example of academic contempt for free speech in practice is the attempt made at Stanford
during 1989 by some students and faculty to impose a "Fundamental Standard” on campus
speech, requiring all speech to conform to "accepted community standards" on questions such as
race relations and relations among the sexes. One student complained that "uv don't put as many
restrictions on freedom of speech as uv should". We! Sec Richard Starr. " I n Dire Meed of Reality
Therapy ", Insight, May 22. 1989. p. 64, The debate is not concluded as I write this. As another
example see the report of the academic ostracism of Lord Bauer in Forbes,February 22. 1988.
H
11100105 L. Haskell. ACLS Newsletter 36, Summer-Fall 1985. p. 11 (italics mine). Further
evidence of antipathy to competition within universities comes from ’’Collegiality and Responsibility
n
* Academu Governance-, a statement (opposing awards to faculty based on scholarly merit)
prepared by the Executive Committee of the Academic Senate of the California State University
and presented to its Board of Trustees. 9-10 July. 1985: “ I n order to function as a community of
scholars, the faculty within its own ranks must necessarily practice collegiality, grounded in mutual
respect for their diverse professional and disciplinary expertise . . . . The introduction of collective
bargaining into matters of salary, benefits, and related aspects of faculty employment has brought
'**th it a procedure that, because of industrial precedents, is adversarial. That adversarial
characteristic must not permeate the remaining areas of educational policy development, which
nnoi be achieved in an atmosphere of polarization", The Academu Senator: Newsletter of the
Academic Senate,The California State I'ntvenU). November 1985. p. 5. There is indeed little of the
jyarkrt (here called "industrial precedent") in university settings. When the faculty unionizes, as it
done here, it is to make it more guild-like, less open to competition from within or without.
Adversarial, i.e., competitive, activity for "merit awards" is to be punished, not rewarded.
101
In this country [the USA] the educational reformers who played the
key roles in establishing the academic disciplines within which we
work today . . . regarded the establishment of specialized profes-
sional disciplines as a way of defending certain ideas of the good,
the true, and the beautiful against what they perceived as corrosive
competition. In their eyes, academic professionalization was a defen-
sive and culturally conservative measure, though also an immensely
hopeful one, for it was designed to create safe havens for sound
opinion in a mass society that threatened to withhold deference
from even the highest values . . . . Many of the academic profes-
sionalizers in this country saw professionalization as a conservative
cultural reform, a way of ameliorating what might be described as
an ‘epistemological crisis', or, at any rate, a ‘crisis of authority'.
Anti-competitive activity by intellectuals is not restricted to the

university. Mikhail Bernstam has drawn on two areas of his exper-
tise, soviet studies and American welfare programs, to argue that
twentieth-century intellectuals have, in both cases and places, de-
signed transfer programs—based on alleged altruism—that inter-
nalise the benefits of their ideas (i.e., they appropriate the economic
benefits of those ideas for themselves) but deftly shift to other
members of the community (externalise) virtually all their costs.15
These costs include terror and genocide in the first case; and in the
second case, unemployment and indefinitely perpetuated unemploy-
ability, poverty, broken homes, welfare dependency, and illegitimacy.
In plain terms, such intellectuals implement their own ideas, and
profit from them, at the expense of others. As Bernstam so nicely
puts it: “Intellectuals die for, but not of, their ideas. Somehow,it turns out,
intellectuals never happen to he where the costs of their ideas strike people."**
One way for such intellectuals to reduce their production costs is
to attempt to obtain various sorts of security for themselves (the
security of tenure, for example, which is not usually available in
markets). This security may be justified by appealing to “academic
freedom", “intellectual freedom", or even to “the free market of
ideas”.1’ Often, however, what is really sought is the freedom to se-
" Mikhail S. Bernstam, “Bleeding Hearts and Liquid Assets: Seeking Rent on Public Goods",
in Modem Age. Spring-Summer 1986, and Letter, in Commentary. June 1985. pp. 9-13.
'* A good example is Karl Marx himself. See Leopold Schwarzschild, Karl Man: The Red
Prussian (London: Pickwick Books, 1988), new edition with an introduction by Antony Flew.
1
See Armen A. Alchian, “Private Property and the Relative Cost of Tenure”, in Philip D
Bradley, ed.. The Public Stake m Unum Power (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1959).
pp. 350-371.
102
cure their own positions and to corner the market, and thus to
remove, not create, a free market in ideas.18 Whatever the goal may
be, some 80 percent of faculty members now hold tenured appoint-
ments.
2. Kuhn's Account of the Research Community Is One in which Nothing

Resembling a Market Operates
Some will not only dispute my arguments and conclusions, but

will accuse me of taking a shockingly cynical if not pathological view
of my fellow academics. They may admit that something like what I
have described happened to some intellectuals in Russia and Nazi
Germany, and perhaps even to some other intellectuals in this
country, but would stoudy deny that anything of the sort happens
with them. If one were going to argue the matter on the empirical
evidence (where of course it must ultimately be decided), one would
have to be prepared for a searching examination. There is no space
for that here, where my aim is little more than to open up areas
over which a veil of silence is usually drawn. Hence 1 would like to
do a kind of end run around any empirical dispute. My argument
should at least startle and disturb. The argument is simple, and it is
not new. Ian C. Jarvie and I began to develop the background for
it in two independent studies published in the same anthology in
1982;” and Jarvie developed the argument to a smashing crescendo
in an essay read in 1984 in Washington, D.C.’° Here is how it goes.
The sociology of science of Thomas S. Kuhn, as developed in
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions2* and elsewhere, is the most
influential account of life in the knowledge industry. If one enters
11
“Academic freedom'', as developed in Germany, was different from what is understixid by
that term today. There, professors, who were civil servants paid by the stale, were granted
freedom to teach their subject matter as (hey wished — provided that they refrained from
questioning die faith, morals, and politics of dteir society. See Walter Kaufmann, The Future of the
Humanities (New York: Reader's Digest Press. 1977).
•• Ian C. Jarvie, "Popper on the Difference between the Natural and the Social Sciences".
an
d W. W. Bartley, 111, “A Popperian Harvest", in Paul Levinson, cd.. In Pursuit of Truth: Essays
ni
Honour of Kart Popper's 80th Birthday (New York: Humanities Press, 1982), pp. 83-107 and 249*
*8® respectively.
See his “Explanation, Reduction and the Sociological Turn in the Philosophy of Science—
ur K u h n as Ideologue for Merton's Theory of Science", in Gerard Radniuky, cd., The Unity of the
v
°h I l (New York: Paragon House. 1989). See also I. C. Jarvie and Joseph Agassi,
®deMes. Footnotes and Problems", in Philosophy of the Social Sciences, vol. 16 (1986), pp- 367-74.
” Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2 n d edition, enlarged (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press. 1970).
103
into the spirit of sociology (which I do not recommend, but two can
play this game) and appeals to a sociological measure—the citation
index—one finds that Kuhn is one of the most frequently cited
contemporary authors. If one bears in mind that the basic Kuhnian
ideas stem from Ludwig Wittgenstein—who is also amongst those
most often cited—one gains, if only in sociological terms, some
impression of the influence of the ideas underlying Kuhn’s work.
Many people praise Kuhn not only for having realistically described
life in the various scientific disciplines, but also for having appreciated
that it could not be otherwise.22
What sort of report does Kuhn give? Is it of a marketplace of
ideas? Hardly. Kuhn reports a milieu in which nothing resembling a
market operates, and he ignores economic explanations almost
entirely. Kuhn might have investigated institutions of learning from
an economic rather than a sociological point of view, but he did
not.2’ Both Kuhn and Wittgenstein (the latter will be discussed in
chapter 14 below) have created philosophies which justify and
rationalise entrenchment and reduce competition.
As Kuhn’s views are usually reported, he is supposed to have
attacked “idealised” accounts of science (such as Popper’s). Such
accounts emphasise the parallel between the growth of science and
biological evolution and natural selection, and claim that scientific
ideas are subjected to sharp competition, that science is a revolu-
tionary activity dedicated to pursuing truth by overthrowing error,
and that unsuccessful ideas are weeded out by confronting them
with difficulties, such as contrary evidence. Kuhn, by contrast, is
supposed to have described how science really proceeds. On his ac-
count, most of science is bound by precedent, tradition, and com-
mitment to reigning paradigms that are guarded, licensed, and
franchised by scientific elites, elites concerned to train, indoctrinate,
supervise, socialise and politicise initiates into the scientific enter-
prise. The main activity for which initiates are to be trained is the
solving of relatively minor problems—the word is “puzzles”—set by.
and in conformity with, the reigning “paradigm". Intellectual revolu-
tion is a rarity, likely to be more disruptive than enlightening.
” An exception is the Nobel prize-winning economist George J. Stigler, who has noticed t hu l
Kuhn’s views are not falsifiable and come close to being (autologous. See his TAe Economist <*'
Preacher and Other Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1982). pp. 112-1 14.
n
Kuhn's personal association with the sociologist Robert Merton, and the deep influrm*
exerted on him by Wittgenstein, as purveyed to him by his colleague Stanley Cavell, may ha' 1’
contributed to his preference for sociological to economic explanations.
10-1
WHY DO PROFESSORS LIKE K U H N SO MUCH?
something against which the guardians of paradigms should protect

themselves—even weeding out dissidents—for the sake of the larger
enterprise.
In any case, the shift from one paradigm to another is, Kuhn
maintains, not rational; nor does it indicate progress towards the
truth. On the contrary, he asserts that paradigms are incommensur-
able.24 They cannot be compared with one another, and thus one
cannot be used to judge another. In short, Kuhn is a relativist. In
his siew, scientists constantly rewrite their textbooks not to chart
progress towards the truth, to record what really happened (the
interesting errors together with the gains, or the current contro-
versial state of critical discussion), but, rather, to suppress resur-
gence of ideas already overthrown and to reinforce those in fashion
or in power.2’ Thus the history of science is not the story of a battle
for truth amongst competing frameworks in a market setting, lor
competing frameworks are excluded by reigning hegemonies. Rath-
er, the history of science is the story of successive ideological hege-
monies seizing the whip hand of power in the halls of learning. It is
Kuhn who has written, as already mentioned: “Il is precisely the
abandonment of critical discourse that marks the transition to sci-
ence.**26
5. Kuhn Systematically Misdescribes His Opponents—and Gives an Absurdly

Optimistic Impression of the Real Situation in the Sciences
Kuhn’s report of the problem situation in the universities is

gready misleading. Kuhn and his followers systematically misdescribe
their opponents; they misdescribe the problem situation, and pre-
vent it from being seen in an economic light. In denouncing idealis-
' n g philosophers, Kuhn and his followers have interpreted recommended
u, vs
°- to attain stated ends as descriptive claims. Thus Popper never
° ere <3 an idealised description of what scientists actually do, or
, 'Died that, in practice, scientists usually try to falsify their claims;
eed he exposed in detail some strategems to which they often
H to avoid refutation. Rather, after analysing the logic of the
l
h»t - n t h e Incommensurability Thesis”. See J . O. Wisdom's very brief and indsive essay of
» • , n w hkh Ote position is refuted, in Philoyyfthual Studies, vol. 25, 1974. pp. 299-301.
* r ,n politicisation of university studies, see Sidney Hook, “Intellectual Rot", op, cit.
, °tnas S. Kuhn, The Essential Tension, op. oL
105
situation obtaining in scientific activity, he recommended that, to

advance knowledge, that situation be made as competitive as possi-
ble—that every attempt be made to falsify or otherwise expose
theories and frameworks to critical examination. He advocated that
competitiveness be furthered by embedding it in a system of
rules—what one might call a “constitution of learning"—that would
hinder ideas from being entrenched either by means of sharp
practice or by built-in devices for deflecting criticism.27 1 do not
know whether anyone ever attacked Adam Smith for idealising the
marketplace on the ground that real markets, as he knew them,
were not free. Such a criticism would be exactly parallel to the one
Kuhnians mount against Popper. Smith, lucidly discerning the
character and defects of the markets of his time, recommended
freer and more competitive markets in order to increase wealth.
Similarly Popper recommended attempting to overthrow existing
theories in order to increase knowledge. In both cases we are given
a methodology or an economics for increasing wealth, not a socio-
logical description of the way things are usually done.
While claiming to attack idealised descriptions of the scientific process,
Kuhn thus actually presents an idealised, uncritical estimation of the actual
results achieved in science—and neglects to consider the possibility that
such results might have been much improved had methodological
norms embodying a more competitive spirit been more closely
approximated.
n
My hero Ronald H. Coase, in another lecture, finds it “strange*’ that such a normative-
theory should be offered, objecting (although to Milton Friedman not Popper) that “What we arc
given is not a theory of how economists, in fact, choose between competing theories but . . . how
they ought to choose". (See Ronald H. Coase. How Should Economists Choose*, The G. Warren
Nutter Lectures in Political Economy (Washington: American Enterprise Institute, 1982), p. 8.)
That Friedman and Popper both speak of “the aim of science" in this connection in no way
conflicts, as Coase misleadingly suggests, with the principle that only individuals have goals. After
all Popper is an ardent champion of methodological individualism (see The Poverty of Historicism,
op. tit.). Thus Popper opens his classic article on “The Aim of Science” with these words: "To
speak of ’the aim’ of scientific activity may perhaps sound a little naive; for clearly, different
scientists have different aims, and science itself (whatever that may mean) has no aims. I admit all
Oils. And yet . . . ", For Popper's defence of his usage, see Objective Knowledge,op. tit.. Chapter 5
One may. without violating the principle of methodological individualism, attempt to describe
practices and institutions that would be needed in order for individuals who wanted to maximin
their understanding of the world to be able to succeed—just as one may describe the law and in-
stitutions needed for individuals wanting to maximise other kinds of wealth to succeed. If thc
diesis with which I opened this chapter is correct, these descriptions would overlap greatly—or hr
part of a common enterprise.
On some other occasion, 1 should like to analyse Coast's argument in detail. Meanwhile, ibe
reader is referred to Ian C. Jarvie’s review of M. Blaug, The Methodology of Economics (Cambridge
Cambridge University Press, 1980), in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 34 (1983), pl’
106
Yet even sensible academics have fallen for Kuhn. Ronald Coase,
jn the lecture cited (p. 16), does not see matters as I do. He argues,
with Kuhn, that to ignore discrepancies between theory and fact is
“more efficient". Efficient for what purpose? To perpetuate the
profession? Or to advance knowledge? Coase’s suggestion is wholly
uneconomic. He gives no evidence for it, and it is also countered by
some of the evidence that he himself, in the same lecture, brings
from the history of economics.
A qualification is in order —and it is possible that this is what
Coase was thinking of when he wrote these lines. It is true (and a
part of Popperian normative methodology) that one should not
necessarily immediately abandon an apparently enlightening and
powerful theory when a contradiction or other difficulty in it crops
up— particularly when this happens early in the life of the theory,
before its content and power have been investigated in depth. The
differential calculus, when first put forward by Newton and Leibniz,
was full of contradictions. Had scientists abandoned it—as Bishop
Berkeley had urged in his Analyst— the loss to science would have
been great. But scientists and mathematicians did not ignore these
contradictions; they did not suppress them; they did not “abandon
critical discourse” relating to them. Rather, they developed and
transformed the differential calculus so as to overcome its initial
difficulties. Indeed, speaking simply of the "differential calculus", as
if it were essentially the same theory before and after these modifi-
cations, is anachronistic.
Josef Poschl and Gareth Locksley, taking as their example not
mathematics but economic theory, see clearly where a Kuhnian
approach can lead.'79 They report:
Post-Keynesians have consciously attempted to formulate a complete

theoretical complex influenced by the heated discussions following
the publication of Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions . . . . The
problem was that important criticisms of some aspects of orthodox
economics (for example studies of monopolistic competition, or the
work of Veblen and even that of Keynes) could not break its hold
over the profession and policy making. Typically the criticisms would he
translated into "common terms", i.e. they were filtered and their emphases
changed; then they were treated as an example of a special case, a slight
aberration from the powerfid general line. Certainly they were not discussed
" In their "Michael Kalecki: A Comprehensive Challenge to Orthodoxy", in J. R. Shackleton

Gareth Locksley, eds.. Twelve Contemporary Economists (London: Macmillan, 1983), p. 143.
107
as an alternative to the orthodoxy; rather they were destined for incorpora

Hon m a modified form or to be forgotten. . , . Such a process ensures th
continuation of orthodoxy as all isolated criticisms will he translated o
transformed and thereby made to appear a mere footnote (emphasis mine).
Such action on the part of those criticised may be efficient if one'

aim is to perpetuate an orthodoxy, but not if one’s aim is to ad
vance knowledge.
Henri Lepage, in Tomorrow Capitalism,™ also blandly accept
Kuhnian notions, failing to recognise that to do so contradicts th<
thesis of his own book (in which he champions the resurrection o
free-market economics over Keynesian and socialist views). Lepagt
writes, citing Kuhn, that “the history of science is essentially th<
history of a succession of paradigms that replace one another as ,
function of their greater efficacy . . . ”. If that were so, how coulc
a Hayekian (or free-market) outlook loom both at the beginning ant
at the ending of the Keynesian era? Did it stop being efficacious ir
1938 and then forty years later start being efficacious again? On thi
other hand, if one allows that an orthodoxy may take over and sup
press or distort criticisms, and even suppress more adequate alterna
tive explanations (a possibility recognised by Popper, and also b)
Poschl and Locksley), then the situation, and the questions to b<
asked, change entirely.
Such distortion is essential to Kuhn and all Kuhnians.30 Otherwise
their ideas would appeal less to academics. For what function d<
Kuhnian ideas serve in contemporary academic life? They legitimate
the existing structures of our reigning academic institutions. A:
Jarvie puts it so well:
Kuhn's ideas legitimate the system from which he benefited st

much; a system moreover, that was relatively new and sorely ir
need of a legitimating ideology. Kuhn's ideas . . . legitimise th<
social formations in which the science of his time is temporarily housed
Popper . . . offers an explanation of the success of science that no
only transcends the particular social formations of his time, bu
which happens also to be inimical to and critical of these forma
lions, and thereby of those ideas of Kuhn which legitimate dies'
formations. Kuhn’s ideas legitimate science’s current social embodi
” (!j Salle: Open Court, 1982). p. 2 1 7 .

One could put this distortion in terms familiar to Austrian economists by noting hr»v
closely the situation resembles that which set the debate between the historicism (Historism* I "
the German historical school and Carl Mcnger.
108
ment. Popper's undermine it . . . . The American academic and

scientific Establishment . . . has naturally preferred to embrace
Kuhn and to hold Popper at a distance . . . . So far from legiti-
mating an establishment and its perquisites, Popper threw doubt on
all expertise and made challenging establishments integral to the
scientific endeavour.”
Janie, an Englishman who teaches in Canada, where he edits the

journal Philosophy of the Social Sciences, read his paper first in Wash-
ington, D.C., and thus spoke of, and to, the “American establish-
ment”. But the same applies, perhaps even more strongly, in Britain
(see Part III below).”
4. Why Our Intellectuals Need Kuhn's Ideas
My “end run” is nearly completed, and it is time to return to the

contradiction with which I began this chapter. That is, western
intellectuals, and especially professors, advocate, and often imagine
that they enjoy, a free market of ideas; yet they tend to recommend
Kuhn’s sociology of knowledge. If it is now clear why these two
positions are incompatible, it is also now easy to understand why
they are nonetheless held. Professors need Kuhnian ideology in
order to legitimate what they do—for no doubt Kuhn is, on the
descriptive level, largely right. In practice, intellectuals do attempt to
control the intellectual landscape. It is no accident that the promi-
nent American scientific administrator Alvin M. Weinberg could cas-
ually write, as if it were obvious, that “science is largely a socialist
undertaking”.” If scientists and other intellectuals can —by means of
an ideology such as Kuhn’s—convince themselves and their patrons,
whether state or private, that anti-competitive practices are socially
necessary, they can greatly reduce the production costs of their
views, entrench themselves more firmly, and better enforce their
11
Janie, op. cit.. italics mine.
” Numerous examples could be given, perhaps most conspicuously the "Edinburgh School”
etiology of knowledge led by Barnes and Bloor. Barnes is the author of a study of Kuhn s
*nrk. See also my discussion of the Wingensteinian problematic in chapter H below.
* Alvin M. Weinberg. “How the Scientific Marketplace Works" (Institute for Energy .Analysis.
Ridge), 1987. mimeographed. In opposition to Weinberg's position see Simon Rottenberg
'University of Massachusetts). "The Economic Approach Applied to Science Policy".
JJWneograplied. and Hans Otto Lenel (University of Mainz), "Comment on Weinberg and
Rottenberg; Introductory Statements". 1987. mimeographed.
109
ideas on others—whatever the effects on the real development of

science and on the community. What began by claiming to be a
hard-headed realistic description of the way science actually works
takes on a strongly normative function, for in Kuhn's world, what is
is right. As one of Kuhn’s admirers expresses it, the truth of a
scientific theory reflects or is a projection of the consensus of the
scientific community—a theory is false when it is rejected by that
community, and if the scientific community has made no commit-
ment, then the theory is neither true nor false.54 What is true, that
is, is what we experts agree to be true; what is open is that on
which we do not care or dare to have an opinion.’5 The continuing,
almost raging popularity of Kuhn’s relativistic ideas amongst aca-
demics, nearly thirty years after they were first published, is strong
evidence that, in fact, the marketplace of ideas is severely regulated.
Like Wittgenstein, Kuhn told professionals what they wanted to
hear.5®
M
Harold 1. Brown, Perception, Theory and Commitment: The New Philosophy of Science (Chicago
Precedent, 1977),
“ Sec also Barry Barnes and David Bloor. "Relativism. Rationalism and the Sociology
Knowledge", MS, 1980, p. 5, quoted in Jarvic, "A Plague on Both Your Houses", op. tit.
On Wittgenstein — and o n the assumptions behind his approach and Kuhn's— sec chapter
110
Chapter 7
WHAT IS THE ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OF
OUR RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS?
Tenure is neither necessary nor efficient. Its survival de-
pends upon the absence of private ownership. . . . Compe-
tition amongst schools, teachers, and students provides
protection to the search for truth without tenure.
Armen A. Alchian1
/ . Where Consumers Do Not Buy, Producers Do Not Sell, and Owners Do

Not Control
If our educational and research institutions are not free markets,

how then should one describe them in economic terms? That their
structure is economically peculiar has been noticed before. Thus
James M. Buchanan has described universities as places where the
consumers (students) do not buy, the producers (faculty) do not sell,
*
and the “owners" (trustees, state boards, etc.) do not control.2
So simple a description is perilous, as Buchanan would at once
agree, for these institutions, whatever their economic character, are
set in a complex social and legal network in which relatively free
markets coexist with extensive state controls and regulations, state
subsidies, and private and public cartels. This context may, in
fluctuating circumstances, either enhance or mitigate the effects of
the particular forms of organisation that one finds in education.
1
Armen A. Alchian, “Private Property and die Relative Cost of Tenure", in Philip D.
Bradley, ed., Tht Public Stake in Union Power (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1959), p
To sec how little effect Akhian's argument has had o n the professorate, see J . J . Thomson,
Burton S. Drcben. Eric Holtzman, B. Robert Krcisler, “Academic Freedom and Tenure: Corporate
Funding of Academic Research", Jcod/mc, vol. 67, November- December 1983. pp. I8a-23a. See
Howard R. Bowen and Jack H . Schuster, .4wncan Professors: .4 National Resource Imperiled
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), a n d John Braeman's critical review of it, "Financing
Knowledge Industry". The World and I, May 1987, pp. 394-404.
* James M. Buchanan a n d Nicos E. Devletoglou, /fradrsma in Anarchy; .4n Economic Diagnosis
( -ondon: Basic Books, 1970). Trustees do, however, fix prices. See "Educated Moves: Elite Private
leges Routinely Share Plans for Raising Tuition. Saying It's Done Openly. They Deen Price-
Probe; Critics Charge ’Arrogance*", The Wail Street Journal, September 5 , 1989. p. 1. I n this
fQ t. C c Chester E. Finn Jr., former Education Department aide, is quoted as stating: "Colleges feel
5
shouldn't be making price decisions when it comes to deciding where to go to college. And
’F want to. [the colleges) won't let them."
35g e Fl. Geoffrey Brennan and Robert D. Tollison. "Rent-Seeking in Academia", pp 344-
• and, for a more general study of economic behaviour in bureaucracies and other non-
thJPp P t a r y • ctt n g 5 « sre Armen A. Alchian and Reuben A. Kessel, “Competition, Monopoly, and
Ur
p *uit of Money*, in Aspccb of labor Economics, ed H . Gregg Lewis, et al, (Princeton
■Won University Press. 1962). pp. 157-175.
Yei Buchanan's description is also all too accurate. A trivial exam-

ple from my own experience in the United States helps to illustrate
this. In the past nineteen years, enrollment in philosophy courses
has plummeted in almost all universities, public and private, for
there was little student demand for the philosophical goods pro-
duced by the cartel—or unholy alliance consisting of phenomenol-
ogy, so-called analytic philosophy, and the remnants of logical
positivism— that had come to dominate and control most depart-
ments.’ As a result, in most state institutions and in many private
ones, wherever funding was related to faculty/student ratio, hiring of
philosophers stopped around 1971, and even tenured philosophy
professors were, for a time, in real danger of being laid off —or of
being declared, as the British put it, more accurately and with some
sense of humour, to be "redundant”.
American philosophy professors were rescued, as it were, by a
national catastrophe. For at just this time the test scores of entering
students had fallen badly, and many students were indeed barely
literate. Throughout the country, the latter problem has been used
to “solve” the former by one simple device: the creation of compul-
sory remedial courses in “Clear Thinking" and “Critical Thinking"
taught chiefly by philosophy professors. This step created —or
rather, legislated—a large demand for philosophy professors, and
their jobs were saved/ Yet there is hardly any evidence that clear
thinking can be taught; or that—even if it can be taught—philoso-
phy professors are particularly good at clear thinking or at teaching
it; or that there is even any such thing as “clear thinking" in the
abstract, divorced from subject matter. There is also little evidence
that courses in clear thinking actually succeed in remedying illiteracy
of students, or that students would—if not required—enroll in such
courses. Stigler's quip that “the last really notable advance in college
teaching in recent times was the invention of the printing press" is
in no way dated by the invention of courses in clear thinking.
* See my “Facts & Fictions"*. Encounter, January 1986. pp. 77-78, and Part 111 below. The
matter is also discussed in the Introduction to the Japanese translation o f my Wittgenstein, op. d t
• Use of curriculum requirements to manipulate supply and demand is explicitly endorsed b '
Howard Bowen and J. Schuster, of Claremont, in a study financed by the Carnegie and Ford
Foundations, and by Exxon. T1AA and CREF. Sec the report in The United Professors of California
Advocate X V I I , November 1986, p. 4. See Gareth B. Matthews, American Philosophical Association
letter to Departmental Chairman, September 1985: "The Board of Officers of the A.P.A. believe*
that it is important for professional philosophers to be consulted in the development of curricula
and tests in critical thinking".
112
THE ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OF OUR RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS
The situation is even worse: many such courses consist largely in

the teaching of a theory of learning called “inductive logic"—despite
the fact that Popper showed, as long ago as 1934, that there is no
such thing as inductive logic—and that it is logically, physiologically,
and psychologically impossible (see Part III below).
The professors do not sell: they impose their services to preserve
their jobs; the students do not buy but are compelled to purchase,
and to waste their time learning, a theory of learning that is both
psychologically and logically impossible—a theory which, if students
did actually “learn” inductively, they could not learn. And trustees
have evidently been convinced by the self-serving experts they
consulted (their own endangered faculty) that the legislation serves
the teaching task of the university and the public good. There is no
market here. Nor any education. What there is, is what Buchanan
rightly calls a "public bad”.
While this may be a nice illustration of the self-interested and all
too “realistic” behaviour of our faculties, I am not mainly concerned
with the teaching task of our institutions of learning, one that they
occasionally perform surpassingly well. Colleges and universities
often do manage successfully to initiate young people—even those
culturally deprived children seared in the cultural wasteland of
contemporary high schools—into our history and our scientific and
literary heritage. Buchanan, a teacher as well as a scientist, has
eloquendy expressed this task, and its unpredictable outcome:
Education is a one-way “trip” . . . . The product is a process, a

happening through time, to which the student submits in the
knowledge that he will become and remain sensorily different from
what he is. Because outcomes remain unknown and unpredictable,
elements of a game are involved here, a game played against or
with life itself. The student migrates to “the undiscover’d country’'
from which “no traveller returns".
Buchanan emphasises that he is not talking about professional

education where there is a known outcome. As he says: "There is
no education’ in this.” Rather:
The genuine educational process does not “train". It “transforms".

It provides the student with a different and new way of looking at
the world . . . . his vision is changed . . . as he moves through die
higher learning experience. Widi university education, then, all
prospective consumers find themselves in the curious situation of
113
committing themselves in favor of a product they do not know.

University education is like a blind date.
University teaching is, then, not under attack here, poor as it

sometimes is. Nor am I concerned with the role of the universities
as museums for the care and display of some of the records of our
intellectual heritage and traditions—a task that they also perform
remarkably well? What concerns me here is their research tasks:
those of their functions that do not simply generate fluctuations in
the temporary store of information in the heads of students, but are
supposed to swell the storehouse of knowledge.
2. Fiefdoms,Guilds, Mutual-Protection Rackets
The chief institutions of contemporary research —especially those

connected with faculty hiring, graduate research and the profes-
sions—are late feudal in character? These departments and profes-
sions consist in arrangements more closely resembling fiefdoms,
guilds, cartels, and mutual-protection rackets than any free-market
arrangements; and they are primarily concerned not with the
production of innovative knowledge, but with the control of entry,
the gaining of “livings”, the placements of vassals, and the con-
trolled production and protection from competition of noninnovative
alleged knowledge. A great number of ideas widely supposed to be
crucial amongst academics would perish if not endowed with the
intellectual equivalent of price supports, which 1 take to be the real
function of such institutions as required courses in university cata-
logues? The university has become a virtually ideal setting for those
• See George Steiner. "America as the Archive of Eden”. Times Higher Education Supplemcni.
March 6. 1981. pp. 12-13, and also "Archives of Eden", Salmagundi, Autumn 1980, which contains
replies to Steiner's paper.
* In short, they remain as Adam Smith described them in The Wealth of Nations, Book V,
Part III. In describing them as feudal I am not referring to the content of the ideologies and
political ideas held generally within them. These may well tend towards a watered-down socialism
or Marxism, as is often maintained, but this question is not our concern here. See John Marconi.
Jr., "Britain's 'Oxbridge' Suffers Lack of Funds, Brain Drain; To Government, Oxford and
(aimbridge Universities Are Socialist Bulwark", The Wall Street Journal, August 18. 1988.
’ This view is not widely shared by university intellectuals. Thus James N. Rossc. Vice
President and Provost of Stanford University, defends the freshman requirement in "Cultures.
Ideas and Values" as part of the provision for a marketplace of ideas. See "Stanford and the
Marketplace of Ideas". Wall Street Journal. February 24. 1989. See Sidney Hook's critique of the
underlying conceptions of “Culture, Ideas and Values", and an implicit reply to Rossc. in "The
Politics of Curriculum Building". Measure. January 1 989.
114
THE ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OE OUR RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS
w ho want to gain a sheltered pulpit (i.e., credibility) and to reduce

their own production and transaction costs, those who want not only
to protect themselves against competition but even to stifle it, and
n ot only to control markets in the sense of eliminating or forcing
out competitors but also to force their own products on the popula-
tion.
If this is so, what is surprising is not (as Kuhn and Merton have
been reporting) that true innovations have trouble spreading, but
that revolutions in knowledge ever take place at all in such institu-
tions.’ Significant economic growth is not nurtured in comparable in-
stitutions; why should growth in knowledge occur in such universities?
One of the most ironic uses of course requirements is to compel students in schools and
Universities to take courses in democracy. I f students were permitted to choose their courses more
“eely. they would have something of die rxpmrnrt of democracy.
* According to Kenneth H . Keller. President of the University of Minnesota, die “tyranny of
departments" makes it very difficult to make curricular revisions "except as minor modifications to
essentially disciplinary programs". Sec the report of his David M . Mason Lecture, “Universities
sdvised to counter ‘tyranny of depanmenu'", in The Campus Report, Stanford University.
115
Chapter 8
T H E ENTRENCHMENT O F FALSE P H I L O S O P H I E S
The academic community should not assume that the univ-

ersity is an indispensable institution in contemporary
society. All of its functions could be performed elsewhere
. . . . As many historians have pointed out, history is
littered with the ruins of allegedly indispensable institu-
tions.
W. Glenn Campbell'
It is completely in accord with the Statist thinking preva-

lent everywhere today to consider a theory to be finally
disposed of merely because the authorities who control
appointments to academic positions want to know nothing
of it.
Ludwig von Mises5
All developed and developing countries, capitalist and

communist alike, invest more or less heavily in education,
research and development as a principle of social policy,
but the United States is unique in depending on the
universities as a major vehicle for basic research and
innovation.
Sidney Self’
1. The Information Explosion: Fact or Fantasy?
Actually, growth in knowledge occurs in universities less often

than commonly supposed and only under special circumstances. An
impression to the contrary is created by the expansion of the
allegedly necessary apparatus of knowledge production, such as the
proliferation of state universities and the creation and growth of the
national research foundations (in both cases institutions that may
work against the growth of knowledge). Also contributing to the
impression of growth is the so-called publication explosion. There is
indeed an information explosion as well as its accompanying publica-
tion explosion. But its size is exaggerated, it is wrongly interpreted,
and much of it contributes to the advancement not of knowledge
l g7 W, Glenn Campbell, "The Universities and National Priorities', speech given on 22 May
* Stanford Campus Conference on Relevance, mimeographed.
p, Ludwig von Mises, Ept lemologwai Problems of Economm (New York: New York University
’ 9 8 l hpp . I8JM .
Sidney Self, "Government, university bureaucracies squander research money, prof.
« Campus Report, Stanford. June 10, 1987, p. 20.
but of professors who must (or think they must) publish or perish?
The bulk of this publication is of little worth, consisting chiefly of
misreadings, and is well known to be so by those immersed in it.’
Which is one of several reasons why it is, for the most part, not
read. As to size, Claire Friedland and George Stigler report, after
studying the record of doctors in economics of major American
universities, that in the first fifteen years after receiving the 1’h.l).,
one-third do not publish a single article and the median journal
output of those who do publish is about two articles. “For the
profession as a whole", as Stigler concludes, “the output of articles is
probably one per economist per 20 years."6 Studies of the output of
' Among the first to remark that the increase in sire of the academic establishment did not
imply a necessary increase in quality, in "pushing back the frontiers of knowledge", or in other
public benefit were Karl Popper and W. Glenn Campbell, former Director of the Hoover
Institution on War. Revolution and Peace, an institute for advanced studies in the social sciences
at Stanford University. See K. R. Popper, "University Expansion: Threat to Literacy", report in
Times Educational Supplement. January 20, 1961, p. 98. In his address on May 22. 1971 at the
Stanford Campus Conference on Relevance, "'lite Universities and National Priorities", op. cit..
Camptwll asked whether the university sets an example for other sections of society to imitate and
follow. The answer suggested in the present paper is, like Campbell's, an emphatic "No".
* To give one pertinent example of casual misreading (which, to a writer, is akin to casual
murder), Brian J. Loasby writes: “lite knowledge thus produced is better regarded as ttuersubjer
live than objective (which is Popper's preferred adjective) . . . *. See "Public Science and Public
Knowledge". Research OS the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, vol. 4. 1986. pp. 211-228.
esp. p. 220. What Popper actually writes is: "The objectivity of scientific statements lies in the fact
that they can be imer-subjectrvely tested." See K. R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, op. cit..
p. 44.
The best evidence that people are aware that scholarly publication is so full of misreading is
perhaps that it is not much read. See my “facts and Fictions", Encounter. January 1986. Studies
have shown that only about half of one percent of the articles published in journals of chemistry
are read by any one chemist. Studies of reading amongst psychologists give closely comparable
results. See Robert K. Merton, "The Matthew Effect in Science", Science, vol. 159, January 5,
>968. pp. 56-63. As to the quality of the material published, see the comment by Arnold Reiman,
editor of The New England Journal of Medicine (as reported in The San Francisco Chronicle, May 15
1989, p. A l l ) : "Almost anything people want to publish, if it’s not grossly in error or grossly
untrue, will get published somewhere." As reported in the same article, politicians, having become
aware of the problem, arc now eager to do something about it. But how would they know how to
judge academic articles better? Thus the reaction of the editor of the British Medical Journal is
plainly silly. He stales: "If we don’t put our house in order, then, believe me, those chaps on
Capitol Hill and in the House of Commons will." Government is of course often happy to
interfere, but will hardly pul any scientific—or political — house tn order. For another report ol
the threat of government intervention to "correct" scientific abuses, see Warren E. Leary.
"Business and Scholarship: A New Ethical Quandary", New Fork Times, June 12, 1989, pp. 1, 11
* See George J. Stigler: The Economist as Preacher and Other Essays, op. di., p, 61. The finding'
of Stigler and Friedland do not vary much from a variety of similar studies in other profession*
A study of the publication record of sodologists shows that, among members of the sample
studied (the sample consisted of all those who earned their doctorates between 1945 and 1949).
for the period 1940 through 1959. six percent had no periodical publication, 31 percent had one
to three articles. 12 percent had four or five articles, another 12 percent had from six to nine
articles. 7 percent from 10 to 14 articles, and 3 percent had 15 or more. See Nicholas Babchuk
and Alan p. Bates, “Professor or Producer: The Two Faces of Academic Man", in Social Forces,
118
THE ENTRENCHMENT OF FA1.SE PHILOSOPHIES
professional philosophers have reached similar conclusions—as have

Reskin and Price, who have reported that “many scientists do no
original research after leaving graduate school and rarely or never
publish". The doctrine of “publish or perish" is another myth of a
community in which the free market of ideas and competition are
given lip service but not practiced. Minimal publication is usually
not only acceptable but in one’s real self interest, provided loyalty
or a certain homage is rendered to the guild or professional chief-
tain who wields the keys of appointment and promotion. This is less
true in very great universities, but even there any number of
professors who have given little evidence of original research, by
publication or otherwise, are nonetheless regularly promoted.’
May 1962. pp. 341-48. Similarly, in an earlier study laigan Wilson reports (The Academe Man
(New York: Oxford University Press. 1942). p. 108) that “A survey of 35 lesser institutions found
, . . that only 32 percent of all staff members made any contribution to printed literature over a
five-year period, and that die median number of contributions was only 1.3 items. An inquiry
conducted by the American Historical Association . . . revealed that only 25 percent of the doctors
of philosophy in history are consistent producers. Similarly, 'among 1,888 persons in the United
Stales who look the Ph.D. in mathematics between 1862 and 1933, after graduation 46 percent
prepared no published papers; 19 percent only one paper; 8 percent only two papers; 11 percent
three to five papers; 6 percent six to 10 papers; 2 percent 21 io 30 papers; and 2 percent more
than 30 papers'. These figures indicate that if the average academician in the typical college or
university depended on his quantitative scholarly output for employee advancement, in rank and
status, the hierarchical pyramid would show very few members at or near the top. The actual
situation in such institutions proves, therefore, that the research function is not participated in
extensively by most (acuity members.” See Babchuk and Bates, footnote 8, for further figures.
The results of these relatively early studies are confirmed by recent findings. See Yoram
Neumann and Lily Neumann. "Research Indicators and Departmental Outcomes: A Comparison
of Four Academic Fields", in International Social Science Review, Spring 1982, pp. 94-97; and
Michael H. MacRoberts and Barbara R. MacRoberts, “A Re-evaluation of Lotka's Law of Scientific
Productivity”, in Social Studies of Science 12, August 1982, pp. 443-450. Ernst Boyer finds that 60
percent of faculty members have never published or edited a book in their field. See his "The
Faculty: Deeply Troubled”, Change, September-October 1985, p. 34. See also Martin J. Finkelstein.
The American Academic Profession: .4 Syniteu of Social Scientific Inquiry Since World War II (Columbus:
Ohio State University Press, 1986). “ I b e American academic profession”, Finkelstein writes, "is
essentially a teaching as opposed to a scholarly profession", and records that more than half of all
professors devote fewer than five hours a week to research, and that more than a third admit
dial they do no research at all.
’ See also Derek J, de Sofia Price, Little Science, Big Science (New York: Columbia University
Press. 1963), and Barbara F. Reskin, “Scientific Productivity and the Reward Structure of
Science". American Sociological Review. vol. 42. June 1977, pp. 491-564, esp. p. 492. By mentioning
these examples, which relate chiefly to publication. I do not want to endorse the uneconomic and
fallacious assumption, so often found in sociological studies of research, that one's goal should be
output” and "production". For output sometimes represents no growth or development at all.
a
nd output for its own sake — regardless of demand, interest, or usefulness —can he pointless or
oven counterproductive, rather like the continuing manufacture of steel when it is a glut on the
market or the continuing mining of unproductive mines for die sake of keeping miners in the
Joi's that they are used to.
Nor should the counting of publications be taken too seriously. For example. Reskin, just cited,
'’’eluded from her study of scientific productivity among chemists (as she reveals in passing, and
’’•plains only in a footnote) unpublished work, books and patents. She explained that “books
119
2. Our Universities are in the Midst of an Intellectual Slump
Oxford is not obliged to compete. There are no chal-

lengers perpetually ready to depose Oxford from its pre-
eminent position. . . . Oxford, unlike its American counter-
parts, is not out to prove itself. . . . This lends composure
and dignit)'.
The Times Higher Education Supplement"
By many measures —endowments, library budgets, com-

puterization—England's two greatest universities lag behind
their .American rivals. They reign supreme in Britain, but
higher education is a global marketplace. The competition
across the Atlantic has money, talent and ambition galore.
The gap is sure to widen.
The Wall Street Journal'
The information presented in the preceding section corroborates

my claim that our universities are in the midst of an intellectual
slump; they are, in terms of the generation of new knowledge, in a
depression. This does not mean that this is widely recognised. On
the contrary, one often hears claims of new revolutions in the
humanities. Walter Kaufmann, late Stuart Professor of Philosophy at
Princeton, warned that such claims were usually without foundation.
He stated plainly that what has really increased in the humanities is
“the presumption, the loss of self-perception, the delusions of
grandeur about progress, about a revolution in philosophy, and
about working on the frontiers of knowledge".10
represent a very small parr of sample members' publications". No doubt: comparatively fe»
persons publish books. But to ignore such paramount example of productivity, even among
chemists, distorts understanding of scholarly activity. That the omission of patents distorts het
findings she herself acknowledges. (See "Where scientists fear to tread: Peter Medawar accuses hi’
colleagues of lacking the nerve to write books —and tells of those which have most influenced
him", in Times Higher Education Supplement, September 25, 1987, p. 119.)
Nor do I want to endorse the use made by such sociologists of “citation counts”, for citations
are biased towards those who agree with one, or are a part of “accepted and acceptable" sources
from one's own point of view, and thus frequently omit reference to creative challengers to one ’
point of view. In the case of extremely threatening rival viewpoints, there may even occur whs*
can only be described as a conspiracy of silence. For a study of some of these issues see I 1
Jarvie, op. dt.
' Essay by Christopher Rathbone, The Times Higher Education Supplement, February 8, 1980- P
10.
* John Marcom Jr., "Britain's 'Oxbridge' Suffers Lack of Funds, Brain Drain: To Govern
ment. Oxford and Cambridge Universities Are Sodaiist Bulwark", op. dt.
" See Waller Kaufmann. The future of the Humanities (New York: Readers' Digest Pr* ’
1977), p. S8.
120
THE ENTRENCHMENT OF FALSE PHILOSOPHIES
To defend Kaufmann’s diagnosis adequately would require exten-

sive research, and it must be admitted that it goes against some
surface evidence. Thus Warren O. Hagstrom once insisted that “The
American university system is intensely competitive . . . universities
and their component departments compete in a relatively free
market for faculty, students, research facilities, and glory.”" And
what of the study published in 1987 by the Asian Wall Street Journal,
in which it was claimed that between two-thirds and three-fourths of
the world's best universities are in the United States?1* If we take
account of the presence of Oxford and Cambridge in the Journal's
list, we reach the easy conclusion that over three-quarters of the
world’s best universities are in the two main English-speaking lands.
I do not dispute this, nor am I writing only of American or
English-speaking universities. Comparatively speaking, Hagstrom’s
statement, as well as the report from the Asian Wall Street Journal,
are partly true, as is also suggested by the epigraphs to this section.
The top rank of American universities is rather more competitive
than comparable universities elsewhere, and the very top American
and British universities do compare well with their rivals in other
lands. But that does not make them "intensely competitive” let alone
productive. Perhaps it does lend them “composure and dig-
nity”—but only at their peril.
I claim that there is a world-wide slump in knowledge generated
by universities, a slump which prevails in all except a few scientific
disciplines. The point is not to identify the best of a bad lot.
It would of course be foolish to deny that innovative research

does occur in our academic institutions, or that productive geniuses
do spend their lives within university walls. My own experience
leads me to think that there are fewer of these breakthroughs and
individuals than commonly supposed. It is because the university
exists in and interacts with a larger, more competitive culture that
there is as much innovation in it as there is. The most successful
See his "Inputs. Outputs, and the Prestige of University Science Departments", in Sociology
vol. 44, 1971, pp. S75-S97. See also his "Competition in Science", .4mmrun Socuilogical
ttti '■ V °' S9, Fcbruar
Y 1974. pp. 1-18. A more plausible statement from die same period, con-
on competition in physics rather than in universities in general, is found in Jerry
ton, “Secretiveness and Competition for Priority of Discovery in Phvsics", Minerva, vol. 9 ,
1971, p p 472-492.
Sc
n ,, e Henry Rosovsky, "Our Universities Arc the World’s Best: Highest Education". The New
July i s and 20. 1987, pp. 13-14.
121
UN FATHOMED KNOWLEDGE
associations between university departments and innovators seem to

occur in areas that impinge directly on engineering, medicine, and
chemistry”; and some scientific and medical breakthroughs have
been associated, at least initially or in part, with university depart-
ments and laboratories. 14 Such collaboration is in the news, particu-
larly when associated with genetic engineering and engineering
technology, and has been particularly important at about five or six
prominent research centres. Yet real progress has happened in only
a few places, and mainly under special conditions in which commer-
cial and entrepreneurial interests collaborated with universities in
business-like ways to create conditions in which innovators could
flourish, and gain credit and profit from their work—and in which
they were relatively secure both from university bureaucracies and
from the harassment of unproductive colleagues.
This is the bright side of the story. In most other areas the
situation is bleaker. An exception perhaps is the writing of history,
where the great projects of the nineteenth century have been
consolidated, continued, sometimes even completed.” Examples of
See Sarne*. June 10. 1977. p. 1184.

M
See chapter 2 above. See also Joseph Ben-David: "Scientific Productivity and Academic
Organization in Nineteenth Century Medicine", .4mmcan Sociological Review. vol. 25, 1960. pp. 828-
43. Ben-David argues that "the competitive structure of medical research in the United States was
the basis of its eminence in the twentieth century". Sec also Stigler's comments in The Economist as
Preacher, op, dk, p. 117 & n. On the other hand, i t is worth rereading John Rae’s Life of Adam
Smith (London. 1895), pp. 273-80. to recall Adam Smith’s worries about the damaging results of
regulation granting medical monopolies, and his advocacy of free-lance medicine. I t is also worth
remembering the attempt by the N1H National Cancer Institute to monopolize credit for the
identification of the A I D S virus. This is a complicated and interesting story that needs to be
investigated a n d analysed in detail. The virus was first identified in the Pasteur Institute i n Paris
and announced in May 1983— at a time when the N I H claimed itself unable to locate a virus. But
American and British scientific publications were reluctant to publish French reports of their
discovery , and organisers of American medical symposia failed to invite the French to discuss theit
findings. Nearly a year later, in April 1984, in a blaze of hype, the National Cancer Institute
proclaimed its own discovery of the AIDS vims (which turned o u t to be identical to the French
one), and the American secretary' of Health and Human Services, Margaret Heckler, proclaimed
that "Today we add another miracle to the long honor roll of American medicine and science1
There is competition of sorts here, but no free market, for American and British institutions
controlled the main vehicles of scientific reporting, and thus appear to have been able, if only h”
a time, scandalously to suppress the dissemination of vital information. For further discussion of
research on AIDS see chapter 2 above. See also the October 1988 issue of The Scientific American,
where the leading French and American antagonists in this quarrel. 1 believe under government
pressure, work out a compromise, face-saving construction of what happened.
11
For a discussion of the weaknesses as well as the strengths of the new historical writing
see Sheilagh Ogilvie, "Bibliographic Essay: Towards a Critical Classical Liberal History", Human?
Studies Review, vol. 4. no. 2, Spring 1987, pp. 1-15. Whatever the weaknesses of university work i»*
history, i t should not be forgotten that, to win their present place within the universities, histori
ans had to wage a long batde during the last century. Ernest Renan eventually got a chair at the
College de France, but i t was long blocked by the clerical party with the aid of thr French
122
distinguished historians who have worked within universities are

Samuel Eliot Morison, Joseph Needham, Charles Trevelyan, A. ] p
Taylor, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Charles Beard, John Boswell, and even
the much-maligned Arnold Toynbee. The high quality of some
university history departments probably owes much to the fact that
so many fine historians, such as Veronica Wedgwood and Barbara
Tuchman, have practised outside universities, setting standards for
historical scholarship as well as literary and dramatic presentation,
so that it might even be said that university historians have had to
compete for recognition more with outsiders than with departmental
colleagues. Examples from an earlier period of historians who made
their way outside universities, and set high standards, are David
Hume, Edward Gibbon, George Grote, Lord Macaulay, and Albert
Schweitzer. The tradition of excellence is an old, almost an ancient
one. Another reason for the high quality of history within universi-
ties is that large parts of the educated public are passionate about
history and demand high quality. There is money in writing history.
Academic excellence in this area also owes much to the fact that
universities tend to possess the best collections of books and manu-
scripts, so that it makes sense for an historian to associate himself or
herself with a university.
3. Many Innovators Do Their Work Outside Universities
But we should not be misled by a few exceptional areas. Consider

whence most advances in areas outside the sciences really do come.
We find that it is not the universities, as at present organised, that
are chiefly responsible for whatever intellectual innovation occurs, hi
lite humanities apart from history, in the arts, the social sciences
and psychology, and in several areas of the natural sciences, the
greatest advances made during the present century have tended to
come from outside the university—-just as they did in the two
preceding centuries'®.
topetor David Strauss was dismissed from his post at the University of TObingen. and the
“"'nation for him to take a chair at the University of Zurich aroused so much opposition that it
had
to be dropped.
y ’ See Friedrich Paulsen. The German L’ntvmitus: Then Character and Historical Development (New
v Or'r . : Macmillan and Co., 1895). pp. 6f., and The German Universities and University Study (New
* Charles Scribner s Sons. 1906).
123
To shake loose the common notion that culture and innovation

could hardly exist without the university, it is worth recalling the
names of some great innovators, past and present, who have either
conducted their work wholly independently of the university or
whose relationship with universities has been troubled.
Beginning with philosophers, recall that the greatest American
philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), could not hold a
university job and “found it hard to get along with university
presidents and professors". He gave a number of lecture courses at
Harvard in the 1860s, and spent five years as a lecturer at Johns
Hopkins; but neither of these institutions, nor any other, would
keep him, and he spent most of his life working for the United
States Coastal and Geodesic Survey. After his death. Harvard ac-
quired his papers and published his Collected Works. Another emi-
nent American philosopher, George Santayana (1863-1952), gave up
university life while still a comparatively young man and continued
his philosophical work outside the university. Nietzsche resigned his
professorship at the age of 34; and neither Kierkegaard nor Schop-
enhauer held university posts, although Schopenhauer scheduled a
few lecture courses, which no one appears to have attended, at the
University of Berlin.17 Yet two great philosophers, Immanuel Kant
and William James, were indeed professors, and spent almost all
their productive years at universities.
In science, one should not forget that Einstein developed his
early ideas not in a university but in the Swiss Patent Office, that
Faraday worked mainly outside the university, or that the pioneers
of modern biology, evolutionary theory and genetics, Charles Darwin
and Gregor Mendel (not to mention Francis Gallon and Erasmus
Darwin), did all their work independently of universities. A very
recent example is the pioneering work of a Munich patent attorney,
Gunter Wachtershauser, on the origins of life.18 Most of the great
inventors, such as Thomas A. Edison, have also worked outside
universities. To cite another comparatively recent example, the
” Bryan Magee, The Philosophy of Schopenhauer (Oxford: The Clarendon Press. 1983).
” See GOntrr Wachtershauser. “Light and Life: On the Nutritional Origins of Sense
Perception", in Gerard Radnitzky and W. W. Bartley, 111. Evolutionary Epistemology. Rationality. anti
the Sociology of Knowledge, op. dL, pp. 121-138; “An all-purine precursor of nucleic acids”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 85. pp. 1134-1135, February 1988; "Pyrite
Formation: the First Energy Source for Life: a Hypothesis". Systematic and Applied Microbiology, vol
10, 1988, pp. 207-210; "Before Enzymes and Templates: Theory of Surface Metabolism", Microbio-
logical Reviews. vol 52, December 1988; and C. R. Woese and GOnter Wachtershauser, "The
Origin of Life", Encyclopedia of Paleobiology.1989.
124
transistor was developed outside the university by William B.

Shockley, whose ideas on genetics and intelligence are accorded
hardly any hearing within the university.
Or take the revolution in mathematical logic initiated by Gottlob
Frege and carried out by Bertrand Russell and Alfred North White-
head. Frege, the greatest logician of the nineteenth century, did
teach at the University of Jena, but never was promoted beyond the
equivalent of an associate professorship. Whitehead held university
posts throughout his life, but Russell accepted them on only a few
occasions for relatively brief periods, got into difficulties in almost
every post he held, and was dismissed from two of them. During
the crucial years between 1901 and 1910, when Principia Mathemalica
was being written, Russell held no university post; and his attitude
to mathematics within the university has been bluntly recorded 19:
Most Cambridge mathematics consisted in working out problems.

Russell regarded many of these as futile exercises, which had
nothing to do with the fundamental difficulties in the philosophy of
mathematics which really interested him. He questioned the ideas of
his tutors, and decided (rightly) that what he was taught about the
Binomial Theorem and the Infinitesimal Calculus was full of
fallacies. His disgust was so great that, having got through his
Tripos, he sold nearly all his mathematics books, and vowed he
would never do mathematics again.
In the case that concerns us most in this book, that of Popper, we

find that his first three path-breaking books—Die beiden Grundprob-
leme der Erkenntnistheorie , Die Eogtk der Forschung,and The Poverty of
Historicism—were all written prior to his being able to secure a
university appointment. This may only partly ire blamed on the
special conditions prevailing in Austria between the wars, and we
shall review later, in Part HI, some of the difficulties that he had to
face once he did obtain a post.
What of the related field of psychology, which broke away from
the control of philosophy departments only in the early twentieth
century? Here the common man cites the work of Sigmund Freud
and C. G. Jung as revolutionary advances, and there is no disputing
their cultural importance. Yet Freud’s teachings have never been
pan of the ordinary curriculum of university courses in psychology
“ Alan Wood. Bertrand Russell, the Passumale Sreptic (New York: Simon and Schuster. 195ft). p
125
(although they are often presented in introductory humanities and

literature courses). In the United States, it is true, Freudian psychol-
ogy was eventually taught in some professional schools of psychiatry,
but it has chiefly been developed—in so far as it has been devel-
oped at all—by private practitioners, like Freud himself, at work
outside university settings.
Jung has suffered even more severely in the universities. He may
have introduced the terms “introvert" and “extravert” into the
language; he made the term “archetype” familiar to educated
persons; and his Collected Works have been published by Princeton
University Press. He launched an independent branch of an import-
ant calling and an important research program in the humanities,
and several scholarly journals continue to further his research. But
discussion of his work is largely excluded from university depart-
ments of psychology —and from schools of psychiatry too —although
it may occasionally be cited or used in humanities lectures or in
courses in folklore and mythology. Jung’s program is being carried
on chiefly in various Jung Institutes privately established and fund-
ed.
It might be objected, as Popper himself has done, that some of
the work of Freud and J u n g is both false and pseudo-scientific. I
believe that Popper’s claim is true. The claim applies equally howev-
er to the dominant school of psychology still found within university
departments of psychology: behaviourism. Freud and J u n g (and
some of their followers) are at least interesting: Freud writes superb-
ly well, and J u n g often writes well, whereas most behaviouristic
psychology is not only boring but packaged in scientistic jargon.
Popper has rightly called behaviourism “obscurantist".20
What of economics? It was long alleged that economic theory had
been revolutionised by the work of J o h n Maynard Keynes. This
judgement is now being widely withdrawn. Yet suppose it were true.
Although Keynes failed his first Fellowship examination, he eventual-
ly was academically successful at Cambridge. Yet most of his career
was devoted to government service, to the Civil Service and the
India Office, and to finance and investment, even farming. Nor did
the Keynesian revolution (which did not have all that much to do
with Keynes’s own ideas) occur initially within the universities.
* Sec K. R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, op, dt.. p. 298; K. R. Popper a n d J o h n C-

Eccles, The Self and Its Brain, op. at. Sec also Waiter B. Weimer and David S. Palermo, eds .
Coalition antf Symbolic Processes (New York: John Wiley & Sons. 1974), in two volumes.
126
Reynes did win over many of his Cambridge colleagues in the

'thirties, but at the beginning of the Second World War most
academic departments of economics in Britain were still calmly
debating whether the greatest economist was Keynes, or Hayek, or
Robinson; and the vote varied depending on whether one was
listening in at Cambridge, or London, or Birmingham. The Keynes-
ian revolution—and the domination of university economics faculties
for nearly three decades by Keynesian ideas as developed by his
socialist disciples in Cambridge —came about not mainly through the
action of universities or the decisions of the economics faculties
within them, but because such ideas were adopted by British and
American governments to deal with depression and war. University
economists followed meekly after, and Keynes’s opponents, such as
Hayek and Robinson, faded into obscurity. For a brief moment after
Keynes’s death in 1946, it seemed that Hayek might once again be
recognised as the leading economist. Keynes’s ideas continued,
however, to dominate government policy, and by 1949 the Univer-
sity of Chicago’s department of economics refused to appoint Hayek
to a professorship of economics (although it did not object to his
taking up an appointment on the Committee on Social Thought).
But times continued to change, and in 1974, at the age of 75,
Hayek was awarded a Nobel Prize and emerged from years of
obscurity once again. Il is often said again today that he is a far
greater thinker than Keynes.2' And Hayek did spend most of his
long career as an academic.
Several other eminent economists of the past century, including
Hayek’s teacher Ludwig von Mises, did much of their work outside
the university. Mises was unable to secure a professorship in Vienna
or later in New York. Except for a brief period in Geneva he
worked chiefly for the Vienna Chamber of Commerce and in part-
time irregular academic appointments in Vienna and New York.
See reviews of The Fatal Conceit, op. cit. including: "The Fatal Conceit by F. A, Hayek: A
Special Symposium”, Humane Studies Review, vol. 6, no. 2, Winter 1988-89; “Der Socialism us ah
intellektucllei Irrwnf, Neue lurcher Zeitung, 26 October 1988, p. 35; Robert Hetlbroner. “A
Conservative Credo”, The Nation, April 17, 1989, p. 525; Thomas Sowell, "The Moral Glue",
faawn, December 1988, pp. 35-37; Peter F. Drucker, "Understanding Socialism's Failure”, Insight,
Ms
*v 15. 1989. p. 63; Ronald Bailey. “The World Turns”, Forbes, May 15. 1989, pp. 43-44; David
5; Henderson, " W h y Socialism Isn't Dead", Fortune, May 8, 1989, pp. 159-160; Tom Bethell.
Evolutionary Economics". National Review, May 5, 1989, pp. 50-51; Edward H . Crane, "World
Wording to Hayek". The Wall Street Journal, April 20, 1989; Ralph Harris, "Socialism a mis-
take— official". The Sunday Telegraph, November 20, 1988; "The 'champion oF capitalism’ — the
Uected works of economist Hayek". Pubhrk Enterprise, Annapolis, March I , 1989; Hans Middcl-
tnann, "Hayek, the messiah of the market", Buswsj Day. May 12. 1989,
127
Carl Menger, founder of the Austrian School of economics and co-

discoverer of marginal utility, wrote the Grundsatze, on which his
fame rests, prior to winning his post at the University of Vienna
To go a bit farther afield, innovative economists such as David
Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Henry Thornton, Alexis de Tocqueville
and Henry George never held, or wished to hold, university ap-
pointments at all.
On the other hand, Max Weber was a professor, and the recent
work of the Chicago School and of the Public Choice School in
Virginia has been carried on primarily within universities, even if
against the stream.25
What of literature? The production (as opposed to the study) of
literature—of novels, short stories, plays, poetry —is not now and
never has been conducted within the university. There are some
exceptions: professors, such as William H. Gass, do occasionally
write good novels. To take a mixed bag of twentieth-century writers
of fiction of varying degrees of excellence—Robert Musil, Marcel
Proust, Elias Canetti, Thomas Mann, William Faulkner, Hermann
Hesse, John Updike, James Thurber, David Stacton, Virginia
Woolf— none were professors of literature. Nor were Robinson
Jeffers, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, or W. B. Yeats. E. M. Forster took
up an honorary fellowship at King’s College, Cambridge, in his later
years, but held no university post while he was producing his
novels. W. H . Auden held university appointments for brief periods,
and Archibald MacLeish for a rather longer time; but neither
thought of themselves as professors and MacLeish was also a lawyer,
worked in the State Department, and became Librarian of Congress.
The case of music is similar: it is, for the most part, taught and
performed, but not created, within the university. There have been
some exceptions, such as Walter Piston, Roger Sessions, and Leon
Kirchner, but many contemporary composers consider a university
professorship as almost a stigma.
A few great architects have taught in universities. Thus Gropius
and van der Rohe, when fugitives from Hitler’s Germany, took
university jobs in America while re-establishing themselves. But
Frank Lloyd Wright, Adolf Loos, and Le Corbusier were not profes-
sors. Indeed, Frank Lloyd Wright could not get his school ol
iZh** R“*>cn Beich. "Economics Can't Explain Everything". Wall Strut Journal, January
128
architecture accredited—with the result that his followers at Taliesin

could not practice architecture since a degree was required for a
license.
One could go on almost indefinitely, but I have no wish to prove
anything, only to call to mind that scientific, artistic, and literary
innovation not only exist but even thrive outside university enclo-
sures.
4. An Entrenched Network of Ideology
At the same time that much innovation flourishes outside univers-

ities, many areas of the university—especially the humanities and the
social sciences—have become so degenerate that one writer who, like
myself, believes in the ultimate unity of culture, suggests that, at
least for the moment, the continuing existence of Lord Snow’s “Two
Cultures” actually works to the advantage of the general culture.
Irving Louis Horowitz writes:
The continuing gap between the two cultures, . . . however

disquieting on epistemological or ontological grounds, is a plus in
today's university, where so much of the humanities, as well as the
“softer" social sciences have become ideologized. Any co-mingling of
the “literary intellectuals” and the “physical scientists". . . might
cause confusion and serve to becloud the work of science and abet
the purposes of ideology . . . The strength of leading universities is
increasingly centered in the hard sciences and the research tradition
they foster. . . . lire social science groups” stomp and raise a fuss
that often provides internal legitimation without any regard to the
actual achievements of these fields. . . . If a unified learning
environment is to emerge, it must be in the name of science, not as
a sop to ideology.”
Horowitz is rightly concerned with the degeneracy that comes from

a particular type of ideology. University departments, especially in
the humanities and social sciences, tend to serve as bastions for
resistance, and for the entrenchment of false philosophies—just as,
not so long ago, they served as bastions for more explicit forms of
” Amongst these I would place those aspects of philosophy which deal with epistemological
ar
*d methodological questions.
M
Irving Louis Horowitz, "In Defense of Scientific Autonomy: The Two Cultures Revisited",
dcudrmir Quntwns, vol. 2. 1, Winter 1988419, pp. 22-26.
129
religion. This is not surprising. For certain kinds of groups, univer-

sities are handy places in which to have a strong redoubt. They are
handy for groups that are not competitive, that are peddling ideas
for which there is little demand —ideas that do not work, that fail to
explain, and whose proponents are consciously or unconsciously
tempted to turn them into ideologies in order to perpetuate them-
selves or further the groups to which they belong.25 A professorship
provides a living, but little incentive. After all, funding is provided,
and internal scrutiny is more or less within the control of the
professoriate. As David Riesman (who has evidendy been “socialised”
by his experience with universities) put it in one of his sociological
investigations, “A college generous enough to open itself to scrutiny
should not suffer harm as a result”.2* Why not? Why should educa-
tional institutions be protected from the perils of scrutiny?
I should like to give just a few examples to argue the claim that
our universities serve for the entrenchment of false ideologies or
philosophies. The false philosophies that I have in mind (which
sometimes present themselves as sciences rather than as philoso-
phies) are found not only in departments of philosophy, but in most
of the arts and in some of the sciences: they include Wittgensteinian
“analytic" philosophy, logical positivism, phenomenology and herme-
neutics (the view that the world consists of variant misreadings),
behaviourism, pragmatism, determinism, and scientism. The academ-
ic disciplines that diey shape most deeply include physics (especially
in the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics); psych-
ology; sociology; intellectual history and the history of science;
anthropology; literary criticism and the theory of art; and also
professional economics. 27
“ See Antony Flew, Power to the Parente; Reversing Educational Decline (London: Sherwood.
1987).
* David Riesman, “Ethical and Practical Dilemmas of Fieldwork in Academic Settings: A
Personal Memoir”, in Robert K, Merton, James S, Coleman, and Peter H. Rossi, eds., Qualitative
and Quantitative Social Research: Papers in Honor of Paul F. Lazarfeld (New York: The Free Press.
1979), pp. 210-231, csp. pp. 223 and 225.
n
It is curious to find Austrian economists embracing hermeneutics. Hermeneutics has some
of its most important roots in, as well as sharing some of the fundamental theses of, Hiitonsrntv.
which was the main object of Carl Menger’s methodological attack, and the main subject of die
MethoderutreU. It is relativist, idealist (anti-realist), authoritarian, and romanticist in many of
manifestations. Most of its major proponents have embraced political opinions radically opposed
by the founders and traditional leaders of Austrian economics. Thus Herbert Marcuse and mos(
the members of the Frankfurt School were Marxists; Jurgen Habermas and Paul Ricocur rt'
socialists; and Heidegger was, for a time, a leading Nazi. When, after Hitler’s rise to power. Lord
Beveridge (then Sir William, and Director of the London School of Economics), negotiated a
130
These false philosophies, or only slightly different predecessors,

have dominated thinking in university departments for some fifty
years or more, and there is no sign of their early demise. It is a
domination that comes close to control: it is often said that one
man, Gilbert Ryle, the editor of Mind and formerly Waynflete
Professor at Oxford, controlled all major university appointments in
philosophy throughout the former British Empire for nearly twenty
years, in the sense that no one could be appointed without his
agreement. In the post-war years Heidegger exerted a similar power
in West Germany despite his Nazi past. There has been no growth
or even much change in fundamentals in such departments during
the past fifty years despite an avalanche of devastating criticism. It
seems that old Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk was wrong when he wrote
that “Science progresses through the old professors dying off”.28 For
the old professors have died off; and there is still little progress. Far
from dying out, these departments and professions have in recent
years begun to consolidate and extend their influence: they have,
literally, formed intellectual cartels.
This is possible because there are deep underlying structural
similarities, and thus common interests, amongst these several
approaches. Despite different points of departure, and different
historical and geographical origins, they enjoy family resemblances.
contract with the Frankfurt School that would have brought them and their library to the LSE,
Lionel (later Lord) Robbins (then a follower of Austrian economics) learned of Beveridge’s
negotiations at the very last minute when he by chance went into Beveridge’s office. Robbins
immediately ran to Hayek's office at the LSE to enlist his support, and they intervened successful-
ly to thwart Beveridge's plan. There is only one intellectual ancestor of any importance that
Austrian economics and hermeneutics could be said to share —this is Max Weber; and Weber can
•* construed as an ancestor of hermeneutics only by neglecting most of his later methodological
*ntings. whereas most of contemporary hermeneutics would be deeply antithetical to the entire
wust of his thought.
r cr t c snu
w° ‘
. sec *Hans Albert, Treatise onphilosophy
of hermeneutic Cvtiical Reason, the point
from trans- Popper’s
view ofRorty
Mary*of Varney "critical Princeton
(Princeton: rational-
diversity Press, 1985); Hans Albert, "Critical Rationalism: The Problem of Method in Social
Pnccs and Law", Ratio Juris, voL 1, March 1988, pp. 1-19, and, especially, Albert's "Hennencu-
3n< conornics:
Ittft A Criticism of Hermeneutical Thinking in the Sexrial Sciences” , Kuklos, vol. 41,
fas< 4, pp. 573-602. Sec also the essays by Peter Munz and Gerard Radnitzky in G.
nitzky and W. W. Bartley, I I I , eds., Evolutionary Epistemology. Rationality, and the Sociology of
op. dt. On Hans-Georg Gadamer, see Jonathan Barnes, "A Kind of Integrity", in
don Review of Books, November 6, 1986, pp. 12-13; on Habermas see Roger Scruton, "Thinkers
£ jOrgen Habermas", Salisbury Review, October 1984, pp. 22-27.
gg- $ ce J- Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954), p.
131
Thai is, there are deep structural similarities” amongst behaviour-

ism, positivism, hermeneutics, linguistic philosophy, determinism,
and scientism—even if some of them see themselves occasionally a s
opposing one another. When 1 first made this declaration, in early
195750, hardly anyone would take it seriously, and I turned to other
interests. Since then, behaviourists, positivists, hermeneuticists and
linguistic philosophers have noticed the affinities for themselves, and
such philosophers as Hubert Dreyfus and Richard Rorty have
acquired a certain reputation for triumphantly pointing out these
similarities—as if to show that u we are all right". (It was with sad-
ness that 1 had noticed the same similarities—thinking that they are
all wrong, and for some of the same reasons!) These structural
similarities include, especially, justificationism” (see chapter 15
below), which in turn spawns relativism.
5. The Ritual Styles that Support the Ideologies
A common “style” contributes to the affinities amongst these

philosophical approaches—the style of obscurantism. Obscurantism
presents itself in two main forms, sometimes combined. First, there
is the conspicuous deployment of mathematical formalism in places
where it serves no purpose; second, there is lack of clarity in speech
and presentation, the most ostentatiously obscurantist being Wittgen-
steinian and Heideggerian philosophy. One can understand this
from an economic point of view: the production cost of obscurantist
philosophy is particularly low: those who must listen to it, learn it,
and think in terms of it are those who pay the price. Such philoso-
phies are hard to criticise, and thus are the better protected, being
shielded behind a barricade of jargon and infused with the doctrine
that what appears difficult must be deep, whereas whatever is clear
must be superficial.
" See my The Retreat to Commitment, op. etc, and my "Rationality versus the Theory of
Rationality", in Mario Bunge, ed.. The Cntual Approach to Science and Philosophy (New York: Free
Press, 1964), and chapter 14 below.
** I n a graduate paper, never published, arguing the structural similarities between (hr
philosophy of Heidegger and American neo-pragmatism. as represented in the work of C. I
Lewis.
11
The way in which justificationism works to diminish criticism is explained in the introduc-
tion to the second edition of my The Retreat to Commitment, op. ciu
132
Take as an example the ritual practice of mathematics. Lest I

mislead, I should mention that my doctorate is in logic and scientif-
ic method, and that I regard the discoveries of this century in
mathematics and metamathematics as amongst the greatest human
achievements. I am not opposed in any way to mathematics; nor do
1 blame those who have fallen under its spell, for it is a most
wonderful enchantress.
Yet the two fields that concern me here, philosophy and econom-
ics. have impoverished themselves by an addiction beyond all rea-
son, even an enslavement, to mathematics. Since I am recommend-
ing the value of economics in understanding the growth of knowl-
edge. I want to emphasise again (see chapter 5 above) that I do not
endorse all that goes on in contemporary departments of economics.
First to the misuse of mathematics in philosophy.

Much contemporary British and American philosophy focuses on
mathematical logic, and on an activity known as “meaning analysis’’
that is as vague and undisciplined—and unanalytical—as logic itself
is precise. There is a reason for this: it was discovered that many of
the old logical paradoxes could be resolved through a kind of
meaning analysis involving metamathematical techniques. And philos-
ophers were understandably excited by the thought that they might
resolve many of the ancient problems of philosophy in exactly the
same way. It was a brilliant idea, and has become a program con-
trolling much research in philosophy. But there is a fatal flaw in it.
The parallel does not hold. It is the self-referential character of the
logical paradoxes (e.g., the liar paradox: “I am lying now") that
enables them to be treated by a sort of meaning analysis.” But the
traditional problems of philosophy (as opposed to the paradoxes of
logic) do not involve self-reference; the entire program is thus
beside the point and —despite having been practised for nearly fifty
years now, by some three generations of philosophy professors— has
produced no result except to drive bored undergraduates out of
philosophy courses at a moment when the world is deeply divided
on ideological and philosophical lines (see Part IV).
A similar enchantment with mathematics reigns in economics,
although the details are different, and the original idea was less bril-
liantly inspired. Of course economists should know mathematics, but
** See my Lrwu Carroll's Symbolic Logic (New York; Clarkton N. Poller, lnc„ 1977. second
billon, 1986). pp. 23-27; and my Wingmslern , 2nd edition, op. cit., pp. 58-60.
133
UNFA! HOMED KNOWLEDGE
the elaborate mathematics associated with the Walrasian idea of

general equilibrium—a state in which all markets and economic
agents are simultaneously in balance with regard, for example, to
supply and demand—is couched in preposterous assumptions.
Although the economist W. T. Thornton had already criticised the
theory of equilibrium in 1869,” John Stuart Mill at first misunder-
stood. and then could not bring himself to accept, the criticism, and
W. Stanley Jevons insisted that the “Theory of Economy . . . pres-
ents a close analogy to the science of Statical Mechanics, and the
Laws of Exchange are found to resemble the laws of Equilibrium of
a Lever”.54 Equilibrium, an idea taken from classical mechanics and
denoting a balance of opposing forces, does have a limited analogi-
cal usefulness in economics. But many economists have taken it as
the basis of a mathematical apparatus employing simultaneous
equations that is supposed to be a powerful analytical tool useful in
understanding ordinary economic conditions.
So close an analogy between physics and economics is utterly
untenable. For it has always been assumed—and was assumed at
Jevons’s time—that classical mechanics can describe physical proces-
ses only to the extent that they are reversible in time.” It is as-
sumed, that is, that any film taken of a classical process would be
reversible in the sense that, if it were inserted into a projector with
the last picture first, it would again yield a possible classical pro-
cess.”
When economists took over the notion of equilibrium from classi-
cal (non-statistical) mechanics, they evidently did not understand it;
M
Sec William 11100135 Thornton, On Labour (London: Macmillan & Co., 1869, second edition
1870); John Stuart Mill. “Thornton on labour and its claims* (1869) in Essays on Economics and
Society (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967), pp. 631-68. See Taskashi Negishi, “Thom
ton's criticism of equilibrium theory and Mill", History of Political Economy, vol. 18, 1986, p p . 567-
577.
M
W. S. Jevons, The Theory of Political Economy (New York: Kelley & Millman, 1871), p. viii
” 1 had feared that I must be the only one to have noticed how damaging this assumption
for the whole project of neoclassical economics. 1 a m delighted to report that, since writing this
chapter, I have had the chance to read an unpublished manuscript by Jack Sommer, of the
National Science Foundation— “Unifying Themes in Non-Mainstream Economics: A Proposal
(1986} —which pursues a similar line of argument (also by reference to the work of Prigoginc)
with regard to reversibility and equilibrium in economics. As this book is going to press I have
found the point also noticed in Philip Mirowski. dguiru/ Mechanism: Protecting Economics from Sciw
(Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 1988), p. 26.
** For this assumption see Max Born: Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance (Oxfool
Clarendon Press, 1949), esp. pp. 25ff. For criticisms of the position, see K . R. Popper: "The
.Arrow of ’rune", Mshtrr. March 17, 1956, p. 538; “Irreversibility and Mechanics", Nature. AugU* 1
18. 1956, p. 382; and E. L. Hill and Adolf Grunbaum: "Irreversible Processes in Physical
Theory". Nature. June 22. 1957. pp. 1296-97.
134
for it is unlikely that they could really have wanted to import such
an assumption. In economics, as in the life sciences generally, one
deals with processes assumed from the outset to be irreversible. Not
that economists ordinarily think that any state of equilibrium will be
long preserved, but they do not expect or allow for a return to an
earlier state. Rather, economics (at least when it is dealing with what
happens in the world, as opposed to spinning models for their own
sake) treats open systems and the evolution of higher structures. If
there were any doubt about the possibility or potentialities of such
systems, Ilya Prigogine has shown that open systems far from
equilibrium can build u p new structures rather than moving towards
entropy: chaos at the microscopic scale can yield order in the
macrocosm.’ 7
Of course many contemporary economists welcome such develop-
ments. Unfortunately they cannot do so consistendy while retaining
much of the theory of general equilibrium. The processes men-
tioned —being intrinsically unpredictable—are also incompatible with
the assumption of “perfect knowledge" that lies at the heart of
general equilibrium theory and which is, in turn, an import into
economics (usually not recognised or acknowledged) from now
obsolete Laplacean physics and its perfectly informed "demon" (no
doubt an ideal social manager) that is able to predict any state of
affairs with any required degree of precision. Nor does this difficulty
from physics stand alone. There is also die crucial problem that the
assumption of perfect knowledge is incompatible with the unfathom-
able character of objective knowledge (see Part I above).
Actually, such historical points may be academic except in show-
ing that the scientistic analogy to physics is faulty. For it is now
known that the old assumption of the reversibility of all classical
mechanical processes is false, and that irreversible classical processes
do exist. A simple example is that of the propagation of a wave
from a center. A film taken of a large surface of water initially at
fest into which a stone is tossed will, if reversed, show contracting
n
Ilya Prigogine: From Being to Becoming: Time and Complexity m /Ar Physical Sciences (San Fran-
00
jjj * W. H . Freeman, 1980). esp. pp. 88-89; Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Order out of
Man’s New Dialogue with Nature (New York: Bantam, 1984); and Ilya Prigogine. “’lime,
Structure. and Fluctuations", Science, vol 201, no. 4358, September I , 1978, p 777, See also A.
™*tein. Annalen der Phynk vol. 17, 1905. pp. 549-560. and vol. 19. pp. 371-381; and i n
Zeitschnft, vol. 1, 1919. p. 821. See Popper’s discussion in The Open Universe, op. di.,
gM Jeremy Clampbell, Grammatical Man. Information, Entropy, Language, and Life (New York: Simon
Schuster, 1982).
135
circular waves of increasing amplitude, and a circular region of

undisturbed water will close in towards the center. But such pro.
cesses are not possible in classical mechanics as usually understood.’8
Even in non-classical statistical mechanics, such processes are, al-
though physically possible, extremely improbable.’9
There are other problems too: general equilibrium as often con-
ceived by economists would also involve instantaneous adjustments
to change involving action at a distance—which (whatever may
eventually be decided about Bell’s theorem and the world of the
quantum*0) could hardly apply to economic exchange.
These simple objections—ones that any physicist might raise—are
decisive, and economists who continue to practice the conventional
economics of general equilibrium theory in ignorance of these objec-
tions, or without taking account of them, are simply acting out
established rituals.
Additional objections can also be raised. There are for instance
the familiar (and related) objections arising in Austrian economics
that the theory of equilibrium assumes perfect competition, takes no
account of and is unable to handle time, and is incompatible with
methodological individualism. The leading effect of general equi-
librium theory within economics has “been the endless formalisation
of purely logical problems without the slightest regard for the
production of falsifiable theorems about actual economic behaviour,
which, we insist, remains the fundamental task of economics”*1. Yet
“ Incidentally, the irreversibility involved here is independent of that other sense of equilib
n u m having to do with entropy increase. See the articles cited in the previous footnote.
" Even Newtonian physics was. contrary to what is usually supposed, indeterministic, as has
been maintained by Popper since 1950 (for discussion and earlier references, see his: The Open
Universe: An Argument for Indeterminism, op. dL, and Quantum Them and the Schism in Physics. op
cit.). Tile view has now been confirmed by Sir James Lighthill in “lite recently recognized failure
of predictability in Newtonian dynamics", Proceedings of the Royal Society, A. vol. 407. 1832.
September 8, 1986. pp. 35-47.
" See J. F. Clauser and M. A Horne. Physical Review, D 10, 526, 1974; T. D, Angelidis.
"Bell's Theorem; Does the Ctauser-Home Inequality Hold for All local Theories?", Physical Review
Letters, vol. 51, 1819, 1983; Anupam Garg and A J. Leggett. "Comment" in Physical Review Letters
vol. 53, 1019-1020, 1984; A O. Barut and P. Metstre, “Rotational Invariance. Locality, and
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Experiments", in Physical Review Letters, vol 53, 1021, 1984; and "An-
gelidis Responds", Physical Review leUen, vol. 53. 1022. 1984. See also James T. Cushing-
“Comment on Angclidis's Universality Claim*. Physical Review Letters, vol. 54. 2059, 1985.
“ Mark Blaug: The Methodology of Economics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1980),
p. 192. For a review of Blaug's book see I. C. Jarvie, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
34, September 1983, pp. 289-295. Ollier students of the matter have taken an even dimmei vie*
of developments in contemporary professional economics. See Richard Whitley, The Intellectual a '“
Social Organuatum of the Sciences (Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1984), who writes of economics, "tl"’
dominant theoretical framework is well entrenched in the major graduate schools, the centra
journals, and the international prestige system. Tight control is exercised over intellect"-1
136
the real faults of the theory are, from the point of view of logic,
physics, and the life sciences, more basic: the project of general
equilibrium theory is not just useless, irrelevant, and futile. It is
incoherent.
Why then does the program continue to dominate professional
departments of economics? A very brief answer may be sketched.
Just as an unexamined assumption about self-reference motivated
the mathematical program within philosophy, so an unexamined
circularity underlies the use of mathematical equilibrium theories in
economics.'1* To understand this circularity and the role it plays, one
must understand the change in economics that took place between
the time of Adam Smith and that of Ricardo and his successors.
There are two very different approaches to the tasks of econom-
ics. Both perceive a problem of coordination at the basis of economic activity
and any theory that might account for it. The first of these stems from
Adam Smith and David Hume. Smith saw economics as dealing
chiefly with “the nature and causes of the wealth of nations”.
Smith’s arguments against the protectionists of his time did not
dispute their aims, to accumulate treasure4’, but insisted that their
policies, contrary to intention, led to the decrease rather than the
increase of wealth. Within Smith’s approach the existence of scarci-
ties is acknowledged, but no fundamental scarcity is assumed. This
approach is reflected in the present book—and is illustrated in the
unfathomable character of knowledge as a source of unmeasured
wealth. On this first view, economics should study how the self-
interested actions of competing individuals can—unbeknownst to the
agents themselves—coordinate to produce surpluses or wealth that
can benefit not only the individuals who initially generate it but
their communities. This approach is concerned with the problem,
stated earlier, of explaining the differential production of wealth in
different localities, and explains this phenomenon chiefly in terms of
I’Horitics, the selection of 'real' problems, and the sort of analysis which is admissible. . . . Of
special note . i s the domination of undergraduate and postgraduate instruction in economics
“T ■* small number of textbooks which inculcate a distinct and rather rigid set of intellectual
I’pKiices . . . . The price paid by the insistence on analytical coherence and restriction has been
Ule
increasing difficulty of using economic theory to explain empirical phenomena " (pp I84-IH5).
I B - . * For an analysis of these matters, sec Stephen Kresge's Introduction to F. A. Hayek. Afeney
’’“bottom, being vol. 5 of TV Collected Works of F. A. Hayek (Chicago: University of Chicago
rrtu
. 1990. in press).
“ On this point Smith remained a bit of a mercantilisL See Charles P. Kindiebcrger,
w Monetarism and Other Essays m Financial History (London: George .Allen Hr Unwin.
88s
>. p 17.
137
U N FATHOMED KNOWLEDGE
the effects of different laws, institutions, and traditions. The most

general conclusion of this approach is that wealth grows most
rapidly where the state interferes least in the actions of individuals.
The coordination between free individual action and general benefit
best occurs, and order and wealth are better produced (just as
living order is produced according to evolutionary theory) spon-
taneously rather than by design.
Although historians of economics often present the transition from
Smith and Hume to David Ricardo and his successors as a gradual
one, the research programs underlying their several approaches are
so different in aims, assumptions, and problems that presentations
that stress continuity are often misleading. Classical and neo-classical
economics, out of which the theory of equilibrium arises, had by the
nineteenth century strayed from the growth-oriented economics of
Smith, and began to operate in terms of a different problem of
coordination.
Ricardo provides a clear, early illustration of the difference. Ri-
cardo admonished Thomas Malthus, who still held to the approach
of Smith and Hume, in the following words:
Political economy you think is an enquiry into the nature and

causes of wealth—I think it should be called an enquiry into the
laws which determine the division of the produce of industry
amongst the classes who concur in its formation. No law can be
laid down respecting quantity, but a tolerably correct one can be
laid down respecting proportions. Every day 1 am more satisfied
that die former enquiry is vain and delusive, and the latter only
the true objects of the science. 44
Here too the problem is a kind of coordination—a coordination of

division. How is the product to be divided amongst the various
classes that produce it? The division is to be determined by certain
laws of proportions, and the general theory of equilibrium is sup-
posed to achieve this result.
By the time one reaches the Cambridge University economist
Alfred Marshall, Ricardo's view had triumphed. Scarcity was no"
assumed, and the main problem of economics became how to effec1
a division of a relatively small pie amongst relatively many claimant*
“ David Ricardo. Letter to Thoma* Malthus. October 9, 1820. in David Ricardo. I*""
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1951). vol. 8, pp. 278-279.
138
for it- Underlying the law of diminishing returns, for example, is an

assumption of absolute scarcity. The division was, in the circum-
stances. to be effected by bidding for pieces of the pie, a bidding
that would express itself in terms of prices. Ultimately, in the course
o f this bidding, supply and demand would balance, i.e., equilibrium
would appear. General equilibrium theory, supply and demand
curves, and all the usual apparatus of conventional economics
express these relationships. Equilibrium theory has the effect of
making the phenomena of economics appear to happen in accor-
dance with impersonal forces, and relieves individual economists (or
other participants) of any responsibility for what really does hap-
pen—or of accounting for it.
The circularity mentioned above enters here. Within the theory of
equilibrium, which attempts to account for the balancing of supply
and demand in situations of scarcity, the key terms—money and
prices—are defined in terms of one another. Economic values are
measured in prices, prices are measured in money, but the value of
money is determined by prices. Hence there is no standard, no
point of reference. But it is thought that a point of reference is
needed: to have equilibrium, a change on one side must call forth a
corresponding change on the other. Hence there is pressure from
one direction to calculate in terms of a given, fully determinable
and measurable amount of scarce resources, and pressure from the
other direction to calculate in terms of a fixed, fitlly determinable,
precisely valued supply of money. That which is to be expressed in
the variables of equilibrium theory is, from the outset, limited and
determinate. A change on one side must lead to a corresponding
change on the other, reflected in supply and demand curves. If the
Quantity of a commodity available rises vis d vis demand, the price
°< the commodity must fall.
However, there neither is nor can be a fixed amount of stuff: as
our account of unfathomed knowledge illustrates, one can neither
know nor value what is really there. The accessed slice of the knowl-
edge-product changes with time and circumstances, and one’s
Va
luation of it changes accordingly. How then would one restore
equilibrium? Only by fixing the other side of the equation: the
supply of money. But this cannot be done either. No standard or
*ed point lies on either side. The only way to preserve equilibrium
eory is to render its terms circular. This has the disastrous consc-
ience that it ceases to pertain to the real world and loses any ex-
P natory power. In such a context the low content of pronounce-
139
ments by economists should come as no surprise—as is illustrated by

the eminent economist Lawrence R. Klein’s remarkable statement
that “Most of the shocks in the past 10 or 20 years have been great
surprises”. 44
The entire approach, depending on determinate, fixed terms
must be abandoned. In economics, as in life, most relationships are
and remain indeterminate. The unfathomable nature of knowledge
insures the indeterminability of virtually any product.
***•
The ritual aspect of all this is the repetition, year after year, of
graduate rites of initiation. Much of the mathematics used, both in
philosophy and in economics (and in some other disciplines) fails to
advance knowledge, and functions chiefly as a rite of initiation into
increasingly esoteric professions. Anthropologists report that amongst
the most effective devices for generating commitment is to compel
initiates to master and to adopt absurdity—and the more highly
complicated and difficult of mastery the absurdity, the greater its
effectiveness in generating commitment. And So, I believe, it is
here. 4*
These ritual practices aid the formation of intellectual cartels: the
adoption of common ceremonies eases the formation of coalitions.
The alignment as cartels of the originally separate philosophies men-
tioned earlier began long ago. Morton White pointed the way in his
Toward Reunion in Philosophy in 1956.47 Hubert Dreyfus and Richard
Rorty have, as mentioned, continued the task more recently with
only slightly different examples. 41* White, Dreyfus and Rorty are not
•’ Sec “Global Risk: Problem for Reagan's Plan", Wall Street Journal, November 9, 1981, p. 1
“ Ernest Gellner, Words and Things (London: Gollancz, 1959).
” (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956).
“ Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press.
1979). See Peter Muni's brilliant dissection of Rorty's work in Bartley and Radnitzky, eds., Evolu
tionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge, op. dt. Hans Albert's Treatise on
Critical Reason, op. dt., can be seen as a reply to this particular cartel. He writes (pp. xiii-xiv)
This book . . . was devised to present critical rationalism as an alternative to the philosophy - i;
views characteristic of the German situation: the conception of the Frankfurt School; hermeneutic
thinking as represented by Hans-Georg Gadamer, a former student of Martin Heidegger; analvtx
philosophy, which — foremost under the influence of the posthumous writings of Ludwig Witt
genstein — began to gain a foothold here; and logical empiricism, which had then influenced
philosophy of science through the writings of Wolfgang Stegmuller. . . . Gadamer's hermeneutic
thinking has spread to America, as has the thinking of the Frankfurt School . . . . But when I
tried to discuss these views with people outside of Germany, 1 found that many know nothing at
all about the criticisms that are available in Germany."
140
pities of these philosophies; rather, they enter the scene as facilita-

ors and mediators to enable cartels to be formed. Far from seeing
heir wares as problematic, they sense their similarities, and try to
•licit from them a core in terms of which reconciliation and cooper-
ion may be achieved—reconciliation and, with it, further domina-
tion of the intellectual marketplace, further exclusion of rival points
5 f view. A nice example, as we saw earlier, is the teaching of “Clear
flunking’’, where American philosophers have tried to establish
themselves as those who must be consulted in this area.
5. The Little Innovation that Does Exist in Most Universities Is Generated by

Competition from Other Institutions
1 suggested earlier that universities are as innovative as they are,

due chiefly to the competition they face from other institutions. To
he extent that university disciplines must compete with independent
organisations, institutes for advanced study, research institutes or
‘think-tanks", multiple and overlapping professions, newspapers and
periodicals, their power to inhibit the growth of knowledge is
Ibsened. 49 But they resist such diminishment of their power, and
ntempt to reduce such competition from without as well as competi-
tion from within. Cartels, professions and guilds, when found in the
ordinary marketplace, often present themselves and their interests to
government as lobbies. The cartels entrenched in universities have
It is interesting that Albert, whom Popper has described as "by far the most important
Mltemporarv Oerman social philosopher", began his career as an economist and continues to
told economic views of a generally “Austrian” perspective. See his Marklsouologu und Enbchad-
mgdopS (Neuwied am Rhein und Berlin: Luchterhand. 1967), See also Albert's “Hermeneutik
*nd Realwi&senschaft", in Pladoyer fiir kntischrn Rntioiuilismus (Munich: R. Piper & Co.. 1971);
Nteologische Holzwege (Tubingen: J . C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebcck) Verlag, 1973); Transzrndentale
heiumercten: Karl Otto Apcls Sprachspiele und setn hermeneutischrr Gott (Hamburg: Hoffmann und
iunpc, 1975); "Geschichte und Gescta", in K. Salamun. Sozialphdosophie als Aufklarung: Festschrift
Sr Ernst TopUsch (Tubingen: J . C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebcck) Verlag. 1979); Traktal Uber rationale
!Wcm (Tubingen: J . C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebcck) Verlag, 1978); and “MUnchhausen oder dcr
Stuber der Reflexion" and ”Transzenden taler Realismus und rationale Heuristik", both in his
gftttnschaft und die Fehlbarkeit der Vemunft (Tubingen: J- C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebcck) Verlag, 1982).
iec also Hans Albert and Herbert Keuth, eds., Kniik der kniischen Psychologic (Hamburg: Hoffman
Ind Campe, 1973). In his “Hermeneutik und Realwissenschaft", Albert argues that valid elements
if the older hermeneutical school can be "continued within the framework of critical rationalism
t’t., Popperian thought) by taking into account the linguistic work of Karl Buhler" See also
Argon von Kempski, “Die Well als Text", in Berechungen. Kritische I'ersuche zur Philosophic der
•tgenwart (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1964), pp. 585fT. On Heidegger see also Walter Kaufmann.
tiscovcnng the Mmd: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Buber, Vol. II (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980).
* See “Of Policy and Pedigree". The Economist. May 6. 1989, pp, 52-54.
141
devised ways to obtain support that many lobbyists might envy: they
have infiltrated the government. They have brought pressure to
create (and then they have virtually captured control of) such bodies
as the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National
Endowment for the Arts.50 Where there exists a strong profession
backed by government agencies, it becomes more cost-effective for
academic groups to attempt to manipulate or even take over the
government or professional apparatus, and more expensive to
engage in the competitive behaviour that creates social surpluses
such as the advancement of knowledge. In the circumstances, one
may wonder how much separation of ideology and state still exists
in American education.” National research agencies tend to be
staffed by members of the same professions, guided by the same
presuppositions, as those whom they fund. In those areas that deal
with the mind, the dwelling place of human freedom —psychology,
education, and philosophy—control, funding, and licensing is in the
hands of departments, academies, and professional guilds whose
directorates interlock with state bureaucracies.52 With such support
they can last for a long time, whereas business cartels usually fall
apart after a relatively short period.
Not only state control is involved. Entrenched ideologies posing
as the only legitimate producers of professionals, and exercising
exclusive power to license and grant credentials through universities,
gain control of institutions formally independent of universities, such
as professional associations, and from there—appealing to the power
to license and give credentials that they already control—gain even
greater access to state power and funding (which is itself usually the
source of professional licensing power) the better to police, through
rewards and punishments of various sorts, their own domains. The
tentacles of the ideologies extend outward to tap the power of the
Sec Edward C, BanfirId, The Democratic Muse: Visual Arts and the Public Interest (New York
Basic Books, 1984); Heinz Pagels, The Dreams of Reason (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), p
38; and Arthur Squires, The Tender Ship (Boston: Birkhauser. 1986).
*’ The lack of separation begins of course in the secondary schools, for which an elaborate
system of state control of belief has been created. See the studies collected by Robert B. Everhart,
ed., in The Public School Monopoly: d Critical Analysis of Education and the State in American Society
(San Francisco: Pacific Institute. 1982). The strongest resistance to government activity in research
appears to come from biological scientists. Sec Jack Sommer, American Scientist, May-June 1987
and Sidney Self, "Government, university bureaucracies squander research", op. cit. See al-'1
Simon Rottenberg, "The Economy of Science: The Proper Role of Government in the Growth •'*
Science". Mtnma, vol. 19. no. I, Spring 1981. pp. 43-71.
" See S. David Young, Tht Kulf of Exprrts: Occupational he castng m America (Washington, D 1
Cato Institute. 1987).
142
T H E ENTRENCHMENT OF FALSE PHILOSOPHIES
professions and of the state, and then turn back upon their mem-
bers to enforce conformity.55 Eventually, in the course of the expan-
sions and contractions that mark this process, few uncontrolled
sources of ideology (apart from the free-thinking individual, on
whom all hope rests) are left to staff whatever independent positions
may remain for a time—such as those provided by the platforms of
occasional institutes, newspapers and periodicals. But how long can
these be independent? And if they can be independent can they also
be taken seriously by those who grant credibility—or must whatever
they say, at least if it is critical, be dismissed?
7. What Are the Preconditions for Correction?
What can be done? There is no room in this book for a resolu-

tion of the problems of the universities. As mentioned earlier (chap-
ter 4), and as George Stigler confirms in The Intellectual and the
Marketplace, it is no easy thing to reform an evolved institution with-
out damaging it.54
One can however say something briefly about what would be re-
quired economically,and what has been required historically, to begin
to deal with such problems of stagnation. It is for instance a com-
monplace of economic history that, contrary to old Marxist doctrine,
technological or other innovation alone will not bring about eco-
nomic growth. To produce growth, institutions and laws are needed
which provide incentives to implement whatever innovations occur.
What this means in practice is however sometimes missed. I have
already alluded to the case of Karl Popper, and will devote the
whole of Part III to it. What it will show, very clearly, is that
innovations may be made—and in that sense knowledge does
grow—but that these innovations may not be pul into effect where
and when they are most relevant and needed, and where they could
have a revolutionary effect. So knowledge “grows”, and yet the
” See Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Mediant (New York; Basic Books,
1982), and the review by William R. Beer, “The Fault Lies Not in Our ‘Starrs’ But in Our
Sociology", Academic Questions, vol. 1, no. 3, Summer 1988, pp. 64-73. Sec also the reviews in The
Journal of American History, September 1983, pp. 433-434, The American Historical Review. vol, 89,
April 1984. pp. 532-533, Political Science Quarterly, vol. 98, Winter 1983-84, pp 708-709. The
American Political Science Review, vol. 78, September 1984, pp. 811-812, .4menrun Journal of Sociology,
VoL
90, 1984, pp. 197-199. and Social Forces, vol. 62, December 1983, pp. 550-551.
M
George J . Stigler, The Intellectual and the Marketplace, enlarged edition, op. cit.. especia y
chapter 1.
143
growth is very abstract in the sense that it is not used —and thus
does not grow in proportion to its potential. Such ideas may be
neglected for centuries; or they may never be implemented.
One need not resort to philosophy to illustrate this effect. Take
agriculture. Three-crop rotation was invented in the eleventh centu-
ry but did not spread within Europe at that time. Indeed, the
invention was virtually ignored. Why? Agriculture was organised and
operated communally, so that little advantage accrued to any partic-
ular individual in attempting to implement any such innovation. For
example, a non-innovator would profit as much as any innovator
himself would: he would be what economists call “a free rider”. In
addition, transaction costs to the innovator were involved in any
such initiative. It would be prohibitively costly in terms of time, and
probably also in terms of payments of various sorts, to reach what-
ever agreements would be necessary to implement the changes.
Many others would have to agree; established ways of operating
would have to be overthrown; people would have to stop doing
what they knew how to do, i.e., they would have to stop repeating
(one of the most difficult things for anyone to do, and something
that is almost never done without clear and present advantage). In
the circumstances, there was little clear advantage to anyone to
implement the change. It is this possibility, which is always present
when an innovation is made, that I referred to earlier, when writing
of Kuhn, as the problem of the cost of overthrowing a paradigm.
If we remain for a moment with our agricultural innovation, we
find that not until the seventeenth century, some six hundred years
after the invention, was it fully in effect. Why? Institutions and laws
pertaining to individual property, ownership rights, and market
exchange had by that time gradually developed, especially in the
Netherlands where, already by the middle of the sixteenth century,
the monopolistic rights of local guilds and corporations had been
greatly weakened. Something very similar happened in England
during the same period of time. These institutional and legal
changes, and the accompanying weakening of the guilds, created
economic incentives by reducing transaction and other costs, as a
result of which innovation began to pay both for the individual and
for his community. It was also then that the scientific and industrial
revolutions began. Indeed, only with the improvement in agricultur-
al methods did it become possible to sustain the larger populations
required to support the industrial revolution.
144
When we turn to our example from philosophy, our discussion of

the case of Karl Popper in Part III should make plain some of the
enormous information, transaction, and opportunity costs, disad-
vantages to entrenched philosophical cliques and guilds, and changes
in institutions, conventions of behaviour, and practices pertaining to
appointment, recognition, acknowledgement, and intellectual owner-
ship that would be entailed by the implementation of a genuine
intellectual revolution in just one corner of our universities.
To go further, and to deal with the situation as a whole, the costs
would be enormous. I agree with Lester Thurow’s radical suggestion
that entire colleges and universities within the over-built state
university network could and should simply be eliminated.55 But I
do not foresee that any such thing will happen. Another somewhat
less radical step in correcting the situation would be the abolition of
tenure for all new appointments at all levels. Tenure, which rein-
forces guild behaviour, could be replaced by some form of term
contract based on performance, and the British, under Mrs. Thatch-
er's government, have recently shown that it is politically possible
virtually to abolish tenure. Another possible measure of reform
might be a return to some variant of the old German Privatdozen-
tur, wherein one earned a right to teach within the University
without being at the same time awarded a guaranteed, and steadily
increasing, income for life, and where one’s remuneration depended
in large part on direct payments from students. Such a system could
be quite practical. If the often-proposed voucher system were
extended to permit payments to individual teachers, the problem of
income would be mitigated—at least for superior teachers—and
something like a market would be created at the same time that the
power of the guilds was diminished. In any case, public financial aid
could be withdrawn from institutions (including state universities)
and be given instead directly to students on a strictly competitive
basis. Indeed, the paths and institutions that lead to centralisation
and to the formation of intellectual cartels would need to be
blocked at every possible point. The national Endowments, Founda-
tions, and Institutes for the arts, the humanities, medicine, and the
sciences should all be done away with, and nothing put in their
place, so that power could be divided, and then divided again, and
regional competition could come better into play.
M
Lester C. Thurow, 7%r Zero-Sum Solution: Building a World-Class American Economy (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1985).
145
To discuss and develop such reforms—some of which would be,

practically and politically speaking, extremely difficult—is the subject
for another book. Meanwhile, can we summarise the discussion of
this Part? The argument and historical examples already given (as
well as the case study that is to come in the next Part), suggest that
institutions, laws and conventions are all crucial to the growth of
knowledge as well as of wealth. Effective institutions embody knowl-
edge and incorporate innovations, and these are all forms of capital.
Thus certain societies are poorer than others in that they lack
certain institutions and are dominated by certain other institutions;
and certain institutions are poorer than others in that they lack
certain conventions to govern them.
These circumstances help explain the phenomenon to which we
turn in the next Part, the curious differential dissemination, in
different sectors of the intellectual marketplace, of the Popperian
revolution: the acceptance of his leading ideas amongst scientists and
many members of the educated public, and his virtual exclusion—as
well as the distortion and suppression of his ideas —amongst profes-
sional philosophers.
8. A Modest Proposal: The Sociology of Knowledge Must Be Replaced by the

Economics of Knowledge
Representatives of sociology of knowledge often claim that their

field can or should replace epistemology. Rather, the sociology ol
knowledge needs to be replaced by the economics of knowledge, a
subject of which epistemology is a crucial branch. In the concluding
chapter of Part I, I outlined the basic flaws in the sociology ol
knowledge. Before concluding this Part, I should like to return once
more to the sociology of knowledge, and to append some account ol
the differences between sociology and economics of knowledge.56
“ Differences between economic and sociological approaches are essential yet often forgot 1011
Even the distinguished economist Fritz Machlup capitulated to sociology of knowledge. When I”*
Tfu Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United Stales [Princeton: Princeton CnivcrM 1'
Press. 1962] was hailed in a journal of sociology as “a theory of growth of knowledge as part '
the sociology of knowledge**. Machlup seemed pleased, and responded: “the notions of
knowledge, or a social stock o f knowledge, and its social usefulness and valuation, are sociology J
concepts before they are economic concepts. Moreover, the social priorities in evaluating
promoting the creation and distribution of knowledge, in general and of particular kinds. J ’ ‘
issues of sociology as much as they are issues of economics," (Fritz Machlup. Knowledg*
146
1. The sociology of knowledge—which sometimes pretends to be

theoretical arm of intellectual history —is primarily concerned
w ith the description of current social arrangements, and even its
best proponents, such as Robert Merton, play down, or hardly
attend to, the content of ideas. It is interested in the acceptance, not
in the content, of ideas. It confines itself to their present power, not
their potential power. Yet the economic value of ideas, their wealth-
generating power, cannot exist apart from their unfathomed content
(which is so risky to estimate), and does not depend on the histori-
cal arrangements or costs that attended their production. Moreover,
most sociology of knowledge is written as if there is no cost—no
transaction, information or opportunity cost—in the revision of
Erratum, Distribution, and Economic Signifuancr. vol. 2, The Branches of learning (Princeton: Princeton
University Press. 1982). p. 4.] Machlup's statement is unfortunately very near to being gibberish:
1) Notions anti concepts are purely instrumental and are not essentially sociological or economic
or philosophical— sir wedged in the domain of any other discipline. Nor are they one thing
"tiefore" another. I f notions and concepts could be rendered sociological, say, merely by placing
the adjective “social1’ in front of them. Machhip's comment would of course be true— but only by
definition. Placing what Hayek calls "the weasel word" social [see Thr Fatal Conceit, op. cit., pp.
114-117] before words and phrases such as hiaulrdgr, stock of knowledge, usefulness, and priorities
tends to empty them of meaning. 2) Concern with notions and the definition of concepts, which
is generally a subjectivist undertaking, tends to deflect attention from the economic importance of
such real entities as knowledge, slocks of knowledge, and differing individual priorities, and
implicitly encourages the rejection o f the methodological individualism that Machlup elsewhere
usually observed. [Israel Kirzner has remarked on Machlup’s lack of appreciation and understand-
ing of a Hayekian approach to knowledge (and hence with expectations and disequilibrium) i n his
Comment on R. N. Langlois, "From the Knowledge of Economics to the Economics of Knowl
edge: Fritz Machlup on Methodology and o n the "Knowledge Society"1", Research tn the History of
ttonomie Thought and Methodology. vol. S, 1985. pp. 237-241. See Langlois’s own paper in the same
number, pp. 225-235.) Fhe meaning of a concept is relative and instrumental, dependent utterly
°n the theory in which it occurs. A theory— aiming to solve a problem— purports to describe the
S™ world All the words, terms, or concepts of a theory may be replaced willtout altering the
Meaning of the theory. I t is theories, and the question of their testability or criticisability, which
jS* primary, not the words or concepts within them, which are largely arbitrary. This is elemen-
B’f__ lne thodofogv. ’ )ut methodology of which sociologists tend to be ignorant. [For detailed
5™ques of the use of “concepts" (a practice which is so ctimmon that it is usually taken
l
*cally for granted) see K . R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, op. cit., chapter I I ,
An' 7'a 1 * R 1 ’’'’PP*: 1’. TAe Poverty of Histoneism, op. cit., section 10; K . R. Popper. Objective
l v u
12'J i ' s ’ “"nary Approach, Rev. Edition (London: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp.
Ine Hu n i509-318, and chap. 9; K . R Popper, Realism and thr Aim of Science, op. cit., sect. 33.
See I . C. jarvic’s statement i n Concepts and Society (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Thai M 5 8 - 5 9 ] See also chapter 2 , section 3 above.
show n' | ’ ac, ’ l u P * conclusions about priority of sociology over economics could not be correct is
< lc
folh.w-i ' * differences between sociological and economic approaches pointed out in the
"ten: 7 g l t,ur
discussion of the unfathomable nature of objective knowledge, and by our argu-
dreory J 1C c °mpalibility between the subjective theory of economic value and the objective
hnowL, ) knowledge. Individuals speculate economically in terms of their own dispersed access to
8r (1 tllr
indivi,/ , "' discussion in chapter 2 of “the accessed slice"). Objective knowledge and
'he dem? P r t ’ c r f n c e 5 precede, both temporally and logically, the activities of interest groups and
r P dytnent of knowledge for allegedly community purposes by so-called social representatives.
147
“paradigms". Yet if these costs were taken into account, scientific

revolutions and revolutionary failures, which Kuhn and his followers
allege to be non-rational, would often appear as all too rational.
Kuhn never asks what it would cost to overthrow a paradigm—and no
wonder, then, that he is a relativist.
The sociology of knowledge is indeed a theory of non-market
choice with regard to ideas. Theodore Suranyi-Ungar, Jr., displays
this perspective when he states categorically, without evidence, that
“competition, the phenomenon upon which the entire functioning
and efficiency of a free enterprise economy rests, is more likely to
harm than benefit fundamental scientific research”.*’ Such a position
is meant to justify further “social" or state intervention in scientific
activity. The danger of this idea was illustrated in so sensible a
journal as The Economist, where it was maintained that if medical
researchers do not police themselves more adequately "government
may step in to force them to clean up their acts”.’8 No doubt
medical researchers do horrible things; but Britain's state-run
hospitals are a disgrace before the world, and the last place where
one would sensibly look for correction to medical research in Britain
(which is on the whole of a rather high quality) is to government
supervision.
2. Due to its scientistic and Marxist background” (even when this
*’ “The Role of Knowledge in Invention and Economic Development", The American Journal of
Economics and Sociology, vol. 22. 1963, pp. 463-472. esp. p. 471.
" "Policing the Page", The Economist, June 3. 1989. pp. 8S-84.
” Hundreds of examples could be given of Marxist influence in various academic and
professional areas of the university. See "Critical Legal Studies: The Death of Transcendence and
the Rise of the New Langdells", New York University law Review. vol. 62. no. 3. June 1987. pp
429-496; James W. Tuttlcton, "The Uses and Abuses of Literature at the Modern Language
Association Conference: The Uses of Ideology in Literary Criticism", and "The Abandonment of
Literature", in Academic Questions, vol. 1, 1. Winter 1987-88, pp. 36-40 and 41-44 respectively See
also D. G. Myers, "The New Historicism in Literary Studies", Academic Questions, vol. 2, 1. WinU'i
1988-89, pp. 27-36. where Myers writes of the 'New Historicism': "New Historicists like to picture
themselves challenging 'the institution of criticism' . . . . In reality, however, the movement is
another step toward the reconfinement of literary study. As jobs are created for New Historic 1’
and space in the critical journals is set aside for their essays —as academic decisions arc into’-1'
ingly made on the basis not of scholarly competence but of methodological affiliation —t| i c
pressure on younger scholars and graduate students to enlist in the movement becomes en<"
mous: that way employment, advancement, and prestige lie. It seems to worry no one that tin*
might take away from individual scholars the determination of what son of research to pur»ue
and put it in the hands of hiring committees and editorial boards. Yet such a state of affairs < "
only end by narrowing the possibilities for fruitful scholarship and abridging the acadet” 1
freedom of those who would go their own way. Michael Oakesholt has pointed out that a studt'1
of tlte past cannot learn the history of something without first discovering what kind of thing •• '
In this respect, the New Historicism is not a genuine historical inquiry; it does not inquire i" *
the true nature of literary works, because it is confident it already knows what they are. They ■'1
agents of ideology. Contrary to appearances, the movement is not an effort to discover wh.'1
148
THE ENTRENCHMENT OF F/M.SE PHILOSOPHIES
background has been repudiated), sociology of knowledge tends to

be deterministic and relativistic. Thus, as an unintended conse-
quence, it legitimates existing structures (as does Kuhn’s theory) and
neglects the aims of those operating within them, just as it neglects
the content of the ideas produced by those so operating. One of the
most important aims in science, one almost wholly neglected (where
it is not denied) by die sociology of science, is the growth of knowl-
edge and the advancement of learning—just as one of the most
important aims in economic activity is the increase of wealth. F.co-
nomics is also interested in social structures, but it is concerned with
the way in which different such arrangements (and the legal ar-
rangements that attend them) further or hinder the expansion of
wealth.
3. The key doctrines of economic theory as they relate to these
aims— marginal utility theory, the subjective theory of value, meth-
odological individualism, analysis of the logic of the situation, and
transaction and opportunity costs—are little more than rumours, if
that, in the sociology of knowledge. The key doctrine of epistemolo-
gy as it relates to economics— the theory of unfathomed objective
knowledge—is completely unknown to the sociology of knowledge,
and contradicts virtually all its premisses.
jP***185 *or » literary work to be historical; it is really little more than an attempt to get literary
j k * * to conform to a particular vision of history. For the university as a whole the movement
H rescnts a
further stage in literary scholarship’s progressive abandonment of literature.” See also
Bn T'P 0 -1 situation in the English department al Duke University, as reported by David
From Western Lit to Westerns as Lit", The Wall Street Journal, February 2, 1988. For
s ,n
»lar matters in Britain see Francis Mulhern. "Intelligentsia regroups to fight the
Times Higher Education Supplement. May 22, 1981. pp. 11-12; Paul Johnson.
(Lon ? 5 (New York. Atheneum. 1977); Julius Gould. The Attack on Higher Education
S rhe
» 1977). Institute, 1977); C. B. Cox and Rhodes Boyaon, cds.. Black Paper (London: Temple
■«hith°?
149
Part III
THE CURIOUS CASE OF KARL POPPER

Chapter 9
T H E POPPERIAN PHILOSOPHY AND T H E
*4
DIFFICULT MAN WHO STARTED IT ALL1
It is by its methods rather than its subject-matter that

philosophy is to be distinguished from other arts or
sciences.
A. J . Ayer, 1955“
Philosophers are as free as others to use any method in

searching for truth. There is no method peculiar to philosophy.
K. R. Popper, 1958’
Late one afternoon in the early winter of I960, I was sitting with
Karl Popper in the waiting room of his doctor's office on Harley
Street in London. Popper loved to spend time with his students. To
cram in conversation with us, he used his spare moments to the
full. So we would tag along with him everywhere—to his doctor and
dentist, on walks, in taxis or on the underground, back and forth to
the Marylebone or Paddington train stations—talking philosophy
incessantly.
That afternoon we had been talking heatedly about the pre-
Socratics. There was a lull in the conversation, and I could see
Popper's brows darken as an extraneous thought flickered across his
awareness. He turned to me:
“Bill, people say that I am a difficult man. Am 1 a difficult man?"
'Hie reply bolted out of me unhesitatingly: “Karl, only a difficult
man would ask a question like that!"
I first heard what a difficult man Karl Popper was from my

teachers at Harvard College. When, in the spring of 1958, I told
’hem that I would go to London to study with Popper, they strong-
ly discouraged me, warning me that I would regret it. Later, when
they learned that I did not regret it, they became very angry with
me.
1
Much of the material in chapters 9-13 and in chapter 16 of Part Hl is a greatly reviled
'*pansion of nty 1982 Neil Arnott Memorial lecture. Robert Gordon's Institute of Technology,
11 'C 7?een ' Scotland. This Pan of the book, it should be recorded, is an unintended by-product of
inneU„ °Kra P,1 'cs . in some four volumes, that I am writing of Popper and also of another eminent
«'ual outsider: F. A. von Hayek.
4 J- Ayer, The Problem of Knowledge (Edinburgh: Penguin Books, 1956). p. 7.
Karl R. Popper. “Preface to the English Edition. 1958”. The Logic of Scientific Discovery, op.
PP 15-16.
By late September of 1958, I was being interviewed by the

Graduate Registrar at the London School of Economics and Political
Science (LSE). She informed me of two things: that I could earn a
Ph.D. if I stayed at least two years at the School and “wrote a very
good book", and that my adviser would be Professor . . . let us
omit his name. I told her that I would be happy to write the book,
but that I had come across the Atlantic to study with Popper, and
that if he were not to be my adviser I would return to America on
the morrow. She scolded me and told me that I was being difficult.
The following morning I met my new adviser, Karl Popper, for
the first time. He was striking in appearance. The upper part of his
body was well-proportioned around a broad chest, but his legs were
very short. On top of this peculiar body there perched an imposing
high-domed forehead framed by the largest pair of ears I had ever
seen. They were pointed, almost elf-like. But between them there
was a lovely face, handsome, proud, kindly, and very serious. His
eyes were trained directly on me, almost discomfortingly so. And 1
felt immediately—and ever after—that 1 had his whole attention:
there was nothing routine about this interview.
We did not discuss the weather or life in London. He began the
interview by telling me that he disagreed utterly with the philosoph-
ical views of my teachers at Harvard; and he summed up these
differences succinctly. He then decreed, in his thick Viennese accent,
and constructing his sentences in the German manner, that I wrote
very badly (1 had been asked to submit an essay and had turned in
one for which I had been awarded a prize), and that I would need
to learn to write better before I could expect to make any progress
in philosophy. He went on to explain exactly what was wrong with
my essay: it was pretentious and in places was unclear, masking
confusion, uncertainty, or ignorance with a brilliant, or at least eye-
catching, style. I was, he told me, more interested in the effect 1
was producing titan in reaching toward the truth. I do not know
why, but from that moment I loved him and knew that I could
learn from him: that it would be worth any difficulty that might
arise.
Several months later, on my first visit to Popper’s house, he

asked me what my father did. When I answered that he was a
businessman, Popper—the old friend and associate, and intellectual
opponent, of Alfred Adler—replied, “I thought so. If he had been
154
1
HE DIFFICULT MAN
I an intellectual you m i„ht ave an •

obviously don’t”. ° mferiority complex—and you
By the time of that visit wk’ l
I holiday. I had been a .1 i ' h ’C ! took semjnar P ,ace during the Christmas
had some opportunitv t ” ”-*'i °* for a f ldI ter m, and
The general practice at * " , U t 1 l e dance of inferiority complexes,
is for the student to r *Taduate sem inars in England and America
tions and comments an l* ' papcr ’ w hich >s then followed by ques-
pants. The professor r ” , general discussion from the other partici-
sion: he or she chairs ” ma not enter much into the discus-
S eCrS th<? meetin
final authority designaT 1 ' 8- serving as a k *n d of
e ln a
different: they Were j . dvance. Popper’s seminars were
person reading the ” ensc c ° n fr°ntations between Popper and the
the first meeting of ter 7 " bether student or visiting scholar. At
about two paragraph p ° r exam P, e > d l e student managed to read
Passed unchallenged e s ' X . "”5WaSr , ' Pi m' - 1ortant
every He sentence;
asked
nothing
a
don; the student dodged? P - q ues -
Ppcr asked
Again the student dod ? . ° the same question again,
Popper
again. And the student repeated the question once
what you said first?” p answ ®red a t last. “Were you then wrong in
welcome conclusion witk PP n' l n c i u i r e d - The student evaded this un-
words
“Ves. But were you th •' ** . . - Popper listened, then said,
n wflat you sa d
was learning, and adm , " t ' ’ * first?” The student
error D
asked. The student did '* - o you apologise?” Popper
said. “Then we can br-F ,? nd Popper smiled broadly: “Good”, he
I Anoth ‘■ai ‘ triends. '
a e 50 we k
bons, shifted his f ' dodged Popper’s ques-
Criticism, appealed t< >Slt‘( O n "athout acknowledging it, avoided all
d
more add more in < k! Kle nt
’ ‘™ and
to deliver a speech, be-
asked him to leave. Ht' °i . ‘‘ • belligerent. Popper finally
Po
and ejected him from th * PP e r then took him by the collar
Sem,nar ro
J- Ayer to declare that p °m. Such behaviour led Sir A.
. ' ter h« rd VXr h , s. .............. ..
easier, he remarked than P rocedu re. There was nothing
nod sa
what he had written nr °. , gely at a student and say that
•caching, and does nnr i Was “*n t eresting". B u t that is not
genteel ritual of academe '"fV 6 . , ? arnin 5- That is, rather, only the
Popper no gentlemanlv n. . erta,n, y philosophical discussion was for
human understanding \nd ? e ’ “ Was a b a t d e o n t h e fix>nt iers of
«t also gave him an extraordin* 5 caused mar
W difficulties, but
ary ca acit
active life jn others “I ° P y to
t my students seriously”, intelligence stir he would into say.
155
And he took their intellectual well-being as a personal responsibility,

motivated by the same kind of concern that led the American
philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce to write: “It is terrible to see
how a single unclear idea, a single formula without meaning, lurk-
ing in a young man’s head, will sometimes act like an obstruction of
inert matter in an artery, hindering the nutrition of the brain, and
condemning its victim to pine away in the fullness of his intellectual
vigor and in the midst of intellectual plenty."4
Popper had already as a student in Vienna dreamt of one day
founding his own school, and writes in Unended Quest, his autobiog-
raphy, of “a school in which young people could learn without
boredom, and would be stimulated to pose problems and discuss
them; a school in which no unwanted answers to unasked questions
would have to be listened to; in which one did not study for the
sake of passing examinations."5
This attitude drew to him many serious students who had prob-
lems to solve, who had found it difficult to work on these problems
in conventional university departments, and had discovered in
Popper’s writings some aid towards the solution of their own prob-
lems—even where these problems differed considerably from his
own. He welcomed such students, did not scoff at them, and did
not try to impose on them the pursuit of minor points in his own
work. He took them seriously.
Such an attitude is unusual in a graduate university department.
How unusual it is was illustrated at my memorable final meeting
with Phillip Frank, who had been my teacher at Harvard, and who
also was one of Popper’s oldest acquaintances. Frank came to
London— I believe in 1960—to deliver a lecture at the British
Society for the Philosophy of Science. Afterwards, Popper, Joseph
Agassi and 1 took him back to his hotel on the Strand. As we
settled down to tea, Frank asked Agassi and me about our interests
and what had brought us to London. Agassi replied, “Oh, I came to
Popper to study metaphysics; and of course Bartley here came to
him to study religion". The old positivist Frank broke into delighted
laughter and then asked: “Now please tell me what you are really
* Charles S. Peirce, “How to Make Our Ideas Clear", in Collected Papers, voL 5 (Cambridge.
Mass,; Harvard University Press. 1934), p. 252. The essav was first published in Popular Science
Monthly in 1878.
Popper, Unended Quest, op. cit., p. 40.
156
THE DIFFICULT MAN
doing." Agassi turned to me and muttered (Frank was a bit deaf):

•‘By God, the man thinks that 1 am joking!"
To this willingness on Popper’s part to tolerate the unusual, I
owe ray own early start. Within a few months of arriving in his
department I quietly set aside the conventional philosophical re-
search project that had won me my travel award, and proposed to
Popper that I write my doctoral dissertation on “The Limits of
Rationality”, setting out thereby on the effort to solve the problem
that eventually produced, in 1962, both my dissertation and The
Retreat to Commitment. Imre Lakatos was in Popper’s office when 1
made my proposal, and sensed an opportunity to capture a research
student for himself, to help him on his own research programs.
“No", he exclaimed, “Bartley doesn’t know enough logic and mathe-
matics to work on such a broad theme. He should first study logic
and the history of geometry with me”. It was an impertinent re-
mark from that imposter:6 as I well knew (and Popper did not),
Lakatos at that time did not even know the propositional calculus
(the most elementary part of logic). But 1 held my tongue. Popper
came at once to my rescue. Quietly shaking his head, he said: “No,
he knows what he wants to accomplish and will learn any logic and
mathematics he needs as he works on his project. Let him do as he
likes."
Some members of Popper's seminar were not ready for such a

school, in which discipline and permissiveness were so surprisingly
combined. And they were certainly not ready for the intense exper-
ience of being taken seriously. By the middle of the second term,
most of these had dropped out. Of the dozen or so who remained,
at least six did produce books that are usually regarded as “very
good” within the next several years. These included my The Retreat
to Commitment (1962), Joseph Agassi’s Towards an Historiography of
Science (1963), Ian C. Jarvie’s The Revolution in Anthropology (1964),
Imre Lakatos's Proofs and Refutations (1964), J . W. N. Watkins’s
Hobbes’s System of Ideas (1965), and A. I. Sabra's Theories of Light from
Descartes to Newton (1967). The main parts of all these works were, I
believe, read for the first time in Popper’s seminar during this
period. Few seminars anywhere could match such a record. Thus
Popper’s own research program, revealed in its fullness for the
• See chapter 18 below.
157
English-speaking reader only in 1959 with the publication of The

Logic of Scientific Discovery, was now being applied to the history of
science, the philosophy of mathematics, the theory of rationality and
of religion, to the methodology of anthropology, to the philosophy
of art.
Preston King, a black American who was later the author of The
Ideology of Order (1974) and Toleration (1976), also participated
regularly in the seminar during my years at the LSE—as did Pedro
Schwarz, later a member of the Spanish parliament and a leading
member of the Mont P£lerin Society. Another senior member of the
seminar, and of the department staff, was J . O. Wisdom, the author
of The Foundations of Inference in Natural Science (1952), and many
other works. The philosopher and anthropologist Ernest Gellner,
who had in 1959 just become famous as the author of Words and
Things (1959) and was later the author of many other books, did
not come to the seminar meetings, but was on the LSE staff and in
close touch with many of the rest of us. Later he became a member
of the LSE philosophy department, and still later Professor of
Anthropology at Cambridge University. Popper's close friend and
patron, F. A. von Hayek, CH, later to become a Nobel prizewinner
in economics, had by the time I arrived in England already depart-
ed the LSE for the University of Chicago. Paul K. Feyerabend, who
had attended Popper’s seminars in the early and mid 1950s, both in
Alpbach, Austria, and at the LSE, had departed England for Berke-
ley shortly before 1 arrived in London. Sir Ernst Gombrich, OM,
the author of Art and Illusion7 , should also be mentioned. Although
he came to seminar meetings only occasionally, he was one of
Popper’s closest friends, we saw him frequently, and I was later a
member of his staff at the Warburg Institute.
Each of the works I have mentioned reflects Popper’s philosophi-
cal ideas; each also, more deeply, shows his personal influence. His
philosophical ideas—on falsifiability, the propensity theory of proba-
bility, indeterminism, the theory of natural deduction, the mind-
body problem, objective knowledge, metaphysical research programs,
piecemeal social engineering, and so on, as well as his critiques of
Marxism, various branches of psychology, Platonism, Hegelianism,
analytical philosophy, and positivism—these he taught us in his
formal lectures and in his writings. In his seminars he taught us:
’ (New York: Phaidon, 1960).
158
THE DIFFICULT MAN
* To do your work, you must have a scientific or intellectual

problem, not a topic.
* Do not try to be path-breaking or original. Find a problem that

excites you. Work on it and take what you get.
* You must want to communicate to your reader; you must be

clear, never use big words or anything needlessly complicated.
(“Write it for Tirzah,” he would say— referring to Agassi’s eight-
year-old daughter.) Do not use logical symbols or mathematical
formulae, for instance, if you can possibly avoid it. Know logic,
but do not parade it.
* It is immoral to be pretentious, or to try to impress the reader

or listener with your knowledge. For you are ignorant. Although
we may differ in the little things we know, in our infinite ig-
norance we are all equal.
* Do not be attached to your ideas. You must expose yourself,

put yourself at risk. Do not be cautious in your ideas. Ideas are
not scarce: there are more where they came from. Let your ideas
come forth: any idea is better than no idea. But once the idea is
stated, you must try not to defend it, not to believe it, but to
criticise it and to learn from discovering its defects. Ideas are
only conjectures. What is important is not the defence of any par-
ticular conjecture but the growth of knowledge.
* So be scrupulous in admitting your mistakes: you cannot learn

from them if you never admit that you make them.
Although Popper fortunately has a sense of humor, I can recall a

few moments when such unrelieved, intense dedication to uncover-
ing the truth became somehow out of balance, even comical. There
Was, for instance, a medical doctor whom Popper was consulting for
the first time. This man was in fact my own doctor, and I had
recommended him to Popper after he had effected what seemed to
at the time a miraculous cure of the ’flu. I was brought along
into the consulting room. After Popper had explained his own, very
different, symptoms, the unlucky doctor, preparing to announce a
159
series of tests that he wanted to make, commented: “Now of course

I don’t believe in conjectural medicine."
“What do you mean?" Popper demanded. “Don't you realise that
all medicine is conjectural?” There ensued a twenty-minute lecture
on the methodology of conjecture and refutation—no doubt the
only time Popper was charged for giving a lecture.
When I first met Popper, it was hard to have a conversation with

him. For he would often interrupt what one was saying and begin a
long and flowing discourse; and there was no hope of interrupting
him once that had started. This led some people to complain that
they could not get a word in edgewise. The fact is that he was
already quite deaf. Hence, taking up on a few cues, he conjectured
what was being said or asked, and replied to that. Often he was on
target, but it remained difficult to present one’s own point of view
in detail.
1 found a way around this obstacle. 1 would write him letters,
setting out the issues that I wanted to discuss at our next meeting.
This way he had an understanding of my views and problems
beforehand, and directed his discussion accordingly when we met.
Modest in those areas where he had a right to be vain, and vain
in those where he had a right to be modest, Popper was reluctant
to admit his deafness to himself, and for years refused to wear a
hearing aid. Finally, when he gave the Sherman Lectures in Univer-
sity College London, an incident occurred that changed this. He
failed to hear the question raised by a visiting American professor,
and his reply was not to the point. Afterward the professor went
about complaining that Popper had “deliberately pretended to mis-
hear" in order “to dodge my question”.8 When Popper heard this
story he was upset that anyone should think so of him. The next
day he' went to purchase a hearing aid, and the problem diminished
radically.
Popper made a personal impact in another way—as a person of

boundless vitality. I do not mean just the bubbling, overflowing
genius of his mind, which seemed to know of and to have thought
deeply about everything. This has, to be sure, always been extraor-
dinary, and was remarkable even in the years when he was isolated
As 1 recall, the American professor was Avrum Stroll, later my colleague at the Univcrsit'
of California. San Diego.
160
T H E DIFFICULT MAN
and his work was least well known —those nine years that he spent
in New Zealand during the 1930s and 1940s. His New Zealand
student Peter Munz, later professor of history at the University of
Wellington, reports Popper’s unselfconscious vitality and exuberance,
throwing the chalk into the air and catching it as he lectured. The
geologist R. S. Allan, Popper’s colleague in New Zealand, recalls
how Popper "strode up and down the room gesticulating wildly and
poured forth ideas”.9 The historians of the University of Canterbury
report that “Popper’s impact on the academic life of the College was
greater than that of any other person, before or since”. They write
that he "acted as a kind of intellectual champagne after the dry
depression years . . . . Staff and students alike crowded his open
lectures not for instruction or information, but for enlightenment
and the sheer intellectual joy of exploring the unknown with him”.10
This energy was still astounding when I was his student in the
late 1950s and his colleague in the early 1960s. At age sixty, Popper
used to run up the escalators on die deep tube lines in London,
two steps at a time, while I, a young man of twenty-seven, strug-
gled, panting and breathless, behind him. I do not know whether
this was owing to, or in spite of, his strict personal habits: he
neither smoked nor drank, and never ate more than a bar of Swiss
chocolate for lunch. He did not impose such habits on his students
(although they were stricdy forbidden to smoke in his presence). Yet
it is interesting that most of them do not smoke, and—to this
day—use alcohol with great restraint, if at all.
The simplicity of his personal habits was reflected also in his
home. After 1950, he and his wife lived at Fallowfield, in the village
of Penn, in the Buckinghamshire countryside, an hour’s train ride
from London—secluded from the interruptions of London life. The
peace of this retreat gave him the opportunity to write."
I once asked him how they had selected Penn, but did not
expect the answer that was immediately forthcoming. "Oh, we
decided on it when we were still in New Zealand”, he told me.
Shortly after receiving his invitation to join the LSE, he got hold of
the University of London regulations, which required him to live
"rithin thirty miles of Senate House, the administrative headquarters
. W. J, Gardner. E. T. Beardsley, and T. E. Carter, d History of the University of Canterbury.

-1973 (Christchurch: University of Canterbury, 1973), p. 308.
Ibid., pp. 262-263.
19 ' Hicy continued to live there until shortly before the death of Lady Popper in November
Nine months later Popper sold Fallowfield and moved to a new house in Surrey.
161
of the University. He found a map of the area around London, and

drew with a compass a circle enclosing the permitted area. On th e
western perimeter of this circle lay Penn, a spot that he and Lady
Popper already knew from before the war. They decided upon it
then and there.
The house that they eventually acquired, on two acres, was
tucked away on a private road. Its living room was long, opening
out onto the garden, where Popper often took visitors to walk out
his ideas. For many years, a beautiful Austrian peasant rug that he
had made ran from one end of it to the other. The room contained
only eight pieces of furniture: a grand piano, which Popper played
(he also composes and was at one lime a member of Schonberg’s
Verein fur musikalische Privatauffuhrungen); a small desk and chair;
a bookcase filled with stories of the Arctic explorations; two small
bent-wood tables, and two large bent-wood easy chairs, which sat at
the end of the room next to the fireplace. These chairs Popper had
made to his own design (he was a cabinet maker’s apprentice in the
1920s, and photographs of the chairs were published in a design
review in the late 1930s), and he and his wife sat in them for
decades. At the end of this room a door opened into a small study,
where Popper did his writing. (During the 1970s the room gradual-
ly filled with books and papers, and Popper moved into the living
room, where he did his writing on a card table erected “temporari-
ly" there.) The study contained a large writing table and chair, a
tall cabinet where he kept his manuscripts, and some loosely stacked
bookshelves, also designed by him, where he kept those books that
he needed at hand. There was no television or radio in the house.
As an undergraduate, writing for and editing The Harvard Crim-

son, I had a sense that the thinking and writing I did were con-
nected with my culture.1’ I knew my audience and my task, the
community to which I belonged. My education of course came in
part from reading and from hearing lectures; but it was acquired
mainly by growing four years older in extremely good company. As
a graduate student there, 1 began to feel boundaries where prev-
iously there had been freedom. The boldness and vitality were
gone—or, rather, a sense of sin overcast them. What was left was
narrowness, an absurd neurotic stuttering caution and wariness of
“ See Greg Lawless, ed,, Thr Hanard Crimson Anlhologj (New York: Houghton Mifflin. 1980).
162
I HE DIFFICULT MAN
criticism—and irrelevance. Community was gone; what was left was

“the professional community”—what amounted to a bunch of rather
insignificant and conventional professors.
Working with Popper enabled me to regain my earlier sense of
community and high purpose. Association with him meant for me a
permission-one of course that ought not to have been needed—an
irrevocable permission and freedom to throw myself into the world
of ideas, to think unfetteredly, to experiment, to tackle problems
critically yet boldly, to adventure with, and to infect others with,
ideas. It set at nought academic preoccupation with caution and
fashion: the cult of those terrified to make a mistake. At some level
1 already knew that important truism of psychology: that those who
are afraid to hurt other people will inevitably hurt them, that those
who are afraid to err will most certainly do so.
I do not think 1 ever discussed these matters with Popper in
those days, but he obviously had similar views and feelings. One
could see this in the sense of sadness that seemed to overcome
him—sadness mixed with anger—whenever the question of "placing”
one of his students amongst the professional philosophers came up.
He always discouraged his own undergraduates from doing graduate
work in philosophy or preparing to enter academic life. As he later
wrote: “It is very necessary these days to apologise for being con-
cerned with philosophy in any form whatever. Apart perhaps from
some Marxists, most professional philosophers seem to have lost
touch with reality. And as for the Marxists—‘The Marxists have
merely interpreted Marxism in various ways; the point, however, is
to change it’.”1*
When it did come time to find us jobs, he did his best to dis-
courage that aspect of our ambition which was concerned with
finding fashionable and comfortable (and corrupting) niches for
ourselves. The only point of having a professorship, he would say,
was to have a job in which one got paid for doing what one liked—
by which he meant learning and investigating what one liked. This
way of putting the matter seemed wonderful to me, for I had not
experienced university professors generally as people who were
doing what they liked.
One of his students came in forlornly one day to report that he
had been offered a job at a small and undistinguished college with
" Popper. Object™ Knowledge. op. dL, p. 32. (Pop(wr attributes the last line to R llochhuth.)
See also Bryan Magee, Modern British Philosophy (.New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1971) pp
163
a high teaching load. That did not matter at all. Popper advised
him. Since the students would not be very bright, one would just
teach them at half the ordinary pace; so the teaching load would
not matter. What mattered was whether one would have the condi-
tions to learn, to grow, and—if one had the talent —to write. Popper
himself had thought through his basic philosophical ideas when he
was a carpenter’s apprentice in Vienna. And until his mid-thirties he
had been a high-school teacher. 14 His first two books. Die beiden
Grundprobleme der Erkennlnistheorie and Logtk der Forschung, had been
written in the late evening, after a hard day’s teaching.
Popper was eager to put across his ideas, and disappointed and
sometimes offended that he was not more successful in doing so, for
he was passionately convinced of their importance to western cul-
ture, and to the defence and enhancement of the open society. But
he had not the slightest interest in academic politics. And he took it
for granted that his students would have similar priorities. In this
assumption he was, in part, mistaken.”
Karl Popper is a difficult man. My own relationship with him. to

be sure, seemed almost idyllic for seven years. We did not quarrel
once during this time, and my fellow students and colleagues
wondered at and teased me about this. Finally, in 1965, we did
have our quarrel: afterwards we did not speak for twelve years. And
now we are friends again. That is a long story, for another time
and place. I mention it here only to avoid giving a distorted picture
of our relationship. For this book I have another purpose.
'* See my "Theory of Language and Philosophy of Science as Instruments of EducaO1’11

Reform: Wittgenstein and Popper as Austrian Schoolteachers", in Methodological and Historical *’“4
in the Natural and Social Sciences. ed. R. S. Cohen and M. W. Wartofsky (Boston: D. Reidel. I “‘ ,
my lading Wittgenstein t Karl R Popper: Maestri di icuola elemenlare (Rome: Armando. 1976).
my B'ingrrutem. 2nd edition, op. cit.
“ See chapter 18 below.
16-1
Chapter 10
THE CRISIS IN PHILOSOPHY
1. Popper’s Philosophical Revolution:Where Did It Happen?
In this chapter I want to consider not the man Karl Popper but
the harvest of his thought. I have already indicated that a problem
arises both for Popper and for me about the philosophical profes-
sion. This problem will emerge as a theme for this chapter and
those that follow, in an attempt to illuminate the discussion of
intellectual revolution.
There is a widespread impression—created in part by a superficial
reading of Popper's own writings' —that the development of scientific
thought is very simple: a fact is found—an experimental observation
is made—that conflicts with a theory, and that the theory is at once
dropped and a search undertaken for a new theory. By extension,
this view may be applied to philosophy: that when an argument on
which a philosophical theory rests is refuted, that philosophical
theory is immediately dropped and gives way to a new one—or at
least to the search for a new theory. It is also widely supposed that
it is the professional community of scientists—or philosophers— who
do the deciding, who determine when one viewpoint has been
refuted and another is to be put in its place. However the actual
process may be, many would maintain that the scientific and philo-
sophical professional communities—and the elite of these communit-
ies—should indeed decide when such a shift need take place.
Yet if we look at the reception of Popper’s own revolutionary
new ideas, we find that no process of this sort has taken place, and
that the process that has taken place is more complicated and
interesting. For although Popper's philosophical ideas have been
widely acclaimed by members of scientific elites—including numerous
Nobel prizewinners and other scientists who stand at the very peak
•f scientific achievement—they are widely dismissed or ignored by
. e bulk of the professional philosophical community.2 Wittgenstein’s
eas
- on the other hand, are largely ignored by the scientific elite,
c
•nd Popper's objection to this misunderstanding in the "Introduction 1982” to his Rtalum
I ’ n!*" ar<? cncc vo *- 1
scvcral to /Az Logv of Scientific thicmtery. op. at.
25, 1984 sense* in which 1 liked the declaration in Phtlasofthual Booh, vol.
Iw
<3Qfcntieth c ntUr "Sir Poppers status as one of the major original thinkers of the
tld U (] c,l5 >' « now, among those qualified to judge, almost universally accepted.” One must
Her dial this statement is rather too strong, or that professional philosophers are not
10
judge Popper’s thought.
but continue to dominate among the elite of the professional philo-

sophical community (see chapter 14 below).
In this chapter I begin then to explore the background of both
the scientific acceptance1 of and the professional philosophical resis-
tance to the Popperian revolution. I will make use of an example
which is closely related to my discussion of the work of Thomas S.
Kuhn in the previous Part. This example provides an illuminating
case-study for any philosopher or historian of science—and one with
wider cultural ramifications as well. It is indeed curious that, during
the past three decades, in all the discussion, both Popperian and
Wittgensteinian, of the sociology of paradigms and paradigm shifts
in intellectual revolutions, no one has examined the paradigm shift
associated with the rise, development, and assimilation of either
Popperianism or Wittgensteinianism, or the connected social and
institutional questions.
In the present chapter, these matters are only raised. I shall first
sketch the development of the profession of philosophy of science
and its chief problems, showing how, just when the profession of
philosophy of science was first organising, the fundamental theory of
the philosophy of science was in a state of virtual chaos. I shall then
turn to the main outlines of Popper’s own solutions to these prob-
lems, and his resolution of the crisis in philosophy of science. In
chapters 12-15—after having meanwhile taken a closer look at
Popper’s ideas—1 will sketch the very different response to the crisis
taken by the bulk of the philosophical profession.
2. The Birth of the Profession of Philosophy of Science
Professional philosophy of science was born in Austria and Ger-

many, and is, as 1 write this, being revived in those countries. It has
become so prominent, and so influential, in the English-speaking
’ What is or is not a science, however, is pan of the question. To the extent to which
ideology and philosophical ideas permeate the content of would-be sciences. Popper tends to he
excluded from discussion, or discussed in curious ways. An example is economics. While Poppe'
has had a considerable influence on economists, his name may be absent where one would
assume that he would be mentioned — especially i f an ideologist or philosopher has had a chance
to exert his or her influence. See for example The Nm Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economic'. ed
John Eatwell. Murray Milgate and Peter Newman (London: Macmillan. 1988), and Arthut
Seldon’s critical study of its ideological skewing: "'rhe New Palgrave: For Readers Who Want
Know What Economists Think. Pan I: Description”, and "Enlightenment or Ideology? Part 11
Assessment”. Economic Affam, February/March 1988.
166
countries during the last four decades, that one easily forgets that in
the 1930s philosophy of science, as an independent discipline or
profession in these countries, barely existed. There were, of course,
, classically important English-language works in the field—such as
those of Mill and Whewell—and the main problems of the subject
were part of the philosophical curriculum. There were also some
philosophers in the ’30s who did philosophy of science profes-
sionally, but the greater part of these were newly arrived emigres,
of Austrian or German origin, arriving in the English-speaking
countries from the prewar positivist centers of Vienna, Prague, and
Berlin. During the preceding six decades, most of the best-known
philosophical treatments of the sciences, in English, were not even
written by professional philosophers. Amongst their authors, W. K.
Clifford was a mathematician; Karl Pearson, a biologist and statisti-
cian; John Maynard Keynes, a polymath, a government official, an
insurance executive, an economist; Joseph Needham, a biologist and
the greatest sinologist of the century. Sir Arthur Eddington and Sir
James Jeans were physicists, as was my own undergraduate teacher
Percy W. Bridgman.
It would be easy to find exceptions to this list—C. D. Broad and
Bertrand Russell most conspicuously—but the point has been made.
And perhaps Russell is an exception to the exceptions: for he spent
comparatively few years in his long life working within universities.
This situation began to change in the 1930s, as a result of the
crusading positivism of the Vienna Circle and the forced emigration
of its members. In the chief doctrines of the Vienna Circle there
was already a basis for communication with English-speaking philos-
ophers. The public organisation formed by members of the Circle
had been called the “Ernst Mach Verein”, after the Austrian physi-
cist, psychologist, and philosopher Ernst Mach (1838-1916)/ The
Viennese championing of Mach’s sensationalist ideas as the basis for
the philosophy of physics reminded English-speaking philosophers of
a part of their own heritage that had been in eclipse. Several
' See John T. Blackmore, Ernst Mach,- His Wort. Life, and Influence (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1972); and my “Philosophy of Biology umtu Philosophy of Physics, in lunia-
Scientuic, vol. 3, no. I. 1982, pp. 55-78. and in much expanded form, under the same title.
,n
Gerard Radniuky and W. W. Bartley. III. eds.. Evolutionary Epistemology. Rationality. and the
Steialogy of Knowledge, op. dt_, chapter 1.
167
eighteenth-century British philosophers had deeply influenced

Mach—-John Locke, David Hume and, especially, Bishop Berkeley.5
!Tie journal Philosophy of Science was one result of this background
that was shared by English-speaking philosophers and continental
emigre positivists. Its founding—it began to appear in the mid-
1950s—also illustrates the growing interest in the philosophy of
science. But only in the late 1940s and early 1950s did the profes-
sion really come into being. Its advent was marked by such events
as the organisation of die Philosophy of Science Group (later the
British Society for the Philosophy of Science), the founding of The
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, and the creation of ambi-
tious graduate programs in philosophy of science at Minnesota,
Iowa, Berkeley, London, and elsewhere.
I put some importance on this point because it is easy, in survey-
ing the publications and problems that have shaped the past four
decades of debate in philosophy of science, to forget that these same
years do mark the creation of a profession—an event that would in
almost any field be bound to have a distorting effect on the subject
matter of that profession. One such effect is that particular em-
phases and doctrines present in the late 1940s and 1950s, at the
time of the organisation of the profession, have tended to be in-
stitutionalised and perpetuated.
1 shall return to consider the intellectual and institutional devel-
opment of this profession later. First, I want to review briefly some
of the chief issues of the philosophy of science as perceived by its
main practitioners.
3. Induction and Demarcation
The first issues to be considered are the problems of induction

and demarcation. Both of these, and particularly the first, concern
the relationship between evidence and what is evidenced. On the
inductivist and empiricist approach that is associated with Hume's
doctrine that nothing is in die mind dial is not previously in the
senses, sense observation reports are the only legitimate source
* See Popper, “A Note on Berkeley as Precursor of Mach and Einstein", in his Conjectures o’’1
Refutations, op, eje, pp- 166-174; John Myhill, "Berkeley's 'De Motu': An Anticipation of Mach.
I'nitetuty of California PiMvatims in Philosophy, vol. 29. 1957. pp. 141-157; and Gerard Hinrichr
T h e laigical Positivism of De Motu", Review of Metaphysics, vol. 3, 1950. pp. 491-505.
168
justification, and evidence for other claims. The problem is that

there is no way logically to justify or prove universal laws of nature
by appealing to singular observation reports, however many. State-
ments of law are more than combinations of observations; they are
of stronger content than the evidentiary statements used in defend-
ing them.6
This problem of induction had been stated in antiquity by Sextus
Empiricus and little progress had been made on it since then.7 The
positivists of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s had no way to solve it,
but supposed that it could be circumvented through probability and
confirmation theory. They supposed that although observation
reports might not logically entail law statements, they would none-
theless make them more probable, and thus “confirm” them.
The probabilistic approach, developed by Rudolf Carnap and
others in the 1920s and 1930s, was in serious trouble by the late
1940s, as shown not only by Popper’s refutation of the whole
program, but also by the publication of the “paradoxes of confirma-
tion" by C. G. Hempel and Nelson Goodman. Hempel and Good-
man argued, among other things, that—within such an ap-
proach —every instance of non-A “confirms" a hypothesis of the form
“All A are B". Thus an observation of a red herring confirms the
hypothesis that all swans are white; the observation of a green
emerald today confirms that tomorrow all emeralds will be blue.8
Positivists had tied up nature in colored tape—red and otherwise.
The problem of demarcation is closely related. In the 1930s,
1940s, and 1950s, under the influence of the positivists and of
Wittgenstein, philosophers of science tended to conceive the prob-
lem as one of demarcating meaningful utterances (that is, those that
* For an explanation o f the notion of logical strength see my “Logical Strength and Demarca-
’°n", in Rationality in Science and Politics, ed Gunnar Andersson (Boston: D. Reidel, 1984), pp. 69-
and Appendix 2 to my The Retreat to Commitment, 2nd edition, op. dt.
, ’ On the antidpation of Hume by Sextus Empiricus, see R. H. Popkin. The History of
fapticism from Erasmus to Spmoza (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), and FAr /figA
to Pyrrhonism (San Diego: Austin Hill Press, 1980).
" See Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
955; new edition, 1973), esp. pp. 74fT. See also W. V. Quine, "On Popper's Negative Methodolo-
in The Philosophy of Karl Popper, ed. P. A. Schilpp (La Salle, 111: Open Court, 1974). p 220.
nty "Goodman's Paradox: A Simple-Minded Solution", in Philosophical Studies, December 1968,
T “Theories of Demarcation between Sdencc and Metaphysics." in Problems tn the
°f Science, ed. I . Lakatos and A. Musgrave (Amsterdam. North-Holland. 1968), pp 40-
y Critical Study: The Philosophy of Karl Popper: Part H I : Rationality, Criticism, and Logic ,
Sophia (1982); and "Eine Losung der Good man -Paradoxons", in Feraussrtxwngm und
7 Wissenschaft, rd. G. Radnitzky and G. Andersson (TObingcn: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Sie *c
1981).
169
are either logically true or are scientific) from those that are mean-
ingless. The aim of such demarcation was, as expressed in Carnap’s
famous essay, “Die Uberwindung der Metaphysik durch logische
Analyse der Sprache”, the elimination of metaphysics (including all
philosophy of value and normative theory) through the logical
analysis of language.9 Alleged statements of metaphysics were
deemed to be, as Carnap put it, “entirely meaningless” pseudo-
statements. One avoided these—and here was the demarcation—by
making no utterances not reducible to or probabilistically confirm-
able by sense observation reports. This position is imperialistic (see
chapter 14 below) in the sense that all legitimate statements are
required to conform to what are claimed to be the standards of
logical and scientific discourse. 10
All this is a truncated version of an older and wider problem.
Consider the following table:
good trails bad traits
true false
clear & distinct unclear & indistinct
probable improbable
empirical unempirical
scientific nonscientific
verifiable unverifiable
meaningful meaningless
Where ideas or theories compete, it is obviously useful to be able

to demarcate good ones from bad ones. But what makes an idea
good? The left-hand column suggests how philosophers have tried
to answer this question. The right-hand column indicates traits to be
avoided. The deficiencies of Descartes’s criteria of clarity and dis-
tinctness were already shown by Kant, and more recently attempts
to find a criterion of truth have in general been abandoned. Vet
most of the other “good traits" have been retained. It is wide!)
assumed even today that any good theory would combine the
Reprinted in A. J. Ayer. ed.. logical Pmithism (London: George Allen & Unwin. 1959). PP
60-81.
See Rudolf Carnap. "Prefare to the First Edition", of Th/ Ijigwal Structun of ihr
(Berkeley: University of California Press. 1967), p. xvii.
170
remaining left-hand traits. That is, it would be more probable than

its rivals, and also be empirical, scientific, verifiable, and meaningful.
Whereas if one of these characteristics were lacking, so, it was
assumed, would be the others: thus a nonempirical, unverifiable,
and nonscientific statement would be meaningless.
The difficulties of induction and the “paradoxes" of confirmation
and probability theory took their toll here too. The proposed
criteria of demarcation simply did not work—and were prevented
from working by the problem of induction. Scientific laws turned
out to be improbable, unverifiable, and meaningless. Whereas some
metaphysical statements were both probable and verifiable.11
In sum, in failing to solve these two problems, professional
philosophers of science demonstrated their inability to give a coher-
ent account of the relationship obtaining between scientific theories
and the observational reports purported to provide evidence for
them. Worse, any such account seemed in principle unattainable.
4. The Key Role of the Demarcation Problem
One aspect of the demarcation problem deserves emphasis. It is

interesting that the problem is usually expressed as one of demar-
cating science from nonscience, rather than more generally. A good
characterisation of the nature and methods of science is obviously
important in general cultural terms. Two of the most strident motifs
in our intellectual life are the effort of science and nonscience to
come to grips with each other, and the effort of science to find out
just what it is that makes it scientific. Many fields—religion, philoso-
phy, history, psychoanalysis, psycholog)', sociology—understand
themselves by contrast to and in comparison with “the sciences”. An
understanding of the nature of science is hence a prerequisite of
self-knowledge for other disciplines. Since the most widely accepted
notions of science—based on the unworkable positivist demarca-
tion—are incorrect and even incoherent, and since most discussions
*n other disciplines, including philosophy, are nonetheless framed in
terms of the supposition that the positivist account of science is
correct for science, most disciplines are now mischaracterised by their
ip For examples sec Popper, Thr Logic of Scientific Discovery, op. cit; and C. G. Hempel,
(l95Q enw Changes in the Empiricist Criterion of Meaning", Revue Internationalr de Philosophic
)• reprinted in Ayer, ed., Logical Positn'ism,op. cit.
171
own proponents—and are, as a result, methodologically “neurotic”.

It is often and correctly remarked that academic ideology in the
Marxist countries is distorted, particularly in the social sciences,
because of its reliance on a false Marxist characterisation of science.
But in the West, the most widely accepted characterisations of
science (quite apart from Marxist ones, which are also widespread
amongst western academics) are also false.
5. Problems in Relativity Theory
The problems confronting professional philosophy of science were

not, however, all methodological. The impact of Einstein’s theories
of relativity on the emerging profession of philosophy of science can
hardly be overestimated. Let me mention briefly just two examples.
The first is Kant's problem of the infinity or finitude of the
universe with regard to space and time. Kant argued that these
issues produce contradictions that are in principle unresolvable by
pure reason, the so-called “antinomies of pure reason”. He appeared
to be able to prove, both of space and of time, that they were finite
and infinite. Einstein hoped to resolve Kant’s problem regarding
space with the idea of a universe that is both finite and without
limits, but his efforts have generally been abandoned. With regard
to time, the issue is even more complicated and also remains unre-
solved.
A second problem, raised by the logician Kurt Godel (1906-1978)
in 1949, has to do with the question of whether relativity theory has
idealistic implications.12 The relativity of simultaneity implies, for the
most part, the relativity of succession. Thus the assertions that
events A and B are simultaneous, and that A happened before B,
lose objective meaning, and depend on the position of the observer.
This provides a proof, Godel concludes, which supports the views of
Kant and of modem subjectivists and idealists that change is an
illusion arising from one’s mode of perception. It can be shown that
there are some worlds— possibly including our own—wherein one
can, by making a round trip in a rocket ship in a sufficiently wide
“ Kun Gtidel, "A Remark about the Relationship between Relativity Theory and Idealistic
Philosophy", in Albert Einstein: Philosopher- Scientist, ed. P. A Schilpp (La Salle: Open Court, 1949;
3rd edn. 1969).
172
curve, travel into any region of the past, present, or future, and
back, just as one familiarly travels to other parts of space.
Notwithstanding the popularity this idea has acquired amongst
writers of science fiction, there is as yet no agreement about the
implications of Godel's argument. But the possibility he demon-
strates of anomalies of temporal order in general relativity gives rise
to the question, as Howard Stein put it nicely, “to what extent the
existence or non-existence of a univocal time-ordering along all
time-like world-lines is susceptible to manipulation (by the physical
rearrangement of matter) within a given cosmic model.’’”
6. Problems in Quantum Theory
If relativity theory seemed to give some support to positivist,

idealistic and subjectivist positions, quantum mechanics gave very
much more. This was especially so in what is popularly called its
Copenhagen Interpretation (usually credited to Niels Bohr, Werner
Heisenberg, and Wolfgang Pauli). For in quantum mechanics the
behaviour of electrons and photons seemed to breach the laws both
of nature and of logic. The behavior of waves is essentially different
from that of particles. Yet nature appeared to manifest itself, on the
subatomic level, in these two contradictory ways: electrons and
photons seemed to behave sometimes with the characteristics of
waves, and sometimes with the characteristics of particles; and the
transitions from one manifestation to another took place, impos-
sibly”, at velocities greater than the speed of light. Moreover, the
role of the observer was argued to be crucial in determining how
the subatomic world would manifest itself, thus dissolving the
distinction between subject and object: when electrons are looked at,
their distribution is different from the way it is when they are not.
As the physicist Eugene P. Wigner put it in his Symmetries and Reflec-
tions, it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechan-
ics in a fully consistent way “without reference to the conscious-
11
Howard Stein, “On the Paradoxical Time-Structures of GddcT, Phifot y Sdmce,
December 1970. pp, 589-601. .
** Impossibly since Einstein had, in relativity theory, made the speed of light a constant anc
a
maximum velocity.
173
ness”.15 "All that quantum mechanics purports to provide", Wigner

maintained, “are probability connexions between subsequent impres-
sions."
7. The Problem of the Status of Scientific Theories
The status of scientific theories has also been a matter of dispute

amongst philosophers of science. For most of the history of science,
it has been agreed that scientific theories were attempts to represent
and hence to explain the physical universe. During this century,
however, the philosophical doctrine of instrumentalism —according to
which laws of nature are not descriptive but only instruments or
tools for the organisation or classification of phenomena—has been
widely accepted. An instrumentalist approach had already been pari
of the Machian philosophy; another important influence came from
a French source: the great work on The Aim and Structure of Physical
Theory by the theoretical physicist Pierre Duhem (1861-1916).16 In-
strumentalism got its greatest boost, however, from quantum me-
chanics, in the form of Niels Bohr’s principle of complementarity. A
way of handling the contradictions and conflicts in quantum theory,
it amounts to forsaking the attempt to represent the world in a
consistent coherent model, and it settles for using the formalism of
the theory, in application to single experiments, for instrumental
purposes of prediction.
Instrumentalism also provided a way to deal with the difficulties
of induction and demarcation; and by the same token, the difficul-
ties of induction and demarcation helped pave the way for the
acceptance of instrumentalism. To accept induction—even to insist
upon using it—despite its own logical incoherence, and despite the
paradoxes that had arisen in attempts to state it clearly, amounted
to treating the theory of induction instrumentally too. For it was the
desire to provide representation and explanation that had required
” Eugene P. Wigner, VvmmiWnzi and Refactions (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press
1967), p, 186. Sec m y “Critical Study: The Philosophy of Karl Popper: Part I I : Consciousness and
Physics: Quantum Mechanics, Probability, Indeterminism, the Body-Mind Problem*’. Philosophic
1978, pp. 676-716. See also Popper, Qiwn/um Theory and the Schism in Physics, vol. 3 of d , c
Postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery, op. cit,
11
Pierre Duhem. The Aim and Structure of Physical Theon (Princeton: Princeton Universit'
Press. 1914/1954).
174
consistency in the first place. Instruments, tools, do not need to be

internally consistent, for they do not pretend to explain.
8. Philosophy of Science in a State of Collapse
I have indicated briefly some of the main problems and issues of

the philosophy of science as they were often stated some thirty to
forty years ago, and as they are still widely understood today. By
stating them in a detached way, it is easy to give the impression
that they were ordinary and relatively minor problems. Nothing could
be further from the truth. At the very moment when the profession of
philosophy of science was organising, the fundamental theory of
philosophy of science was in a state of collapse. Yet this was not
acknowledged. Rather, contradiction and even paradox were glori-
fied, almost as if they were signs of profundity. As a way of deal-
ing—or not dealing—with the crisis, the importance of real anom-
alies was played down. And at the same time pseudo-paradoxes
flourished. 17 Sponsored by instrumentalism, this uncritical attitude
towards contradiction and paradox, this playing down of real anom-
alies, expressed itself most revealingly in the simultaneous prizing of
formalism (including logical formalism) and practical contempt for
logic. Complementarity, for instance, rescued the Copenhagen
Interpretation from contradiction ad hoc. The same sorts of moves
were taken in positivism and in confirmation theory (and also in
certain other areas that I cannot probe here, such as behaviourism
in psychology, and linguistic analysis18), thus turning the wider
ideology that included all of these areas into a reinforced dogma-
tism—a dogmatism strengthened by “good reasons” why the strong-
est criticisms should not be taken seriously. Criticism was thus sealed
off. diminished, explained away in advance. Evidence of this appears
in hundreds of writers. Few, however, attained the eloquence of
Hilary Putnam, of Harvard University, who wrote:
In this sense “induction is circular." But of course it is! Induction

has no deductive justification; induction is not deduction. . . . I he
' Two such pseudo-paradoxes are Goodman’s puzzle about "grue" emeralds and Lewis
roll 5 Barber-Shop Paradox. See my discussions of Goodman, as died above; and my discussion
Carroll in Bartley, Lewis Carroll's Symbolic Logic, op. cit., pp. 444-449.
1
. ’ Sec Ernest Gellner. lEbrdj and Things (London: Gollancz. 1959). and chapter* 14 ant
175
fact that a justification is circular only means that the justification

has no power to serve as a reason, unless the person to whom it is
given as a reason already has some propensity to accept the con-
clusion. We do have a propensity—an a priori propensity, if you
like—to reason “inductively," and the past success of “induction"
increases that propensity . . . . Practice is primary.1*
To argue as Putnam does is to legitimise dogmatism. For practice

is not “primary’’; it is just practice. To have a propensity—inclina-
tion, tendency, or predisposition—to accept something that would,
apart from such a predisposition to accept it, be unacceptable is
precisely what is meant by “to be prejudiced" or “to act as judge in
one’s own cause". Many practising scientists do seem to have such
propensities. Thus T. Theocharis and M. Psimopoulos uncritically
argue that “science and philosophy will be saved . . . when the
practitioners of these disciplines stop running down their own
professions and start pleading the cause of science and philosophy
correctly’’.*1
One aim of rationality and of traditional scientific civilisation has
been to review prejudices, attachments, practices, and propensities (a
priori, “natural", or otherwise), and to subject them to examination,
restraint, and criticism. A good reason —as opposed to a rationalis-
ation—is one that works independently of a priori propensity. It is
the rehabilitation of this tradition of criticism that underlies Karl
Popper’s resolution of the crisis in the philosophy of science.
•• Hilar)' Putnam, “The ‘Corroboration’ of Theories", in The Philosophy of Karl Popper. cd

Schlipp, op. du pp. 238-239. See my discussion of a similar approach by Ayer in my The Retreat
to Commitment,second edition, op. dt,, in my “Rationality versus the Theory of Rationality", in The
Critiud Approach,ed. M. Bunge (New York: Free Press, 1964), and in chapter 15 of this book
*® They make this recommendation in an article which, in terms of scholarship, command of
the material, and logical argumentation, must be the worst article ever printed in Nature: "Where
science has gone wrong". Nature, vol. 329. October 15, 1987, pp. 595-598. Apparently never
having read The Logic of Scientific Discovery, chapter 5, they accuse Popper of neglecting the
theory -laden character of observations (Popper in fact emphasised this more strongly than anyone
else this century), and then conclude that Imre Lakatos discovered that sdentific theories arc
neither verifiable nor falsifiable—a conclusion that hardly follows from the arguments given, and
that neglects the heart of Popper’s argument, which has to do with the asymmetry between
verifying and falsifying observations.
176
Chapter 1 1
AND HOW T H E CRISIS WAS RESOLVED
1. Popper's Response: There Is No Induction
It was into this crisis situation that the revolutionary ideas of Karl
Popper were broadcast in January 1959, with the publication of The
Logic of Scientific Discovery.
Popper's book had been published in late 1934, in his native
Vienna, as Die Logik der Forschung.' But as the storms of war gath-
ered, the philosophers of science at the great centres of Vienna,
Prague, Berlin, and Warsaw were already dispersing, many of them,
like Popper, being of Jewish descent. The first edition of Logik der
Forschung thus had a limited circulation. During the war itself
communication was badly interrupted everywhere, and Popper
himself was removed from the scene, teaching in New Zealand. He
did not return to Europe, to the London School of Economics, until
early 1946; and at that time he became well known first as a social
and political philosopher, a philosopher of history, and a historian
of philosophy, in response to the publication of his The Open Society
and Its Enemies (1945) and The Poverty of Historicism (1944 and 1957).
The Logic of Scientific Discovery is, however, the theoretical work on
which his historical, political, and other studies depend.2 In it he
was able, simply and straightforwardly, to resolve many of the issues
in the philosophy of science. I mean this literally. In the domain of
objective knowledge and abstract argumentation’, the problem of
induction is solved, and the verificationism that lies behind it is
refuted.
Popper shows that induction does not exist. Rejecting the em-
piricist theory of learning as in conflict with biological knowledge,
Popper sees the mind as no passive “bucket" into which experience
rains and which can at most recombine that experience in various
ways. On the contrary, all experience is impregnated by theory. The
mind anticipates the future with hypotheses that necessarily go far
beyond experience: hypotheses precede observations psychologically,
logically, even genetically. Every animal is born with expecta-
tions—i.e., with something closely parallel to hypotheses, which, if
' More literally, “The Logic of Investigation" or “The Logic of Research".

* See also Popper’s first book, finally published in 1979: Di# Ariden GrurwZ/fmWem/
' nninmhronf (TQbingen: J . C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck] Verlag. 1979), in which many of the
ideas of Logik der Forschung are given their first statement.
‘ That is, what Popper calls “World 3". See K. R. Popper, Otyrrtiw taWp. op. cit.
verbalised, would express hypotheses? The role of experience is to

break expectations: to challenge them. The ability of an animal to
learn depends on the extent to which it can modify expectations
contradicted by experience, and on the extent to which it can invent
new expectations to deal with unanticipated situations.’ With this
argument, Popper shows that the relationship between theory and
observation is deductively logical after all. A basic asymmetry obtains
between the verification and falsification of a theory: although no
amount of observation could ever verify a theory logically, a single
observation may falsify it, serving logically as a counter-example.6
On Popper's approach there is limited use of probability to
evaluate statements and no confirmation theory whatever. The
paradoxes associated with probability and confirmation, and stressed
by Hempel and Goodman, simply do not arise for Popper.
How then are hypotheses or theories to be confirmed? They are
not to be confirmed. There is no way to confirm —to prove, verify,
make firmer, make more probable—any theory of any interest.
Theories are and remain forever conjectural. There is no certain
knowledge. What is done, and what is mistaken for confirmation,
Popper calls “corroboration". For a theory to be corroborated is
simply to have been tested severely and to have passed such tests. A
theory is not made more probable thereby: it may fail a yet more
severe test tomorrow.
' See Popper's extended discussions of induction in Objective Knowledge, op. cit., chapters I
and 2; and in Realism and the Aim of Science. op. cit., chapter 1. See also David Miller, “Conjectural
Knowledge: Popper's Solution of the Problem of Induction", in Paul Levinson. ed„ In Pursuit of
Truth, op. cit., pp. 17-49 See also the recent discoveries of Popper and Miller, devastating to
induction, in K. R. Popper and David Miller. "Why Probabilistic Support Is Not Inductive", Phil
Trans. Royal Society London, A 321. 1987. pp. 569-591, and “A Proof of the Impossibility of
Inductive Probability”, vol. 302. Nature, 21 April 1983. pp. 687-688, and "A Proof of the Intpossi
bility of Inductive Probability (A Reply to Some Critics)", Nature, vol. 310, pp. 433 434. See also
Alain Boyer's review, “Logique el philosophic des sciences", Revue philosophique, vol. 175. 1985. PP
358-359. See also K. R. Popper, "The Non-Existence of Probabilistic Inductive Support", in Georg
Dorn and Paul Wcingartner, eds.. foundations of Logic and languishes (New York: Plenum
Publishing Corporation, 1985), pp. 303-318.
’ for a discussion of work in psychology that refutes the inductivist approach, see Walter b
Weimer's discussion of Karl Pribram's work on habituation, in Walter B. Weimer. " Hie Pxycholo-
gy of Inference and Expectation", in Induction, Probability, and Confirmation, ed. Grover Maxwell
and R. M. Anderson. Jr. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1975), p. 459. See al’"'
Weimer's Notes on the Methodology of Scientific Research (Hillsdale, N, J.: Erlhaum [John Wileyb
1979), and bis "'Hie History of Psychology and Ils Retrieval from Historiography", Parts 1 and 1 1
in Science Studies, vol. 4. 1974, pp. 235-258 and 367-396.
Falsifying observations are also theory-impregnated and thus also falsifiable. See K. b.
Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. op. cit.. sec. 27. and Gunnar Andersson. "Naive a "1
Critical Falsificationism". in Paul Levinson, ed., In Pursuit of Truth, op. cit., pp 50-63.
178
AND HOW IT WAS RESOLVED
2. Falsifiability and Demarcation
Popper’s approach to demarcation flows immediately from his

treatment of the problem of induction. To demarcate science from
nonscience Popper proposes the testability or falsifiability criterion.
For what would science have to be? Not the systematic body of
confirmed, probable, verified theories envisioned by positivists.7
Rather, it would consist of a nexus of problems, theories put for-
ward to solve them, and tests made of these theories. A scientific
theory is one that is testable or falsifiable: that is, a theory in
potential conflict with possible results of observation.
Whereas the verifiability criterion had excluded not only wild
speculation but also most of the highest achievements of science,
falsifiability makes a more effective cut: most acknowledged scientific
theories are in potential conflict with sense experience (and thus
empirically criticisable). Most religious and many speculative state-
ments, by contrast, are untestable. No specifiable empirical observa-
tion, for instance, stands in potential conflict with “God exists",
“There are angels”, “There is an afterlife”, or “There is a fountain
of youth”. Such unrestricted statements of existence are often untes-
table as a result of their form alone. Other theories — Popper cites as
examples those of Freud,8 Adler, and Marx—are untestable (and
hence unscientific) because they contain stratagems for deflecting
empirical criticism. 9
The untestability of Marxism and psychoanalysis indicates low
content and relative weakness. “The more a theory forbids, the
more it says” is one of Popper’s fondest slogans. 10 In this respect
these theories contrast with the sciences. “What impressed me most",
Popper writes, “was Einstein’s own clear statement that he would
regard his theory as untenable if it should fail in certain tests’’.11
, Although Popper’s criticisms of Freudian theory are on the whole sound, they are on
ccasions somewhat overstated. .Adolf Grunbaum has gone to the other extreme in his Is
feudian Psychoanalytic Theory Pseudo-Scientific by Karl Popper's Criterion of Demarcation?
’ Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 16. 1979. pp. 131-141. See Popper’s extended discussion of
* n K fa llvrn the dim of Science,op. cit. See also the evaluation of GrOnbaum’s work by M-
alturni1
Af tophilosophy,and Paul R. McHugh,
vol. 18. July/October 306-320. Psychoanalytic Theory’ Really Falsifiable? ,
1987,“Ispp.Freudian
and Watkins, “Confirmable and Influential Metaphysics”. Mind. 1958. pp. 345-347.
chapte f ' 8* Scientific Discovery, op. dt, sec. 15. and Conjectures and Refutations, op. cit..
See chapter 2 above.
Sec Popper, Unended Quest, op. dr., p. 38.
179
Untestability has, however, nothing to do with criteria of mean-

ingfulness: untestable statements may stand in logical relations with
testable statements and thus cannot differ from them with regard to
meaningfulness.”
Nor does Popper’s account imply that scientific theories are the
only ‘good’ ideas. Many valuable theories, particularly in early stages
of their development, will not be testable. They may, however, be
criticisable in various other ways: for example, they may be shown
to fail to solve those problems that they purport to solve; or to
solve any other problems; or they may contain self-immunising
stratagems for deflecting criticism; or may be internally incoherent.1
Many ideas important in the history of science, although not testable
in Popper’s sense, acted as what he calls “metaphysical research pro-
grams” or principles of interpretation, guiding and sponsoring
scientific research. These have included atomism and Darwins
theory of natural selection in their early stages of development.11
Two other untestable yet opposed viewpoints, determinism and
indeterminism, play a crucial role in the interpretation of contempo-
rary quantum theory.”
5. Probability, Metaphysical Determinism, and Quantum Mechanics
Although Popper does not evaluate scientific theories in terms of

their degree of probability, he sees the question of the interpreta-
tion of the probability calculus as the key to the solution of the
chief problems of quantum theory. The interpretation of quantum
theory, he argues, hinges on whether one attributes subjective or
objective status to probability statements in physics. What does it
“ Moreover, as explained earlier, positivist preoccupation with meaning steins from an error
alter the classical logical paradoxes had indeed been able to be resolved through meaning
analysis, it was mistakenly assumed that the traditional problems of metaphysics would similar 1'
disappear under meaning analysis. This is however presented by a decisive difference between thr
traditional logical paradoxes and the traditional problems of metaphysics: the paradoxes are
produced by self-reference, whereas self-reference is absent in traditional philosophical problems
Hence the parallel fails. Sec my discussion in Lewis Carroll’s Symbolic Logic, op. dt., and in Part I
above.
” See my The Retreat to Commitment. op. dt, chapter 5; and "Rationality. Critidsm. am
Logic", op. cit.
” See my "Critical Study: The Philosophy of Karl Popper: Part I: Biology and Evolution.o '
Epistemology," Philosophies. vol. 6, 1976. pp. 463-494. and Radniuky and Bartley. Evolutum" 1
Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge, op. dt.
' See K. R. Popper, The Open L'niterse: An Argument for Indeterminism, op. dt.
mean, for example, to say that the probability of a photon passing

through a half-silvered mirror is one-half? According to the subjec-
tive interpretation, this means that, due to our ignorance of the
relevant initial conditions, we have no more reason to expect the
photon to pass through than to be reflected. Whereas, on the
objective interpretation, this means that nature is indifferent between
letting it through and reflecting it. The objective interpretation
seems, on the face of it, more reasonable. It seems preposterous to
suppose that pennies fall or molecules collide randomly because we
are unaware of initial conditions—and that they would do otherwise
if these conditions were known to us.
Nonetheless, the majority of physicists adopt a si
pretation of the probability calculus. Their reasons for this are two-
fold. First, existing objective accounts of probability—the so-called
"frequency interpretation", for instance -have been importantly
inadequate, being unable to handle probabilities for single events.IS
Second, most physicists presuppose what Popper calls metaphysical
determinism,and thus cannot possibly accept an objective account of
probability. For a metaphysical determinist, nothing is really, objec-
tively, only probable: everything is exactly fixed. Relative to a
complete knowledge of all the laws of nature and all initial condi-
tions, the probability of any possible event is either one or zero.
Hence probabilities with intermediate values, as in quantum mechan-
ics, can refer only to the state of information available. The upshot
is that quantum mechanics is ordinarily presented as a report of our
knowledge about particles, not as a report of objective reality.
To combat this approach, Popper developed his propensity inter-
pretation of probability, which is not subject to the defects of the
frequency interpretation. The propensity interpretation is supple-
mented by a series of strong arguments on behalf of metaphysical
determinism.” Popper’s account of quantum theory requires no
move to instrumentalism to protect the theory from paradox or
p O( . t o r an account of the different interpretations of the probability calculus, see K. R-

"PP«r. Ktalum and th, Am of Sama. op. cil. Part II.
Ibid.
181
anomaly." In estimating the status of scientific theories he himself

opts for a realist, representationalist19 point of view.
After beginning his work with philosophy of physics, Popper went
on to develop new foundations for logic and probability theory, and
then, in the ’forties, established another reputation as a social and
political philosopher. In Popper’s hands these are not separate
areas, but are closely connected: indeterminism in history is integ-
rated with indeterminism in physics; and criticism of theories, with
rational reform of social institutions. In his later years, he turned
his attention to another area only hinted at in his earlier work:
biology and evolutionary theory. The new work is not simply
incremental: it unifies all his thought. In The Logic of Scientific Dis-
covery, Popper had urged epistemologists to approach their task
through the study of the most advanced forms of knowledge: scien-
tific theories. Now he turns also to primitive and prehuman forms
of knowledge and to evolution for examples of the growth of
knowledge, maintaining that “The main task of the theory of knowl-
edge is to understand it as continuous with animal knowledge; and
to understand also its discontinuities—if any—from animal knowl-
edge”. Epistemology becomes a science of comparative cognitive
apparatuses.20 Biologically based cognitive structures, as well as
scientific theories themselves, Popper treats as objective structures of
knowledge achievement. And both are, for him, produced by the
competitive Darwinian mechanism: the highest creative thought, like
animal adaptation, is a product of blind variation and selective
retention?1 The implications of these later developments in his
thought he works out in two books, his Objective Knowledge (1972).
and his The Self and Its Brain (1977), written in collaboration with
the Nobel-prizewinning neurophysiologist Sir John Eccles. In the
latter, Popper turns to the mind-body problem, where he develops
'■ See Popper's Quantum Theory and the Schism m Physics. op. dt.; see also my "Conscious'"''
and Physics", Phdosophia. 1976; and Jim Edwards. "Hidden Variables and the Propensity Theft'
of Probability", British Journal far the Philosophy of Science, vol. SO. 1979. pp. 315-328.
'* See Blackmore. Ernst Mach, and my "Philosophy of Biology versus Philosophy o f Physic'
chapter I of Radnitzky and Bartley, Evolutionary Epistemology , op. dt.
“ K. R. Popper, in The Philosophy of Karl Popper, ed. Schlipp, op. cit.. p. 1061; sec also ""
"Biology and Evolutionary Epistemology", op. dl„ and the essays by Campbell. Popper.
myself in Radnitzky and Bardey. Evolutionary Epistemology, op. dt.
" See Donald T. Campbell, "Blind Variation and Selective Retention in Creative Though'
in Other Knowledge Processes". Psychological Review, vol. 67, 1960, pp. 380-400, and in Radu"
and Bartley, op. cit.
i ao
an interactionist theory that combats both behaviourism and mater*

ialism.
4. A Reexamination of the Philosophy of Science from Within Science
1 have done no more than touch on some of the main emphases

of Popper’s thought. Yet it is obvious that it poses a striking chal-
lenge to conventional theories of science. At a time when most
philosophers of science are inductivist, subjectivist, positivist, instru-
mentalist, behaviourist, materialist, monistic, Popper is deducuvist,
realist, anti-positivist, and-instrumentalist, anti-behaviourist, anti-
materialist, interactionist. The significance is not simply in the
attack: theories of science have been challenged before, often in
connexion with ideological defenses of religion, or for political
purposes. No such motive lies behind Popper’s work. Rather, it is a
fundamental reexamination of the philosophy of science from within
science and on behalf of a more adequate scientific view of the
world. A methodology thoroughly dependent on historical studies, it
is applicable to all fields and disciplines which aim to achieve more
adequate descriptions and explanations.
Throughout, Popper’s work contrasts sharply with that of the
positivists and his other predecessors and rivals. Although Popper,
like the positivists, made important contributions to logic and
physics, his work is not minute. There is a largeness and boldness
to his ideas —a flowing ruminative expansiveness that defies Lord
Snow’s “two cultures”. Popper's ideas also have an amazing
Rope— ranging from physics through biology to sociology, political
theory, theory of education, Greek history and philosophy, and even
■he history of polyphonic music.” As if electrically charged, he draws
tn original spark from any subject he touched.
h would however be absurd to suggest that Popper's theories
‘esolve all legitimate controversies in the philosophy of science. For
Stance, although he has written on the theory of time, he has not
Pyiributed in a major way to relativity theory; nor do his ideas
‘ ° ve the problems in relativity theory mentioned in the previous
S®* his Unended Quest, op. aL
* 183
chapter.2’ Moreover, his work in quantum theory, which is major, is

in part hostage to the later theories of Alfred Land£, which have
never been rigorously examined. Various aspects of Popper’s meth-
odology are also inadequate: his theory of demarcation is sometimes
clumsy in application, and is defective in various other ways. His
theories of verisimilitude, corroboration, and basic statements are
also inadequate.24
Nonetheless, Popper’s work leaves philosophy of science in a state
utterly different from the one that originally faced the profession
founded to deal with it. How has that profession reacted to his
work?
** K. R. Popper, “On the Possibility of an Infinite Past: A Reply to Whitrow," British Journal
for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 29, 1978, pp. 47-48; and Popper. Unended Quest, op. cit., secs. 28.
30. 35-56.
H
Sec my "Rationality, Criticism, and Logic", op. 6l. and The Retreat to Commitment. op. cit
Appendices 2 and 3. See also Gunnar Andersson. "The Problem of Verisimilitude", in Progress and
Rationality in Science, rd. Gerard Radnitzky and Gunnar Andersson (Boston: Reidcl. 1978). pp
291-310, and the bibliographical references died there. See also Joseph Agassi. "The Role of
Corroboration", tufraZanan Journal of Philosophy, vol. 39. 1961. pp. 82-91; and Popper’s Objective
Knowledge, op. at. rev. ed., Appendix 2. on Miller's paradoxes.
184
Chapter 12
POPPER’S RECEPTION BY T H E PROFESSION-
CON LAMENTO
By expounding these paradoxical ideas I wanted to grant

to the professors of philosophy a small favour, for they are
very disconcerted by the ever-increasing publicisation of my
philosophy, which they so carefully concealed.
Arthur Schopenhauer
As England shrinks politically . . . it has produced a

culture of envy, of acid dismissal . . . . Rhetoric, the large
gesture, the imagination that takes risks, arc suspect. The
thin gray ones set the tone; the round and furry ones, the
artists, thinkers, entrepreneurs who bare their skin to die
wind, are cut down.
George Steiner 1
If the several thousands or more of professional philoso-

phers in America were all assembled in one place, and a
small nuclear device were detonated over it, American
society would remain totally unaffected.
Ernest Gellner 1
/ . Acclaim by the Intellectual Community
In the preceding several chapters, 1 have discussed briefly the

nature of the crises in philosophy and philosophy of science, and of
Popper’s resolution of them.
How then has his work been received? Has his resolution of the
problems of induction and demarcation been accepted and incor-
porated into the framework of professional philosophy?
Not at all.
I am not considering here Popper’s reception by the intellectual
community at large: one must make a sharp distinction between the
general culture, including science, and the profession of philosophy.
The general response to Popperian ideas has been exceptionally
favourable, especially in the past three decades, and Popper is today
°ne of the most celebrated, decorated, and richly acknowledged
' The New Yorker. March 18. 1974. p. 145.

* Gellner. The Devd in Modem Phdorophr (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1974), pp- S7-S8-
LNFATHOMED KNOWLEDGE
philosophical, scientific, and literary figures of the century.’ The

impact of his ideas on science —not only physics and biology but
also psychology and economics—and also on cultural, intellectual,
and political discourse has been immense, particularly in Germany 4,
France5, Italy, and England. I do not of course mean that everyone
in these places agrees to his ideas, but their importance is widely
acknowledged. H e has also won as disciples, dose friends, and
working colleagues independent people of intellectual standing
comparable to his own. Among the most distinguished of these are
Sir Ernst Gombrich, O M , the art historian; Donald T. Gampbell, the
psychologist and past president of the American Psychological
Association; F. A. von Hayek, C H , the economist; Sir John Eccles,
FRS, the neurophysiologist; the late Sir Peter Medawar, OM, C H ,
FRS, the biologist and immunologist; and Jacques Monod, the
biochemist. Hayek, Eccles, Medawar, and Monod are all Nobel
prizewinners —-just as Popper himself has joined Winston Churchill.
Albert Schweitzer, Bertrand Russell, Arthur Koestler, and Niels Bohr
* For a few examples see. "Popper Unwinds the Clockwork", Independent, August 25, 1988;
"Popper parades a propensity for defending science". Daily Telegraph. August 25, 1988; "Russians
leave glasnost back in the USSR". Independent. August 26, 1988; “World Congress of Philosophy:
Intellectual athletes enjoy their Olympic Games", The Times, August 28. 1988; "The loaded
question of dice", The Times, August 25. 1988.
* For reports see, for example, Georg Ltlhrs, Thilo Sarrazin, Frithjof Spreer, and Manfred
Tietael, cds.. Kritischer Raltonahsmus und Saualdemokratu. with Foreword by Helmut Schmidt (Berlin:
J . H. W. Dietz Vcrlag, 1975); or T. W. Adorno, H Albert, R. Dahrcndorf. J . Habermas, H. Pilot,
and K. R. Popper. The Positivist Dupuis m German Sociology (London: Heinemann, 1976). See also
Ralf Dahrcndorf. /trisen nach innen und auflen: Askpete der Zeil (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt,
1984), p. 50. Sec also: Irene Meichsner. “Zum 85. Geburtstag von Karl Popper. Philosophic der
kleinen Schritte. BOrgcrliche Parteien berufen sich auf ihn", in Kdbur Sladt-Anznger, vol, 173, 28
July 1987, p. 21; Holger Jergius. “Wissen braucht Freiheit", NZ, vol. 168, 25 July 1987, p. 9;
Willy Hochkeppcl. "Das Suchen ist die Philosophic." in Du Zed, vol. 31, 24 July 1987. p. 31.
Helmut Schmidt. 'Der Mann mil dem Goldhclm". Du Zed, vol. 31, 24 July 1987, p. 31; Volker
Friedrich, “Interview mil Sir Karl Popper: Der Warner vor falschcn Prophetcn (III): Karl
Raimund Popper liber Evolution, Sichcrheit und Wirklichkett: Wahrheit ist eine absolute und
objektive Sadie"; Walter Allgaier, “Wcltverbesscrcr sind die eigentlichen Feinde: Seine Ideen
wirkrn weltweit in 22 Sprachen: Der Phiiosoph Karl Popper wird 85 Jahre alt", in Mdnchnrr
Merkur, 24 July 1987; Franz Kreuzcr, "Auf der Suche nach einer besseren Welt: Karl Popper zum
flinfundachtaigsten Geburtstag". Die Prase, Vienna. 25/26 July 1987; Eberhard Ddring, “Wit
wissen nicht. sondem wir raten: Zum 85. Geburtstag von Karl Popper, dem Vordenker des
1-iberalismus". Reindcher Merkur, vol. 30. 24 July 1987; Volker Friedrich, "Sir Karl Ober Philo
sophie, den Zeitgeist und die Postmoderne: Ohne groBe Liebe kcinc Leistung". Rrinischrr Merkur,
vol. 30. 24 July 1987; Stephan Wchowsky. “Phiiosoph des I mums. Zum 85. Geburtstag de*
Wissenschaftstheoretikers Karl Popper”, SUddeulsche Zettung, vol. 168, 25 July 1987, p. 49; Jurgen
Lohle, “Auf der Suche nach dem Irrtuin”, Stultgarter Zeitung, vol. 168, 25 July 1987, p. 5; Tom
Meissner. “Fur sein Dcnken gcadelt". ,4Z, 28 July 1987, "Optimismus und Toleranz", NUmbergrr
Nachnchten, 27 July 1987.
* See Henri Lepage, Demmn Is liberalisms (Paris: labrairie Gln&ale Fran iis. 1980). pp. 48611
186
POPPERS RECEPTION BY T H E PROFESSION
as a winner of Denmark’s Sonning Prize.® Popper is, in 1989, also

the first to receive the Catalonia Prize for his contributions to
European culture.7 Another Nobel laureate, the late Konrad Lorenz,
although never an associate of Popper’s, also acknowledged the close
bearing of Popper’s ideas on his own.’ Thomas Szasz has written
that his life’s work consists in having applied in psychiatry the ideas
of Mises, Hayek, and Popper? Dramatic evidence of Popper’s impact
on the general public is the reception he is sometimes accorded at
his now rare public appearances: in Tubingen, in 1977, and in
Milan, in 1983, there were riots at Popper’s public lectures—riots
that he himself quelled. In Milan, some ten times more people
showed up than could be accommodated in the designated auditor-
ium; the following morning, the Italian newspapers reported that
Popper had been awarded the sort of reception usually reserved in
Milan only for a diva.10 The lament referred to in the title of this
chapter is, then, not for Popper himself, or for those who have
been associated with him, but for the profession and calling of
philosophy.11
* The winners o f the Sonning Prize include: Winston Churchill. 1950; Albert Schweitzer.
1959; Bertrand Russell, I960; Niels Bohr. 1961; Alvar Aalto, 1962; Karl Barth, 1963; Dominique
Pirc, 1964; Richard von Coudenhove-Kalcrgi. 1965; Sir Laurence Olivier. 1966; W. A. Visscr't
Hooft. 1967; Arthur Koestler, 1968; Halldor Laxness; 1969; Max Tau. 1970; Danilo Doici. 1971;
Sir Karl Popper, 1973; Hannah Arendt, 1975; Arne Naess, 1977; Hermann Gmeiner, 1979. A
Sonning Music Prize is also awarded annually, whose recipients include Leonard Bernstein,
Andres Segovia, and Mstislav Rostropovitch.
’ Sec Institut Calais d'Etudis Medttcrranis. Premi hilemacimal Catalunya 1989 {Barcelona:
Generalitat de Catalunya, 1989).
* See Konrad Lorenz, Behind the Mirror: A Search for a Natural History of Human Knowledge
(New York; Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977); and Alec Nisbeu, Konrad Lomu; A Biography (New
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976). See also Donald T. Campbell. "Reintroducing Konrad
lorenz to Psychology", in Richard I. Evans. Konrad Ijrreru; The Man anil His Ideas (New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1975). But see tny commentaries in Rupert Riedl and Franz M.
Wuketits, eds., Die evolutiondre Erkenntndtheone (Berlin: Verlag Paul Parey, 1987), pp. 37-89.
’ Ralph Raico, "Master Iconoclast: A Celebration of ILiomas Szasz". Ijtisse; Faire Books,
November 1988, p. 22. Raico writes: "As regards psychiatry and psychology, Szasz is the great
advocate of die principle of voluntary exchange, the rule of law. and the open society. But in the
course of struggling for some thirty ,’ears
y on behalf of these libertarian ideas in a field virtually
I monopolized by the purveyors —and beneficiaries— of collectivist ideologies, Szasz has achieved
Nothing less than a Copernican revolution."
“ See "11 grande filosofo al convegno su 'individuale-colicttivo': Torino, un'ovazione per
Popper”, La Stampa, January 14, 1983; "Inconlro con Karl Popper, il filosofo ottuagenario in Italia
P*r un convegno: 'Sono sordo, cieco e stupido'", II (iiomale, January 14, 1983; “Convegno a
I Torino: Con Popper e Bobbio alia cicerca dello Stato di Ragione", Il manifesto, January 14, 1983.
11
The way in which Popper has reached the general public began to become apparent in
*®78, when The Tones Higher Education Supplement printed a critique of Popper by an Oxford
Philosopher, there were many letters of protest from die general public, some of them printed in
•bhsequent issues. Most responses, although clearly competent, were by members of the public
I Unknown to the professional community—including Popper's group. Times Higher Education
187
The story behind that lament suggests that Adam Smith was right
to say that the people “would soon find better teachers for them-
selves than any whom the state could provide for them"1’, that is,
the state . . . or the philosophical profession, most of whose mem-
bers are now funded, directly or indirectly, by the state.
2. Rejection,Obstruction and Suppression by the Profession
Among professional philosophers, there are few crowds cheering

for Popper. He has received little recognition by them, and the
spread of his ideas and his influence has been sabotaged, delayed,
damaged by them in virtually every way imaginable. Of course one
might describe these efforts to obstruct Popper’s work, as well as the
widespread plagiarism of it amongst philosophers, as forms of
recognition! In any case, neither the obstruction nor the plagiarism
began in the period of his fame, but go back to the early days of
his career. The first can already be seen in Carnap’s callous refusal
in 1936—when Popper was attempting to escape Austria for Amer-
ica—even to provide an affidavit for Popper’s U.S. visa application,
a refusal privately defended with the suggestion that Popper was
not fit to teach in an American college or university.15 It is hardly a
matter of there being real doubt—in the minds of Carnap or
anyone else—about Popper’s significance. For Herbert Feigl had
already confessed to Popper, early in the 1930s, that it was unfor-
tunate that the Vienna Circle had not known his work earlier—for
they had by then committed themselves to Wittgenstein.
Thus in estimating Popper's influence one does have to distin-
guish between those among the general culture, including science,
who are interested in philosophy and scientific discovery, on the one
hand, and the profession of philosophy on the other. The contrast
between Popper’s public reception —including his acknowledgement
by scientists in virtually all fields—and his reception by the philo-
sophical profession makes his story illuminating to anyone interested
Supplement. July 14. 1978. p. 11; August 4, 1978, p. 10; September 1, 1978, p. 11.
11
Adam Smith, d n Intfuin Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, op. cil.. p. 621
“ See the Carnap Archive at the University of Pittsburgh, especially the corresponded c
between Mrs. Carnap and Mrs. C. G. Hempel, and Carnap's own correspondence with Popp t r
Carnap was not of Jewish descent, and had left his Professorship in the University of Prague f‘,r
career purposes and to leave what, he correctly anticipated, would soon become a war rone
188
POPPER S RECEPTION BY T H E PROFESSION
in the growth and diffusion of knowledge and the obstacles to that

growth.
It is a story that has turned out rather differently than 1 had

expected in the early 1960s, by which time it had become apparent
that, with Popper’s work, and with that of his school, an important
new position had emerged in philosophy. At this time, those of us
associated with Popper were very well aware that we were on the
verge of an extraordinary breakthrough, and that in Popper’s
thought were the seeds of a far-reaching research program that
could be expanded and generalised, and also applied profitably in
many adjacent fields. We did feel ourselves embattled then: we saw
in the positivism and analytic philosophy of England and America,
and in the phenomenology and existentialism of continental Europe,
an entrenched, often hostile and unyielding—and uncompre-
hending—opposition.
But none of us took the immediate reception of the ideas all that
seriously. A philosophical revolution is hardly as clear-cut a matter
as a revolution in science; and even a revolution in science may
take a generation or more. None of us expected instant acceptance
of the new philosophical approach that we were engaged in devel-
oping. Had I been asked in those days to forecast the influence and
assimilation of our viewpoint by the intellectual world, I would have
predicted that it would be accepted rather quickly in my native
United States, that it would eventually, but more slowly, win a place
in Wittgensteinian England. About Germany and the continent of
Europe I was least hopeful, and in the preface to the first German
edition of my The Retreat to Commitment 1* 1 launched a rude attack
on German philosophy.
Such forecasts are often wrong, and mine was no exception. After
all, the Buddha, after failing in India, became revered in Japan.
And Marx, who failed, despite all his efforts, to stir up revolution in
Germany, France, or England, succeeded, against his own predic-
tions, in Russia. So it was with my own forecasts. Popper is now a
celebrity in England and on the continent, and especially in Germany,
and is a darling of the European scientific establishment. Even here,
a
s I have already explained, his work is generally excluded from
'* Eluehl ms Engagement (Munich: Szczesny Verlag, 1964); retranslated by Klaus I’ahlcr.
following the second, expanded American edition of 1984, and published in Tftbingen by J . C. B.
Mohr (Paul Siebcck) Verlag, 1987.
189
philosophy departments. But it is in that western country where

intellectual life is most professionalised (i.e., segregated from the
general culture and protected from competition by guild rules)—the
United States—that Popper’s work is least widely recognised n<>(
only by philosophers but amongst the general public. Campbell, who
is not a professional philosopher, is the only American in the list of
Popper’s associates given above. If we turn to the next generation,
to Popper’s own best-known students—Joseph Agassi,15 Hans Al-
bert,16 Paul K. Feyerabend,1’ I. C. Jarvie,” Imre Lakatos,” A. 1.
Sabra,*0 Jeremy Shearmur,*' J . W. N. Watkins,22 J . O. Wisdom,2’
and myself —one finds that 1 am the only one amongst them born
in the United States.24
In Britain, where there exists a strong intellectual culture in-
dependent of the universities, the situation is somewhat different.
Even thoroughly academic and professional philosophical thought
plays some role in general British culture through radio and televi-
sion, the various Times supplements, public lecture programs, and
distinguished journals for the educated public such as Encounter,
The Economist,and The New Scientist. In that wider culture Popper is
an important literary and scientific figure, a best-selling author, a
major influence. 25 In Britain, despite the effect that linguistic philo-
“ Professor of Philosophy at York University and Tel-Aviv University; sometime Professor of

Philosophy at Boston University. Reader in Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong, and
Assistant Lecturer in Philosophy at the l-ondon School of Economics.
*• Emeritus Professor of Methodology of the Social Sciences. University of Mannheim. West
Germany.
" Professor of Philosophy. University of California. Berkeley, and ETH, Zurich; sometime
Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Bristol. England.
11
Professor of Philosophy, York University. Toronto; sometime Lecturer in Philosophy at the
University of Hong Kong.
“ Late Professor of Logic in the University of London (London School of Economics* and
Professor of Philosophy at Boston University.
" Professor of the History of Science. Harvard University; sometime Lecturer in the Hislor'
of Science, Warburg Institute. University of London.
" Research Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow. Institute for Humane Studies-
George Mason University. Virginia; sometime lecturer in the University of Edinburgh and 1 i<
University of Manchester, and former Director of Studies of the Centre for Policy Studies-
London. See "Of Policy and Pedigree". The Economist, May 6. 1989, p, 52. (
” Emeritus Professor of the History of Philosophy. University of London (London School
Economics).
” University Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, York University. Toronto; sometime Rear'
in Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics.
" Noretta Koertge. Professor of the History of Science, Indiana University, is am'1 11
American Popperian.
“ Sec Gellner. "The LSE—a Contested Academy", in Times Higher Education Suppl'""
November 7. 1980. pp. 12-13; and Peter Scott, in Times Higher Education Supplement . November
190
POPPER’S RECEPTION BY THE PROFESSION
sophy has had in isolating philosophy from the general culture, it is

still recognised that some of the main issues in physics, psychology,
biology, and political economy are philosophical in character and of
deep cultural relevance. The professional British philosophers may
on the whole be intellectuals without ideas—like the characters in
Angus Wilson's novels or the author of A. J . Ayer’s autobiography?6
Yet this state of affairs does not matter as much in England, since
the rest of the intellectual community remains (despite great and
increasing difficulties) sufficiently integrated and autonomous to
prevent the self-isolating tendencies of professional philosophy from
being fully put into effect. Nonetheless, in all of Britain, not one of
Popper's students holds a philosophy professorship, even though, at
the London School of Economics, a "Sir Karl Popper Chair in
Philosophy” has just been created. As I write, however, the chair
has not been filled; no Popperian is being considered as a candi-
date, nor is a single member of the department that houses this
chair a Popperian. Three other students of Popper—including one
of the most gifted probability theoreticians alive*7—have obtained
permanent lectureships in Britain, but have been blocked from
promotion to professorships.**1
Similar things could be said about Germany, where Popper,
despite his eminence as a public figure, is yet virtually unrepresent-
ed in philosophy departments—and also about France and Italy.29 In
America, however, the self-isolating tendencies are virtually un-
i checked.
The reader may now better understand my earlier references to

problems and reservations that Popper and his followers continue to
have about the philosophical profession. In this chapter and the
n
ext, I wish to consider these matters direcdy, and to attempt an
approach to such questions that does not depend on the sorts of
pseudo-explanations readily available in the sociology of knowledge.
See A. J. Ayer. Part of My Lift (London: Oxford University Press, 1977); Ayer. Mort of My
K?? (London: Collins. 1984). and Ayer, "The Currents of an Independent Ayer", Tima Hightr
Supptrrruw, January 23. 1981. pp. 9-10.
M David Miller, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy. University of Warwick.
E--8-. Larry Brisktnan, Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Edinburgh. Professor Jeremy
thc i>, n U r ' **’° was Lor some years lecturer in Edinburgh and Manchester, has since moved to
ned States, to the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University.
'*nrks Eflhrs et al.. Kntuchrr Kalionalismus. op. ciL; Adorno et al.. PosUtiosI Dispulr; and the
° Hans Albert. See also the citations given above.
191
An initial problem that could prove an obstacle to understanding

is that Popper's ideas, when used by members of professions other
than philosophy, whether in physics, economics, biology, or other
disciplines, may seem not only useful but also so simple and obvious
as to be trivial. Only when one witnesses the immense resistance to
them on the part of the professional philosophical community, does
one begin to appreciate their radical and threatening nature. Thus 1
encounter a characteristic response when teaching Popper’s ideas to
beginning students in philosophy: they tend not to be impressed by
what he says, which seems obvious good sense to them, unless 1 also
assign reading from a more traditional approach—say, Bertrand
Russell's Problems of Philosophy or A. J . Ayer’s The Problem of Knowl-
edge, or even one of the ordinary inductivist accounts of argumen-
tation and "clear thinking”. Then, once the contrast is apparent,
once the historical and practical significance of Popper’s ideas
becomes clear, students often become excited and begin to exploit
the difference between the two approaches—and to irritate my not
so long-suffering philosophical colleagues.
3. Opposition from an Entrenched Profession
Part of the problem stems from the circumstances in which

Popper's work was first published in late 1934. Had Logik der
Forschung been more widely read then, it would perhaps have had a
greater, or at least more immediate, impact. But notice of the book
was subjected to a long delay: published in a limited edition in
German immediately prior to the interruptions in communication
caused by World War II, it was, during the war, repeatedly pla-
giarised and garbled. Many well-known philosophers who could read
German used Popper's ideas, usually in a distorted form; but they
rarely cited him. The conspiracy of silence was accompanied by
further obstruction. G. E. Moore, OM, the editor of Mind, refused
to publish the articles that comprised Popper’s second book, Thr
Poverty of Historicism—a book that Arthur Koestler later described as
one of the few books that would survive the century. Popper’s third
book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, which Sir Isaiah Berlin de-
clared to contain “the most scrupulous and formidable criticism >’l
the philosophical and historical doctrines of Marxism by any living
writer", was turned down for publication by over twenty publishers
before Hayek, an economist, intervened with Sir Herbert Read <1’
192
secure its publication by Routledge. When finally published in

English in 1959, The Logic of Scientific Discovery was initially greeted
warmly in Britain. Richard Wollheim, a professional philosopher,
called it “one of the most important philosophical works of our
century”, and Sir Peter Medawar hailed Popper as “incomparably
the greatest philosopher of science that has ever been". The anony-
mous reviewer in the Times Literary Supplement remarked that the
book had “that quality of greatness that, once seen, it appears
simple and almost obvious”, and went on to speculate: "One cannot
help feeling that, if it had been translated as soon as it was original-
ly published, philosophy in this country might have been saved
some detours."50
But it was too late. Those detours had by 1959 become the best-
travelled roads—even though they led nowhere. For reasons dis-
cussed earlier, and which I shall explore further below, a fundamen-
tal reversal was hardly possible for the philosophical profession.
The impact of Popper's thought on strictly professional philoso-
phy has, in consequence, been extraordinary. He is the unmen-
tioned, unacknowledged, outsider looming behind most debates. The
attention of the profession is focused on him. But it is a bitter atten-
tion. He has utterly undercut much of the traditional debate and set
new terms for much of whatever debate remains. Yet some profes-
sional philosophers would die sooner than acknowledge his influ-
ence—and their students quickly learn that to do so is to lose
support and, in effect, to commit professional suicide. Many will not
mention or cite him, yet scrupulously cite two of his students who
publicly disagreed with him on minor points: Lakatos and Feyer-
abend. It is a way of dealing with some of the issues without men-
tioning the hated name of Popper. One can make a career as an
opponent of Popper’s ideas, but not as a proponent of them. He is
fair game”: one may say anything about him—and steal any of his
ideas, or those of his followers—with impunity. It is easy to indicate
the circumstances, such as these, that characterise his impact, harder
to penetrate to an adequate explanation of them.
Between 1934 and 1959, several separate professional ideologies
®ad become entrenched in the philosophy departments of the
English-speaking universities. One of these was a professional philo-
sophy of science, the outgrowth of the crusades of logical positivism;
Tiffin Literary Supplement, February 27, 1959. p. H 177. A similar comment appears in
I an
' Mager. Modem British Philosophy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1971), p, 66.
193
another, both encompassing and contradicting the first, was the cuk
of ordinary language and of the later Wittgenstein. These two
positions were already firmly in place when the university systems
throughout the world began to expand after the war, and to ex-
pand again (in America) after Sputnik and (in England and Wales)
after the Robbins Report; and almost all new appointments to
philosophy departments were made by representatives of these
entrenched positions.” Popper himself made his view of university
expansion quite clear when he declared:
In a democracy it would not be easy to stop the growth of knowl-

edge. Indeed, the only thing which might do it and of which I can
think at the moment is university expansion: for in the dissemina-
tion of what one may call examinable knowledge I see a serious
threat not only to the growth of knowledge but to our literacy.”
Institutionally and professionally, these approaches (philosophy of

science in the tradition of logical positivism, Wittgensteinian philoso-
phy, and minor variants of them) still dominate. Once their propo-
nents had achieved power, it became virtually impossible to dislodge
them. They have shown only a limited tolerance. For example, they
have permitted their adherents to interest themselves in the related
areas of hermeneutics and phenomenology, but have done so only
because these areas share their own fundamental structure and as-
sumptions, albeit in a different language and style of presentation
Having captured graduate departments of philosophy, they charac-
terise, even define, “professional philosophy”. This is not to deny
that some changes have occurred in their approaches. For example,
by the 1950s, logical positivism had been modified by and incorpo-
rated into the general framework of the philosophy of the later
Wittgenstein (see chapter 14 below). A relatively easy shift, it was
exemplified not only in Wittgenstein’s own development but also,
say, in the contrast between Sir A. J . Ayer’s Language, Truth and
” As noted earlier, the late Gilbert Ryle, formerly Waynllete Professor of Metaphysical
Philosophy at Oxford, and also Moore’s successor as editor of Mind, the leading r l l . . , , , r v h II . d
periodical, virtually controlled philosophical appointments for nearly two decades in the sense th-1-
hardly a professorial appointment could be made, anywhere in the British commonwealth, will"'"
his approval. Ryle's successor as editor of Mind now exerts strong influence over British app*’" 11
menu in philosophy, although — since the expansion of philosophy departments has nl ' w
ceased— his influence is far less than Ryle's was.
” “University Expansion: Threat to Literacy", report in The Times Eduratuinal Suppl'1"'
January 20, 1961. p . 98.
194
POPPER'S RECEPTION BY THE PROFESSION
Logic (1935) and his The Problem of Knowledge (1956); in Morton

White’s brilliant attempt to reconcile positivism, pragmatism, and
language analysis in Toward Reunion in Philosophy (1956), and in
Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature?3 Positivism and
the later philosophy of Wittgenstein sit well together; for representa-
tives of the latter were able to tolerate positivism as an account of
the “language of science", even where they rejected its wider claims.
Neither, however, can tolerate Popperian philosophy, which attacks
the fundamental presuppositions of both, and cannot be assimilated
to or digested by either.
4. Dialogue Ruined: The Strategy of Ignoring, Distorting, and Deferring to

Authority
In the world of abstract argumentation, verificationism and

inductivism are refuted by Popper’s arguments—and objectively so.
But in the world of professional institutional arrangements and in
the subjective experience of philosophers’ minds and loyalties, this
abstract event has had comparatively little effect, apart from raising
defenses.54 Now it is not necessary, nor should it even be expect-
ed —-provided that one first expands one’s conception of the marketplace of
ideas beyond the restricted and often restricting environment of the univer-
sity— that those who develop superior theories of science be those
who are subsequently awarded professorships of philosophy of
Science in universities. These superior ideas may prove more suc-
cessful, as Popper’s have in fact been, in die markets of the natural
sciences, economics, and psychology. In these markets—although not
in the philosophy market— Popper’s ideas do actually compete
successfully (with the exception of one important area, quantum
physics), against their main competitors, such as logical empiricism.
If Popper’s philosophy of science were applicable chiefly in the real
S” n*y discussion of Ayer and White in Tht Rttrtat to Commitment, op. cil. For Richard
*C Philosophy and tht Mtrm of Naturr, op. cit., and Peter Munz. “Philosophy and the
*rror of Rorty”, in Radnitzky and Bartley, Evolutionary Etnslrmology, Rationality, anti tht Sociology of
tttnolrdgt, op. cit., chapter 16.
Ute distinction between the actual content of ideas and opinions about idea* — the
of' 1" rtlon
between the objective (’World S') slate of a discussion and subjective ('World 2 ) states
an
affiliation —is deeply embedded in Popperian thought, and needs to be under-
p * - This is the distinction stressed in part I , especially in chapters 3 and 4, and introduced by
|-T*per in Objccttvr Knowledge, op. de Failure to make it makes sodology of knowledge possible.
195
sciences, one could rest content with the result, and say that it had
succeeded. Yet the relevance of Popperian philosophy extends
beyond the natural sciences, into the heart of the humane sciences.
In consequence of his de facto exclusion from the philosophical
profession, Popper and his followers are not true participants in the
contemporary professional philosophical dialogue woven by these
two schools (positivism and Wittgensteinian philosophy). Rather, he
has ruined that dialogue, and this is deeply resented. To point out
that he is not recognised is not to say that he has been unheeded.
If he is on the right track, then the majority of professional philoso-
phers the world over have wasted or are wasting their careers. And
they know it. Yet so unwilling are they to swallow this bitter medi-
cine that the gulf between Popper's way of doing philosophy and
that of the bulk of contemporary professional philosophers remains
as great as that between astronomy and astrology.
Thus the dialogue may have been ruined but the discussion
continues. It is one in which Popper's work is either ignored or
radically misunderstood. By reading professional journals, one would
not gather that the problems discussed earlier have been solved.
Inductivism continues as before; and a philosophy that presupposes
the insolubility of the problem of induction dominates all profes-
sional discussion.
A good example of the ignoring of or boycotting of Popper’s
work is Justification and. Knowledge, a book of essays by some of
America's best-known episteinologists, including Keith Lehrer,
Roderick M. Chisholm, and Wilfrid Sellars. As George Pappas, its
editor, proudly reports in his Introduction: "The literature on
epistemic justification . . . in English-language journals and books is
vast and growing all the time.”55 The entire discussion of this book
was, however, rendered obsolete by Popper’s work in the 1930s, and
“ George S. Pappas. cd„ Justification and Knowledge (Boston: Rcidel. 1979). p. xv. For Otho
examples see David B . Annis. “A Contextualist Theory of Epistemic Justification". dmrnrd”
Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 15. July 1978, pp. 213’219; William P. Alston. “Has Foundationalis* 1 ’
Been Refuted?". Philosophical Studies, 1976, pp. 287-305; James W. Comman, "Foundationalistn
versus Nonfoundational Theories of Empirical Justification”, American Philosophical Quarterly. 19" J -
pp. 387-397; David B. Annis, “Epistemic Foundationalism", Philosophical Studies, 1977, pp. 345-35**
Nicholas Reseller, “Foundationalism. Coherentism, and the Idea of Cognitive Systematizatio”
Journal of Philosophy, 1974. pp. 695-708; W. P. Alston. "Two Types o f Foundationalism", Journal
Philosophy, 1976. pp. 165-185; Richard Foley. "Inferential Justification and the Infinite Regres 1’
dmrruwi Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 15, October 1978, pp. 311-316; laurence Bonjour,
Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation?”. American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 15. January 19"‘
pp- 1-13. See also the issue of Philosophia, July 1978, devoted to Roderick Chisholm’s work.
196
POPPER S RECEPTION BY THE PROFESSION
by some extensions to it that I made in the early 1960s.M Yet

Popper’s name is mentioned in the work only once, in passing and
inaccurately, in a list of names.5’
Another example of the misunderstanding—or garbling—of
Popper’s views is N. M. L. Nathan's Evidence and Assurance, pub-
lished by the Cambridge University Press.58 Nathan assumes that
Popper believes that the rigorous examination of a theory ensures
that it is probably true, and that Popper wants to “guarantee the
truth or probable truth of what is rationally believed". On the basis
of these assumptions, he accuses Popper of vicious infinite regression
and other difficulties. Yet Popper, Hans Albert and I (the three
persons being discussed by Nathan) have explicitly repudiated these
assumptions, and Popper has denied them ad nauseam. Cambridge
University Press would be unlikely to publish a book attributing to
Einstein a belief in the luminiferous aether, but it publishes a
work—no doubt approved by referees from the philosophical profes-
sion—attributing to Popper and his followers precisely those ideas that
they have spent their lives denying.
Yet such experts constitute the professional £lite that this same
kind of professional philosophy, and the sociological philosophy that
it has spawned, wish to set up as authoritative. We have here an
argument embedded in what a friend of mine has called a
“charmed circle”: those admitted as authorities automatically become
judges in their own causes. The authoritarian, Elitist tenor of the
M
See my The Unreal to Commitment,op. dt. ; "Rationality versus the Theory of Rationality".
°P- dt.; and "Rationality. Critidsm. and Logic”, op. dt.
” It is easy to get an advanced education in issues of justification in American graduate
programmes without ever having heard of the work of Popper and his students. A good example
u that of Michael Williams. a young philosopher at Yale, who published a brilliant book.
Groundless Relief (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1977), which presents the problems of justification in a
Bunner somewhat similar to that of Popper and myself. Williams reaches the conclusion that
empirical knowledge neither has nor needs foundations—and that in so far as die traditional task
- epistemology has been to place knowledge on its proper foundations, one need not concern
°neself with epistemology further. Yet Williams's argument is left hanging: he fails to find a
Motion to the problems he sees, precisely because he does not know the distinction between
Justification an( j nonjustificational criticism (for which see chapter 14 below). In the preface to his
J**>k. Williams writes: “A reviewer pointed out to me that some of (he views 1 defend have been
vocatcd on various occasions by Popper. To my regret, 1 had not read Popper before the
®j*nuscript was complete and so was not influenced directly, though I now agree that Popper is a
P uosopher whose epistemological views desene serious attention." It would have been harder for
SUc
" an oversight to have occurred in Europe, and it is interesting that the reviewer of the
uscript for a British publisher called Popper’s work to Williams's attention. Sec also Williams s
rCnCC
263 ’ J tification. ant Analysis of Knowledge", Journal of Philosophy. May 1978, pp. 249-
N. M. L. Nathan, Evidence and Assurance (London: Cambridge University Press, 1980).
197
dominant community of contemporary philosophers is reflected

everywhere in its publications. As one example, there is “Justification
and the Psycholog)- of Human Reasoning", published in Philosophy of
Science, the organ of American professional philosophy of science. Its
authors counsel that there is a higher court of appeal than an
individual’s own “reflective equilibrium". Namely, it is that of his
“cognitive betters." “There are", these authors write,
people in our subject’s society who are recognised as authorities on

one or another sort of inference . . . . [He] need only seek out the
experts and ask them. The role of experts and authorities in our
cognitive lives has been all but ignored by modern epistemologists.
Yet it is a hallmark of an educated and reflective person that he
recognises, consults and defers to authority on a wide range of
topics. . . . One of the principle effects of education is to socialise
people to defer to cognitive authorities . . . . Deference to authority
is not merely the habitual practice of educated people, it is, gener-
ally, the right thing to do, from a normative point of view.™
These authors appear to be the type of “right-thinking men” to

whom Sartre was referring when he wrote: “To the right-thinking
man, to be alone and to be wrong are one and the same.”"
Harold I. Brown’s Perception, Theory and Commitment: The New
Philosophy of Science conforms to this authoritarian, expert-oriented,
deferential mood. Brown (mentioned earlier, in my discussion of
Kuhn) argues for a relativistic conception of scientific truth accord-
ing to which the truth of a scientific theory reflects or is a projec-
tion of the consensus of the scientific community. Thus a theory is
false when it is rejected by that community; and if the scientific
community has made no commitment, then the theory is neither
* Stephen P. Stich and Richard E. Nisbett, "Justification and Psychology of Human Reason-
ing", Philosophy of Science, vot 47, 1980. pp. 188-202. After reading this passage, one of my
research assistants, a Stanford undergraduate, wrote on the margin, “This is incredible!", not
believing that anyone could assert such a thing. So we double-checked the quotation— and it is
accurate. How much more complicated the story is. is readily illustrated in Paul Starr's The Social
Transformation of Amervan Medicine, op. dt, which tells how American medicine passed from
populism to a position of "cultural authority", and yet how the autonomy of American physicians
has more recently greatly diminished. See however several critical reviews of Starr's book which
argue that, in concentrating on the formation and development of the medical profession he
neglects the inner content of medical theory and practice: Arnold Reiman. The New York Review"J
Books, March 19, 1984, pp. 29-33. and Florence Ruderman. "A Misdiagnosis of American
Medidne". Commentary, January 1986, pp. 43-49. In any case, the entire discussion of Starr's work,
and the book itself, illustrate not deference to cognitive authority, as recommended by Stich an1
Nisbctt, but, rather, the necessary critical examination of it, wherever it may manifest itself.
“ Jean-Paul Sartre, Saint Genet Actor and Martyr (New York: George Braziller. 1963), p. 24.
198
true nor false.41 As 1 write these words, a good example of the

preposterous nature of this approach is at the top of the news. I
have in mind the controversy over cold fusion. At the moment some
departments of physics and chemical engineering are split by this
issue. That is, there is no “consensus". Yet everyone assumes that
the theory is either true or false—that it conforms, or fails to
conform, to the facts, independently of the current debate, and that
further experimentation, not consensus, will decide the theory’s fate.
Yet an dite-determined relativism parallel to Brown's is to lie

found everywhere, not only in philosophy, but also in legal theory.
Thus an eminent constitutional lawyer, Sanford Levinson, in his
Constitutional Faith, reaches, under the influence of the philosopher
Richard Rorty, the “rather gloomy” conclusion of Sartre that "the
establishment of fascism would establish fascism as the truth of
man"."
6. Which Elite Has the Authority?
How seriously can one take such self-interested and self-serving

proclamations of professional authority?
Far too much attention is paid to these professional Elites. It is of
course useful to know how they operate—and even to hear that
they are to a certain extent indispensable in contributing what
Campbell refers to as the “stability requirement” or social glue that
he believes is required to hold professions together.4’ Yet from
many of these discussions of Elites, and from the work of Kuhn and
various sociologists of knowledge, one might gather the absurd,
” Harold I. Brown, Perception,Theory and Commitment.The N'ew Philosophy of Science, op. rit
u
See Sanford Levinson, Constitutional Faith (Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1988), p
176, and Thomas L. Pangle’s review of it, ” Post-Modernist Thought". The Wall Street Journal,
January 9, 1989, p. A9.
° See Campbell, “Descriptive Epistemology. Psychological, Sociological, and Evolutionary”.
Ujuneographed (William James Lectures, Harvard University, 1977). See also Campbell, “A Tribal
JJodel of the Social System Vehicle Carrying Scientific Knowledge", in Knowledge: Creation,
tyfusum, Utilization 1, 1979, pp. 181*20!. See also Donald T- Campbell, Methodology and
Epistemology for Social Science: Selected Papers, cd. E. Samuel Overman, op. dt. Incidentally, one
Unremarked unintended consequence of the current sociology of knowledge is almost certain to
| growth of knowledge. Namely, some professionals will take advantage of (heir
owlcdgc of the sodology and psychology o f academic communities in order to manipulate them
° their own advantage and thereby to perpetuate themselves at the expense of the growth of
*®owlcdgc
199
almost autistic, idea that intellectual issues are settled in university

departments. Intellectual history is no more the history of develop-
ments within universities than human history is the history of the
state.
Much of this discussion of professional Elites has been generated
by American academics in thrall to sociology. If one were to turn
their own sociology back on them, one would have to call them
department-oriented, culturally-deprived team men who have only a
glimmering awareness of any wider cultural terms of reference, or
who conceive of culture chiefly in terms of foreign travel. Thus
what we hear of is the sociology of growth within schools or strife
between schools of professionals—as if philosophical ideas mattered
only to professionals, and were to be arbitrated by their own self-
determined Elites.
On the other hand these professional Elites ought indeed to be
taken seriously. For their effect is anything but negligible, as we
have seen in Part II. Indeed, their effect is bizarre: the scientific,
literary, and learned communities of Europe acclaim Popper; but his
own profession disowns him. In a remark to me, he himself perhaps
put it best: “Here I am being showered with honours as no profes-
sional philosopher before me; yet three generations of professional
philosophers know nothing about my work."
However one may judge and explain this situation, one thing is
dear: the widespread current discussion among professionals about the role oj
professional Hites in determining the acceptance and influence of ideas throws
virtually no light on this case. For overlapping yet distinct communities
(or ecological niches or markets) make very different judgements
and decisions about Popper's work. The professional discussion of
such matters has had no clear point of reference: no dear ecological
niche is specified. Yet evolutionary survival is always relative to
some specific econiche (or market, whether open or closed) that the
organism (or group) itself in part selects and creates. Like self, and
closely related to it, community is an objective or World 3 creation in
Popper’s sense.44
Such confusion is hardly surprising. Nor does it appear only in
philosophy. It appears also in contemporary psychology, and in
many other academic areas, even in physics, indeed even in African
11,1
“ See Popper, in K. R. Popper and J . C. Eccles, Thr Self and Its Brain, op. di., sec. 42:
Sell Anchored in World S.” See also Auf der Siuhr noth finer bessrrm Writ, op. di., chapter 1.
200
studies/5 For it is not as easy as it was (see chapter 9 above) to

identify one’s audience and the community for which one is writing
and thinking. Those who inhabit the world of ideas face an ecologi-
cal crisis—a crisis whose resolution demands a confrontation with
and a rethinking of the entire question of community. Separated as
it is from the wider culture by its own professional organisation, the
“intellectual community" threatens to dissolve, and indeed has for
the most pan already dissolved, into a loosely federated band of
guilds (which act like interest groups or lobbies, but are more
feudal in their organisation and in the sensibility of their members)
of “disciplinary" craftsmen—-federated less by a common tradition or
shared values as by the need to exert concerted pressure to gain
financial support.
Like any econiche, a community is characterised by the possibili-
ties or potentialities that are open to it—whether as yet discovered
or not. Its survival will depend on how it exploits these potentiali-
ties. Professions, however, often function not to open up possibilities
but to close them out, or to restrict the exploitation of any possibili-
ties to a narrow group. Here a conception of culture and of com-
munity operates in which these are characterised by current presup-
positions and practices, rather than by as yet undiscovered poten-
tialities.
All of this is not surprising—and could be anticipated in terms of
the economic approach taken in the first two parts of this book.
Instead of speaking of different econiches, we might refer to dif-
ferent markets. There is not simply one market of ideas, there are
many markets of ideas. Even in commerce, it is not always easy to
determine just what is the market in which particular products
compete. The irony here is that Popper’s thought is excluded from
a market or econiche in which it first developed and which it could
transform: namely, professional philosophy.
, See Lewis H Gann, “African Studies: A Dissident's View", Acadrmu Quotums, vol. 2. Spring
l9S
«. pp. 80-90.
201
Chapter 13
WILL THE POPPERIAN POSITION SURVIVE?
AND DOES THE ANSWER MATTER?
Ideological conflict at its lowest, mixed with academic
jealousy at its pettiest, has resulted in campus politics at its
filthiest.
George Roche 1
Vhe Rhythms of Evolution and Strategies for Sunrival
Vhat chance does Popper's approach have to survive?

To answer this question, one must bear in mind that all evolu-
, intellectual and otherwise, occurs in three distinct phases or
hms. To consider the question of the survival and propagation
Popperian approach to philosophy, one must fix which ecologi-
niche or cultural and intellectual community one is discussing:
essional philosophy, the larger world of science, or some partic-
area in the arts or sciences—and must look at how Popperian
>sophy is doing on each level.
hese three phases or rhythms are:
Unjustified variations on existing forms (sometimes called

lorn variation”).2
Systematic selection and elimination.
Retention: duplication, transmission, and preservation of
lions that have initially survived elimination.
i the first level Popper and the group around him are doing
didly, in terms both of the professional communities and the
culture. There have been some remarkable developments of
3sition, including Ernst Gombrich’s application of it to art and
Campbell’s application to biology and evolutionary epistemolo-
id a series of important mutations have sprung from the midst
: Popperians. One is the philosophy of Paul K. Feyerabend,
wildly overemphasises the role of unjustified variation in the
to'mis, voL 17, no. 12. George Roche is President of Hillsdale College.
“justified" variation would be one that could lie seen in advance to be •'progressive or
See Campbell, "Evolutionary Epistemology ", in The Philosophy of Kari Popper, cd. Sc r p p .
P 413-463. and in Radnitzky and Bartley, op. cit.
Chapter 18
WILL THE POPPERIAN POSITION SURVIVE?
AND DOES THE ANSWER MATTER?
Ideological conflict at its lowest, mixed with academic
jealousy at its pettiest, has resulted in campus politics at its
filthiest.
George Roche1
]. The Rhythms of Evolution and Strategies for Survival
What chance does Popper’s approach have to survive?

To answer this question, one must bear in mind that all evolu-
tion, intellectual and otherwise, occurs in three distinct phases or
rhythms. To consider the question of the survival and propagation
of a Popperian approach to philosophy, one must fix which ecologi-
cal niche or cultural and intellectual community one is discussing:
professional philosophy, the larger world of science, or some partic-
ular area in the arts or sciences—and must look at how Popperian
philosophy is doing on each level.
These three phases or rhythms are:
1. Unjustified variations on existing forms (sometimes called

“random variation").1
2. Systematic selection and elimination.
3. Retention: duplication, transmission, and preservation of
variations that have initially survived elimination.
On the first level Popper and the group around him are doing
splendidly, in terms both of the professional communities and the
wider culture. There have been some remarkable developments of
his position, including Ernst Gombrich’s application of it to art and
D. T. Campbell's application to biology and evolutionary epistemolo-
gy. And a series of important mutations have sprung from the midst
of the Popperians. One is the philosophy of Paul K. Feyerabend,
which wildly overemphasises the role of unjustified variation in the
1
Imprimis, vol. 17» no, 12. George Roche is President of Hillsdale College.
* A “justified" variation would be one that could be seen in advance to be “progressive or
adaptive. See Campbell. “Evolutionary Epistemology", in The Philosophy of Karl Popper, cd. Schilpp,
op. cit., pp, 413-463. and in Radniuky and Bartley, op. cit.
growth of knowledge.’ Another example would be my own early

work, an unjustified variation which emphasises the unjustified
character of both variation and selection, and the role of systematic
elimination (i.e., unjustified criticism) in the growth of knowledge?
Then there is the mutation that is the philosophy of Imre Laka-
tos—a cumbersome variant built on misreadings and of poor con-
struction.’ But it has a beautiful tail and is widely attractive to
professionals.
On the second level, systematic elimination and selection, the
position of Popperian philosophy is precarious. The survival of those
who “bear" it is threatened. It is under attack not only by profes-
sional philosophers: there has been self-destructive internal dissent.
One Popperian became so alarmed by this that he wrote, in some
exaggeration, that “instead of a coherent philosophical position, one-
finds a lightly disguised squabble of alley cats."6
On the third level, that of retention—propagation, transmission,
duplication— Popper's philosophy is, as we have seen, doing poorly
within the professional econiche.7 If the professional econiche were
ail there were, if there were no way to pass on the body of knowl-
edge already won by Popper and his followers except by way of the
philosophy profession, his thought would be doomed to extinction.
As D. L. Krantz has written: “Ideas without recruits become like
Bishop Berkeley’s unheard fallen tree.” 8 Within the profession,
Popperian philosophy has been minimally effective in duplicating
itself, transmitting its approach and tradition, and propagating.
Popperians hold few positions of influence within philosophy depart-
ments. Often eminent in the world at large, they are sometimes
* See P. K. Feyerabcnd, Against Method (Ixindon: NLB. 1975); Science tn a Free Society
(London; NLB, 1978); Knowledge without Foundations (Oberlin: Oberiin College, 1961); Realism.
Rationalism and Scientific Method and Problems of Empiricism (Cambridge: University Press, 1981).
* See my The Retreat to Commitment, op. cit.; "Rationality. Criticism, and Logic”, op. cit-; and
"Rationality versus tile Theory of Rationality', op. cii. The idea of unjustified criticism will be
explained below.
* See Imre Lakatos, Proofs and Refutations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976); The
Methodology of Scienlifu Research Programmes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1978); and
Mathematics, Science and Epistemology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978). See also
chapter 18 below.
* See Weimer, Notes an the Methodology of Scientific Research, op. cit., p. xi.
’ Fhis is not surprising. Phases one and three are at war with one another: to the eaten*
that the Popperians succeed in phase one, they are likely to have trouble with phase three. See
Campbell, "Descriptive Epistemology", and 'A Tribal Model”, both in Methodology and Epistemology
for Social Science: Selected Papers, op. at.
* See D. L, Krantz and Lynda Wiggins, "Personal and Impersonal Channels of Rccruitmen*
in the Growth of Theory", Human Development. vol. 16. 1973, p. 133.
204
narginal men" in their own departments. They are widely dis-

ersed and have no regular meetings and no official journals; their
ublications are sometimes blackballed;9 there is no bibliography of
teir publications, and thus these publications are scattered among
any different journals throughout the world; many of their find-
gs are not being fully utilised and developed. They have no
aduate school from which to generate new professional philoso-
ters, or to inculcate that “tacit knowledge” the importance of
lich Michael Polanyi emphasises. And even if they did, there are
v posts available, for the profession has at once swallowed up all
e available space and bored its students, both graduate and
dergraduate, so thoroughly that most have abandoned philosophy.
the arts or humanities subjects have declined in enrolment
ring the past two decades, but philosophy more than any other.
Considered in terms of the profession alone, the Popperians then
m not to meet the structural requirements for a self-perpetuating
ial system that is a vehicle for scientific knowledge.10 Rather, they
m an "encapsulated” school of thought of the sort most likely to
>ear when fundamental assumptions are in question."
This might, however, yet work to the advantage of Popper’s
as. As the well-known psychoanalytical writer Allen Wheelis, who
friend of Popper, has written:
Freud’s work was quickly institutionalized, and thereafter was

defended and promoted as a vested interest . . . . Marx, like
Freud, used his work as the capital endowment of a social move-
ment . . . . Darwin, in contrast, did not retain possession of his
work. Battles were fought over the issues he raised, but his defend-
ers were volunteers. No one was enlisted, and no one was com-
pelled to follow a party line. There were no membership cards, no
International Evolutionary Association. No one was prevented from
furthering Darwin’s work because of altering his theory. The
discovery was attacked by institutions, but did not become institu-
tionalized in defense. It was besieged by vested interests, but did
See Alan C. Kors's remark that “people who are not playing by the rules ■!?*'
age in replicating themselves within their departments . in Voces Aca emicae v ol ,
t and Education: A View from the University of Pennsylvania. Professor n
•wed by Carol lannone", Acadrmw QueUvms. vol. I. no. 4. Fall 1988, pp 75- .
For this terminology see Campbell's work, and chapter 4 above. iLivv"
See David L. Krantz. “The Separate Worlds of Operant and Non-Opcrant P 8 ■
of Applud Behainor Analysis. vol. 4, 1971, pp. 61-70.
205
not itself become a vested interest. Yet it survived, and has since
participated widely in the ongoing process of science. 11
However one may speculate, if one restricts one’s attention to the

philosophical profession as it exists at present, it is hard to be
optimistic about the survival of the Popperian approach. For in the
professional niche that is conventionally thought to provide the
route for the study, development, application, and dissemination of
ideas—that is, the system of graduate education—the gates are
guarded and secured by an ideologically hostile professionalism.
On the other hand, one can easily turn the analysis around and
look at the question of transmission more broadly. The philosophical
profession, as it is al present constituted, seems to be an evolution-
ary dead end, like those arthropods whose brains are built around
their gullets (their brains expand at the expense of their gullets;
their gullets expand at the expense of their brains). Many profes-
sionals—especially in philosophy, but also in some other areas, in
physics and psychology to some extent, and especially in the social
sciences and the humanities—are the products of isolation and
inbreeding. The departments they inhabit provide settings unfavour-
able for the evolution or propagation of revolutionary ideas, but
serve only their own perpetuation.15 New ideas—like civilisa-
tion—emerge through contact and communication, not through
specialisation in isolation. Thus it is such professional departments
that are marginal vis d vis the wider culture, and the Popperians,
among others, who are making more substantial contributions.
On this latter ground, Popperians have been more adaptive, more
individualistic, more entrepreneurial, and have outflanked the
profession. Like Popper himself, they address the wider community
(although their plentiful “academic” publications also attest to their
professional competence). Unlike the professional philosophers, most
Popperians live intellectually in several diverse cultural groups: in
the wider scientific and literary culture as well as in the professional
group. Also unlike the professional philosophers, they live more
internationally, and are less confined to or dependent on national
professional associations. Thus their apparent weakness may in fact
be a great strength.
” Allen Wheelis, The Quest for Identity (New York; Norton, 1958), pp. 153-154.
” Compare Burton J. Bledstein, The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and thr
Development of Higher Education tn America (New York: Norton, 1977), and Thomas L, Haskells
review "Power to the Experts" in The New York Review of Books, October 13, 1977, pp. 28-33.
206
I maintained earlier that the curious case of Karl Popper’s philos-

ophy is only an example, by no means unique, and that many vital
new ideas obtain a similar greeting—virtual ostracism—within con-
temporary universities. My contention is corroborated by Alan C.
Kors, an historian at the University of Pennsylvania. A recent
interview between Kors and Carol lannone contains the following
exchange14:
Kors: I don't think we yet know what would happen if, in addition
to standing up within our own institutions, we made the broader
public aware of how many areas of the social sciences and the
humanities have become intellectually marginalized, and of how
much better educated their children would be from reading things
Left, Right and Center produced by think tanks rather than from
studying the social sciences at a university. . . .
lannone: You believe universities are growing increasingly marginal

as centers of learning and intellectual pursuits?”
Kors: Excepting the natural and applied sciences, yes. In the social
sciences, and in many of the humanities, the most interesting things
are occurring outside the university. In some ways it reminds me of
the relationship of the universities to the physical sciences in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There was an ideological
commitment to a certain Aristotelian scholasticism in the seven-
teenth century that forced the new experimental scientists to find
homes outside the universities. As a result, the most interesting
science in the seventeenth century was not done at the University
of Paris or at Oxford, but in the Royal Society or the Academy of
Sciences in France, or in diverse private societies throughout
western Germany, northern Italy, and. indeed, France and En-
gland. . . . That’s the case now in the social sciences. What hap-
pens in the American Sociological Association is trivial. But what’s
coming out of certain think tanks and certain foundations and
“ Kors and lannone, op. dt., pp. 88-89. Another example of academic persecution of a
articular point of view is that of the historian Ernst Nolte. The case is not widely known outside
Germany, where JUrgen Habermas and others have attacked Nolte's work, an attack described as
•ne of the most lengthy and intensive assaults on freedom of investigation in the Germany
diversities. See the repons in FrnhrU drr Wiumuhafl. November 1987. p. S.
“ Sec David Gress, “Talking Terrorism”' at Stanford". Thr Nrw Crilmon. April 1988. p p 15-
■2. esp. p. 21: "What lessons can one draw? . . . The first surely is that the condition of our
ulture and in particular of our universities must be truly pathetic if one can take it completely
“ r granted, and hr right, that a university conference on terrorism arranged by professors of inc
lUtnanities will exonerate progressive terror and condemn the policies of democratic states as
liemselves terroristic "
207
certain institutes is very exciting and much more central to the real
debates about the problems of American society.
The question of what or who is marginal—the profession of

philosophy in my own case study, or the social sciences in the
experience of Kors, or thinkers such as Popper and his stu-
dents—depends then on whether one is asking about marginality to
the professions or marginality to the real world—or even marginali-
ty to the truth. If one is committed to, and lives wholly within, the
universities, the professions will always seem to win the argument.
• * ♦*
In any case, what is this business of being a Popperian? It is an
identity, to the extent that it is even that, chosen freely with due
consideration to the disadvantages and risks involved. Although
respect and some loyalty are involved, it is not a commitment to the
views of Popper nor to one another. All of his students are, to
lesser and greater degrees, also critics of his thought and of the
thoughts of one another. This is no seamless community of ideologi-
cal soul-mates. All the main criticisms of Popper’s thought, now
often cited gleefully by his enemies, came in the first instance from
his own students, who, after all, were familiar with the terrain.
These include the critique of his new foundations for logic, which
came from his former research assistant C. Lejewski, the critique of
his account of verisimilitude, which came first from his former
research assistant David Miller, and the critique of his theories of
demarcation and rationality, which came from me.
And what is this business about marginality? Fretting about mar-
ginality is a good job for a sociologist, a bad idea for one who
would be free. Marginality, like alienation, is good for one who is
engaged in the pursuit of knowledge, and dedicated to its growth
Moreover, virtually everyone today is in some sense marginal, living,
as he or she does, in a network of discordant relationships within a
society that is not unified by any single cultural tradition (see the
prologue and part IV). The experiences of marginality and alien-
ation are virtually integral to the experience of the free individ-
ual—the individual free to dissolve as well as to create attachments.
The Popperians are, within the philosophical profession, indeed
marginal people in the sociological sense. And the professionals are
increasingly marginal in the culture at large. Although marginality
can freeze people with anxiety and resentment, it can also—when
208
successfully managed —be a source of creativity.16 The marginality of

the Popperians has provided them with the opportunity as well as
the incentive—in negotiating among conflicting communities, values,
and ideologies—to develop objectivity and perspective, as well as
that creativity that consists in rendering the "given" problematic.
In terms of survival, what matters to the Popperians is, first, that
they communicate to the public and disseminate their ideas thereby.
Here there is evidence of their success in dealing with their margin-
ality. Second, they need to create a more nurturing intellectual en-
vironment for themselves. Here they have failed to deal effectively
with their marginality.
Does it matter whether the Popperian approach to philosophy survives?
No: not at all. That is, unless it is either correct or a major advance.
2. Then There is Plain Envy
Man is possessed of some obscure fury against his own

remembrance of Eden. Whenever he comes on landscapes
or communities that seem to resemble his own image of
lost innocence he lashes out and lays waste.
George Steiner”
There is a wonderful scene in Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, the only

scene in literature or drama of which I know that conveys the
ambition, and the pain, connected with the production of objective
knowledge—and which also vividly conveys the process of transfor-
mation that is at the heart of creativity. Mozart is to be introduced
to the Emperor, Joseph II, and the court composer Salieri has
written a little march for Mozart’s entrance. Mozart enters, the
march is played, the presentation to the Emperor is made.
Afterwards Mozart turns to Salieri and says, “You're a good
fellow, Salieri! And that’s a jolly little thing you w'rote for me. Let's
see if I can remember it.” Mozart sits down at the harpsichord, and
effortlessly plays it back perfectly from memory—first slowly, and
then "with insolent speed”. Pausing suddenly, he remarks to himself,
“ See David Ricsman. /ndnndualism Reeonndered (Glencoe. III.; Free Preu, 1954). p- 163- Sec
Robert E. Park. “Human Migration and the Marginal Man.” The American Journal of Sociology,
Ma
> 1928. pp. 881-893.
” The New Fonker, June 3. 1974. p. 107.
209
“It doesn't really work, that Fourth—does it! . . . Let’s try the Third
above . .
As Shaffer's stage notes report, “He repeats the new interval,
leading up to it smartly . . . . On and on he plays, improvising
happily . . . laughing gleefully each time he comes to the amended
interval of a Third. . . . Mozart's playing grows more and more
exhibitionistic—revealing to the audience the formidable virtuoso he
is. The whole time he himself remains totally oblivious to the
offence he is giving. Finally he finishes the March with a series of
triumphant flourishes and chords."1’ What had been a quite ordi-
nary march becomes a thing of wonder. And Salieri becomes at that
moment Mozart’s deadly enemy.19
Popper has done this sort of thing over and over again to his
colleagues during a very long professional career.
1 discussed some of these matters several years ago with Popper's
friend Sir Peter Medawar. “What you say is quite correct", he said
to me, “but rather too complicated. The situation is really very
simple. These chaps are simply green with envy".
" Peter Shaffer. Amadfus (Harmondsworth, Penguin. 1981), pp. 32-38 and pp. 110-111
*• Salieri's murderous reaction to Mozart—at least in Shaffer's account, which does
pretend to be historically accurate —is hardly unexpected. A philosopher too. once he has lost ' 1
dreams and aspirations of his youth, may turn in rage and set out to uproot whatever traces ‘
this lost Eden remain in his intellectual landscape. In his murderous and also suicidal treatnt*
of what is superior there is far more than simple stupidity.
210
Chapter 14
T H E UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS
O F POPPER’S OPPONENTS:
T H E WITTGENSTEINIAN PROBLEMATIC AND
JUSTIFICATION ISM*
In counterpart to these attempts to reconstitute a unified

epistemological field, we find at regular intervals the
affirmation of an impossibility.
Michel Foucault*
If the logical structure of existing knowledge is one of

distinct, unique, irreducible forms, it cannot readily be
regarded as a unity, but neither is it a chaos.
Paul H. Hirst’
1 . A n Approach to a Chasm
Many things create the deep divide between Popper’s approach

and that of the philosophical profession, and their very different
| responses to the crises reviewed in chapters 10 and 11. Some, as we
have seen, are historical, psychological, social, even personal. Quite
apart from any evaluation of his work in philosophy of physics,
physics itself, and epistemology-. Popper's outspoken opposition to
Freudian and Marxist thought, and to Zionism, would be sufficient
to antagonise a large percentage of the American academic commu-
nity. If one focuses on such issues, the opposition may appear
hostile, partisan, and irrational. So it sometimes is. But there are
theoretical reasons for the split too: intellectually. Popper and most
professional philosophers have fundamentally different points of
view.
These differences can be put briefly, but will take some pages to
explain. Whereas most professional philosophers, following Witt-
genstein, compartmentalise knowledge and take the view that the
1
An early version of this chapter appeared in "The Division of Knowledge'. Chapter 5 of
C'ntnprod Fonts m the Sciences, ed. Gerard Radnitzky (New York: Paragon House, 1987). p p 67-
102
* The Order of Thmgs: An Archeology of the Human Sciences (New York: Random House. 19/0).
P' 246. See also his The Archeology of Knowledge (London: Tavistock Publications, 1972). esp.
I chapter 6.
. ’ p H. Hirst. Knowledge and the Curriculum (London: Roudedge and Kegan Paul. 1974). |>
*37.
scope of rationality is severely limited, Popper does neither, and

instead offers a universal theory of unlimited rational criticism. But
this is only the beginning of the story—a story essentially about the
ideas of Popper and Wittgenstein.
Popper and Wittgenstein, two native Viennese who made their

philosophical careers in Britain: they are the two figures that domi-
nate philosophical discussion. They are the only two philosophers
today whose ideas are said to have a transformative impact on
contemporary philosophical thought in the sense that they mark a
watershed, that they sever the before from the after, that they are
revolutionary, or involve a “paradigm shift". Thus H. L. Finch has
described Wittgenstein as “the first philosopher who is really outside
of modern philosophy", as one who “stands at the beginning of a
new period in Western philosophy".4 Whereas Gerard Radnitzky,
denying Finch's claim, contends that it is Popper’s thought that
“constitutes a Copernican turn’’.’
Radnitzky would say that what Finch wrote about Wittgenstein is
really true about Popper. And vice versa. The followers of each of
these thinkers lend to deny that there is anything transformative or
revolutionary' or “paradigm-shifting" about the thought of the other
figure. Popperians tend to share with Bertrand Russell the view that
the thought of the later Wittgenstein is that of one who “seems to
have grown lired of serious thinking and to have invented a doc-
trine which would make such an activity unnecessary”.6 Wittgenstein-
ians, on the other hand, consider Popper to be superficial. 1 was
dining with an American Wittgensleinian philosopher who registered
some dismay when 1 told him that, having written a book on
Wittgenstein,’ 1 was now writing a book on Popper. "How can you
do that?”, he demanded, “Popper is of course quite talented, but
Wittgenstein is deep." More recently, I was sitting at the Athenaeum
in London, talking with Sir Isaiah Berlin, who has always been
* Henry Leroy Finch, H'ittgrnWrui—Thr ljUer Philosophy (New York: Humanities Press. 1977).
pp. vii*viii.
’ Gerard Radnitzky, “Popper as a Turning Point in the Philosophy of Science: Beyond
Foundationalism and Relativism", in Paul Levinson, In Pursuit of Truth, op. dt, pp. 64-80. See al*’
Radnilzky’s “Disappointment and Changes in the Conception of Rationality: Wittgenstein and
Popper**, in Thf Search for Absolute Values and the Creation of the New World: Proceedings of the Tenth
International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences (New York: ICF Press, 1982), pp. 1193-1233,
• Bertrand Russell, My Philosophical Development (London: George /Mien & Unwin. 1959). p
7
See my 2nd edition, op. dL
212
T H E UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS OF POPPER'S OPPONENTS
friendly toward Popper and appreciated him. He gave me an

example of a clever image that Wittgenstein had once made in
conversation. “As you can see by that", Berlin said, "Wittgenstein
was a genius. Popper unfortunately is no genius”. I did not see at
all.
Considered from a Wittgensteinian perspective (or from that of
Kuhn), such mutual lack of comprehension and appreciation might
be expected in any clash of alternative and incommensurable para-
digms, world views, or as Wittgenstein puts it, “forms of life”.
Wittgensteinians see such incommensurability everywhere. Popper
does not.
In this chapter and the next I shall attempt to penetrate these
alleged paradigmatic barriers, and to identify both the underlying
differences separating the work of Popper and Wittgenstein, and the
original contributions, if any, that each makes. That I myself am not
impartial need not prevent me from showing how an impartial
comparison might be made—and that these positions are, thus, not
incommensurable.
Someone may protest that I have not seen Kuhn’s point, and
thus am trying to compare the incommensurable. To see Kuhn’s
point and to accept it are, however, two different things. Kuhn’s
point is made from within the Wittgensteinian problematic. To
accept it in advance of investigation is simply to concede the argu-
ment to Wittgenstein. Popperians do not deny the possibility of
incommensurability: the question is whether his and Wittgenstein's
doctrines really fall into this category. This question can be investi-
gated by anyone—not just by a Popperian.
2. Tenets/ Problematic/ Research Program/ Structure
How then do the differences between Popper and Wittgenstein

come about? Professional philosophy is, 1 contend, rooted in what 1
call the “Wittgensteinian problematic" and in “juslificationism”. The
first forces the compartmentalisation of knowledge, and the second
forces the limitation of rationality. But Popper undermines the
Wittgensteinian problematic and, unlike most philosophers (including
Wittgenstein), takes a nonjustificational approach.
1 announce all this —a way of describing the situation which will
sound strange to some readers and which needs to be explained in
detail —as a foretaste of what is to follow. Before presenting my own
213
account, I shall first summarise my view of the logic of the situation

to be examined, and introduce some useful terminology.
Central to my argument will be what I have just called the
Wittgensteinian problematic, something dial hardly anyone knows
about. By ‘‘problematic" I have in mind a "particular way of posing
problems”: that is, a way of selecting, consciously or unconsciously,
the types, interrelations, and priorities of problems that must be
solved. Also included in the problematic is the history of attempts to
solve, and failure to solve, those problems. All this may include a
network of background influences and assumptions available as one
builds one’s outlook, and that also limit the directions in which one
may build.
Philosophers who are led into Wittgensteinian thought, and into
professional philosophy generally, by such a problematic, easily
become trapped in its grip, and forced into predictable positions by
it. “One's point of view is the point from which one views and
which one therefore does not see.” True. But it is common experi-
ence that when someone points out one's point of view, one has at
least an opportunity to examine it—seeing it perhaps for the first
time. By highlighting the main components of the Wittgensteinian
point of view, we may identify the key issues, tell where rational
argument might be relevantly and effectively applied, and thus get
on with what science has always been concerned with, and often
successfully achieves: the measurement and comparison of what at
first appears to be incommensurable."
A “problematic" is one of the things to be considered when trying

to do this. But it is not the only thing. Indeed, when examining
philosophies, one has to attend to at least four overlapping aspects:
(a) their tenets and the problems they claim to have solved; (b)
their problematic context; (c) their research programs9; and (d) their
structure.10 These aspects may not be equally well known or equally
’ Sre K. R. Popper. Tht Oprn Sodfty and IU Enrmia, op. dl., vol. I, pp. 248-25S, and
Conjectures and Refutations, op. at., chapter 2.
• 1 use the term "research program" in the sense given by Popper in the “Metaphysical
Epilogue" to his Postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery, vol. 3, Quantum Theory and the Schism tn
Physics,op. cit. This idea was popularised, and given a somewhat different sense, by the late I inn-
Lakatos, for which see his The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, op. cit., and my chapter
18 below.
te
By "structure" here is meant nothing mysterious—only certain features of a philosophy
such as justificationism, which predetermine the kinds of questions asked and limit the range ol
answers deemed appropriate.
214
THE UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS OF POPPERS OPPONENTS
influential. Thus one philosopher's influence may stem chiefly from

the problems he or she has solved, whereas the influence of another
philosopher—who may indeed not even have solved any
problem—may come chiefly from a research program that he or she
has initiated.
Popperian philosophy is oriented towards the first aspect: it is

oriented to theories and problems. I can briefly specify Popper’s
position in the history of thought and indicate my own relationship
to him in three sentences: with his theory of falsifiability, he solved
the problem of induction and made an ingenious, if somewhat less
satisfactory, solution of the problem of demarcation. By generalising
and somewhat correcting his theory of demarcation (or criticism),
one can solve the problems of scepticism, fideism, and rationality."
The result is that traditional epistemology and much of the rest of
traditional philosophy become obsolete.
Popper’s own problematic—the nexus of influences, assumptions,
and problems that he exploited to build his philosophical out-
look—cannot so readily be summarised unless one is already in-
formed of the necessary historical background. But much of this is
readily available in his own work and in that of others, and what is
not available is in preparation.”
With Wittgenstein, the situation is different. It is hard to identify
any philosophical problem that he can be said to have solved, or
any new philosophical theory that he propounded.” If one turns to
his early work, to the Tractalus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), one must
qualify this judgement a bit, for there he did attempt to dispense
with Russell's theory of types by arguing that to know the sense of
a symbol definitely and completely one needs to know all its possi-
ble combinations, and that one thus need not also state its range of
applicability. This view impressed Russell, and was, as he cautiously
stated in his Preface to the Tractatus in 1922, “not at any point
11
See my “Rationality. Criticism, and Logic", op, dt.; “Rationality versus the Theory of
Rationality", op. dt.; and The Rrtmil to Commitmen/,op. dt.
” Sec K. R. Pbpper, (Jnrndtd Quetf, op. dt.; my “Theory of Language and Philosophy of
Science as Instruments of Educational Reform", op. dL; my IfiWgrwstom, op. dt.; and my Ein
Schwienger Mensch", op. dt. I am, as mentioned, at present writing Popper’s biography, in which
1
attempt to reconstruct his own problematic or ’Problemstellung*. Popper’s large Archive of
Manuscripts and correspondence, incidentally, is deposited in the Archive of die Hoover
Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. Stanford University.
” See my WtUgmston, second edition, op. dt. The most up-to-date account of my views on
Wittgenstein is contained in the Japanese translation of this book (Tokyo: Mintis hi. 1990).
215
obviously wrong". It was, however, refuted by the work of Alonzo

Church and Kurt Godel in the 1930s.14
Much of Wittgenstein’s influence stems, rather, from the research
program inspired by his later philosophy—a program that I shall
discuss below.
Yet the key to the persistence of Wittgensteinian philosophy (and
the appeal of his research program) within professional philosophy
lies neither in his views nor in his research program. It is the two
other aspects (b and d, their problematic content and their struc-
ture) that account for this, and which divide his thought from
Popper’s.
The first of these aspects is contextual: it is the relatively un-
recognised Wittgensteinian problematic, which, although rarely
articulated, is distinctively, although not uniquely, Wittgensteinian.
Indeed, the manner and context in which followers of Wittgenstein
pose their questions is rarely discussed. An approach to philosophi-
cal problems which is very characteristic yet neither unique nor fully
recognised distinguishes Wittgenstein’s followers.
The second aspect (to be examined in the following chapter) is
structural, and comes from “justificationism”—something that, again,
while not distinctively Wittgensteinian (since he shares it, after all,
with most other philosophers who also have never felt the impact of
Darwin—i.e., with most contemporary philosophers) is prominent in
his On Certainty and is indeed to be found throughout his work.”
These two matters—the Wittgensteinian problematic and jus-

tificationism—are closely interwoven; the themes of one recur in the
other, and an examination of both is needed to answer the ques-
tions of this chapter.
3. The Wittgensteinian Problematic
One problem—and only one—lies at the root both of the Witt-

gensteinian problematic and of justificationism. This is the old
problem of induction. If the problem of induction remains insoluble,
H
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractates Logico-Phtfosophicus (London: Roudrdge & Regan Paul.
1922). See the discussion in m y op. dL, chapter 2, sections 9-10; see also Janies
Griffin, Htagnuiftni logical Atomism (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1964).
’* See Radnitzky and Bartley, Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowl-
op- dt., especially chapter 1.
216
T H E UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS OE POPPER S OPPONENTS
then philosophy may take the path that most professionals, following
Wittgenstein, have staked out. If Popper has, as he claims, solved
the problem of induction—and if the key to his solution is the
nonjustificational character of his approach—then professional
Wittgensteinian philosophy is a mistake, and continued mining of
that vein is wasted effort.
The issue is then not just one of fashion or power or influence;
certainly it transcends sociology. What is at stake is not the sort of
thing that Bertrand Russell seemed to have in mind when he wrote
of his displacement by the Wittgensteinians: "It is not an altogether
pleasant experience to find oneself regarded as antiquated after
having been, for a time, in the fashion. It is difficult to accept this
experience gracefully."16
Russell’s experience, as reported in this remark, both caters to
and lies outside the Wittgensteinian problematic. Russell could not
solve, and did not claim satisfactorily to have solved, the problem of
induction, even though he was preoccupied with it throughout his
life.” Both Wittgensteinian and Popperian philosophy, by contrast,
begin with the conviction—the correct conviction—that the problem
is insoluble in Russellian terms, and proceed from there. From the
Wittgensteinian and the Popperian viewpoints, Russell's work is anti-
quated. Yet both Wittgenstein and Russell are justificationists16,
whereas Popper is not.
If we reconstruct historically the problem situation that leads to
the development of contemporary professional philosophy, it be-
comes evident how the entire development hinges on the assump-
tion that the problem of induction cannot be solved. After doing
this, we can see how different the entire matter looks from a
perspective within which the problem of induction has been solved.
1 proceed in tltis way because most professionals come in —and
settle in—in the middle of the story, as it were, and never have the
opportunity to look at the development as a whole, or to consider it
as something that was anything but necessary or desirable.
To generate our problem situation, we need a scientific imperialism

of the sort available in logical positivism and in most other evalua-
“ Bertrand Russell. My Philosophical Development, op. cit, p. 159.

" Ser Russell. The Problem of Philosophy (London: Williams and Norgatr. 1912). and most ot
later writings in die theory of knowledge,
11
See my discussion of Russell in The Retreat to (Commitment, op. at. Appendix 2.
217
tional programs chiefly concerned to demarcate science from other

areas (see chapter 10). Wittgenstein's later philosophy was created in
specific opposition to the positivist doctrine about the unity of the
sciences, according to which all legitimate utterances are to be
judged in terms of the canons of science—“science” being under-
stood in a positivist sense.
The positivist approach had been intended to provide a unity to
intellectual endeavour. For example, the notion that sense observa-
tion is the foundation of all legitimate discourse provides a universal
theory of criticism and explanation of error. If observation is the only
true source of knowledge, and if reports of sense observation serve
as the only legitimate premisses in valid argument, their truth will
be—in accordance with elementary logic—transmitted to the conclu-
sion of that argument. Titus, any legitimate (i.e., properly sourced
or justified) statement would be one logically derived from, and
justified in terms of, such true observational premisses. Whereas an
unacceptable theory would be one that could not be so derived.
Hence the main source of error would lie in accepting a position
not logically derivable from sense observation reports.
But this approach, as we have seen, is untenable. Its propo-
nents—from Hume to present-day philosophers —are confronted by
insuperable difficulties. Many legitimate scientific claims cannot be
justified in the way demanded. Every universal law of nature is
logically too strong to function as the conclusion of a valid argu-
ment whose only premisses are sense observation reports. There is
no way logically to reach from a finite set of such reports as prem-
isses to a universal law of nature as conclusion. And the problem is
larger: not only are scientific laws not derivable from sense observa-
tion reports; various principles often supposed, particularly by
positivists, to be indispensable to science—e.g., principles of induc-
tion, verification, and causality—also cannot be so derived.
Thus the particular principle of criticism that had been advanced,
far from being universal, does not work at all. Moreover, its failure-
suggested that any relationship between evidence and conclusion
must be illogical; that illogic lies at the heart of science.
There is nothing distinctively Wittgensteinian about this result

Such a "difficulty”, such an epistemological crisis, has occurred
repeatedly in philosophy. The crisis created by Hume’s work in the
eighteenth century is, in essentials, identical to the one that logical
positivists faced in the twentieth century—which is, in the main, the
218
THE UNDERLYING /ASSUMPTIONS OF POPPER’S OPPONENTS
ancient sceptical crisis recorded by Sextus Empiricus, and the crise

pyrrhonienne that Descartes attempted unsuccessfully to resolve in the
seventeenth century.19
What is distinctively Wittgensteinian is, rather, an extension of the
strategy commonly adopted to resolve this crisis.
To understand Wittgenstein’s contribution, we need first to look
at the pre-Wittgensteinian, “unextended” strategy. The most com-
mon way of resolving this sort of epistemological crisis, from Hume
onwards, had been the following. It had been asserted, often trium-
phantly, and even as if profoundly, that the relationship between
evidence and conclusion is not i/logical, only nan-logical. That is,
there must be two kinds of inference: deductive, which defines logic;
and inductive, which defines the natural sciences. Induction, it was
conceded, is indeed not deductive, but it was insisted that there is
no need for it to be so, and that induction is yet not illogical.
“Everything is what it is and not another thing."*0 The whole
epistemological “crisis" was hence, it was alleged, a mere "pseudo-
problem" artificially created by the unwarranted (imperialistic)
assumption that canons of science must conform to canons of logic.
Instead of being a faulty sort of deduction, induction is fundamen-
tal, defining science—-just as deduction is fundamental, defining
logic. Thus the problem of induction is “dissolved” by learning not
to apply the standards of deductive logic to judge inductive infer-
ence.*1 Wittgenstein later approvingly (if obliquely) echoed the old
strategy: “Here grounds are not propositions which logically imply
what is believed . . . the question here is not one of an approxima-
tion to logical inference.”**
At least part of the task of the philosopher, then, is—while es-
chewing judgement—simply to describe and clarify the standards or
principles of deductive and of inductive reasoning, as they are
embedded in actual practice. And to do so is to make clear that there is
no way to unify the principles of these two domains. I have emphasised
the last sentence to stress that the initial and crucial sundering of
the old doctrine of the unity of the sciences already occurs at this
point. But the sundering may be passed over quietly or even go
’• Sec the reference to the work of R. H. Popkin, given in the following chapter
20
Bishop Butler, as quoted in G. E. Moore’s epigraph to Pnnafna Ethica.
11
See Hilary Putnam's remark, quoted above.
a
Ludwig Wittgenstein. PhUosophtcal Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell. 1953). paras. 481
219
unnoticed. For most positivists, although accepting the division

between deductive and inductive reasoning, nonetheless continued t0
maintain the unity of the sciences. They maintained, that is, that the
sciences consist of all and only those activities that operate strictly in
terms of either deduction or induction, or both. Il is at this stage in
the argument that Wittgenstein really enters the picture.
Here the Wittgensteinian extension is introduced. The resulting
new development not only threatens the old doctrine of the unity of
the sciences; it also no longer leaves room to patch up or ignore its
gaps, as had been done with the cleavage between deduction and
induction; and it rules out in advance any new unified account of
science or knowledge.
This extension begins with a simple question. Why not extend the
previous strategy a step further? For there exist other disciplines and
“forms of life" whose principles are neither logical nor scien-
tific— neither deductive nor inductive. There are, for instance,
history and jurisprudence and religion and politics. Practitioners of
such disciplines are often criticised by reference to logical and
scientific standards. Yet if logic cannot be permitted to judge sci-
ence, why should science or logic be permitted to judge other forms
of life? Why eliminate only the imperialism of deductive logic? Why
not eliminate the imperialism of inductive logic as well?
An answer is quickly provided. Under the approach stemming
from the later writings of Wittgenstein,25 each discipline or field or
“language game” or “form of life" is alleged to have its own un-
grounded ultimate standards or principles or “logic”, embedded in
action,2* which need not conform to or be reducible to any other
standards, and which, again, it is the special task of the philosopher
to describe and clarify but to eschew judging or defending. As Witt-
genstein says: “As if giving grounds did not come to an end some-
time. But the end is not an ungrounded presupposition; it is an un-
grounded way of acting." 25
” Or of Hirst (sec chapter 15 below).

14
See Hilary Putnam, “The 'Corroboration' of Theories", in P. A. Schlipp, ed., The PhiloiOp '
0/ Karl Popper, op. cit.
8
Wittgenstein, On Certainty (Oxford. Blackwell. 1969), para. 110.
220
THE UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS OF POPPER'S OPPONENTS
4. Weighty Consequences: The Task of Philosophy is to Describe the Prin-

ciples of the Fragmented: The Division of Knowledge
This simple—and, ironically enough, apparently logical—extension

has immediate and weighty consequences. It literally means that
there is no arguing or judging among disciplines—or different
activities, or forms of life—any more. Not only is there no longer a
universal theory of criticism; there is no longer room even for cross-
disciplinary criticism. Logic cannot judge science; or science, history;
or history, religion. And so on. There is no unity to knowledge—or
science. Rather, all knowledge is essentially divided. There is a
spangled diversity. Scientific imperialism makes way for disciplinary
independence—some might say anarchy—and to the natural division
of knowledge. Preservation of a minimum of “Two Cultures” is
underwritten by professional philosophy, and the existing fragmen-
tation of both university and larger community is given a theoretical
justification. In this theoretical justification itself resides all that
remains of unity and community. Furthermore, the fragmentation is
noncompetitive, non-threatening, since no one segment may censure
any other.86 Indeed, everyone acquires total protection, freedom
from competition, on any fundamental issue. (Other consequences
are the special conception of the task of philosophy that was men-
tioned above, and the generation of the research program that
dominates Wittgensteinian philosophy, to which we shall return
below.)
To be sure, philosophers may still search for error. But it is a
new sort of error. Now the chief source of philosophical error is to
apply the rules of one activity, of one “language game", to another,
and, intentionally or not, to engage in judgement. Language tres-
passes its limits when expressions are used outside their proper
range of application—e.g., in criticism or evaluation of another form
of life, another language game. Philosophical critique is no longer of
content but of criteria application. On this view, positivist philosophy
as a whole—censorious and anti-metaphysical as it was— may be
regarded as, at least in this respect, a grand “category mistake”, that
°f supposing that different forms of knowledge must satisfy the
criteria of one supremely authoritative form of knowledge: science.
*et there is nothing wrong, so it is contended, with a positivistic
* See the Introduction to the second edition of my The Retreat to Commitment, op, dt.
221
empiricism within proper limits: positivism is all right for science in so

far as it states the “inductive” principles behind the shared practices
of the scientific community.
In the course of this argument, the task of philosophy has been
redelineated. Contemplating the collapse of the universal claims of
the positivist theory of criticism, philosophers reached the conclusion
that any general philosophical theory of criticism is impossible. As a
consequence, criticism, evaluation, and explanation would no longer
be proper philosophical aims. Description, on the other hand, is not
simply part of the philosophical task; it is now virtually all that
remains to the philosopher. /XII that remains is to describe the logics
or grammars or first principles of various kinds of discourse and
activity, and the many different sorts of language games and forms
of life in which they are embedded. Foucault, who is very close to
Wittgenstein in his presuppositions, is right: what is involved is a
sort of archaeology.
5. Research Programs
A new explanation of error often leads to a program of reform

aimed to prevent such errors from reappearing. So it is here.
Wittgenstein himself never claimed that all identifiable disciplines
and activities are separate language games, each with its own rules.
Some of his followers (such as Paul Hirst, to whose ideas we shall
turn below) are careful to say that existing disciplines only tend to
be distinct “forms of knowledge".27 But many other Wittgensteinians
have gone much farther, suggesting that virtually every distinguish-
able activity—law, history, science, logic, ethics, politics, religion
—has its own specific grammar or logic, that mixing the grammar
of one of them with that of another leads to philosophical error,
and that it is the new job of the philosopher—his new research pro-
gram1" under the Wittgensteinian dispensation—to describe in detail
° See Paul H. Hint, Knoutcdgt and Ihf Curriculum. op. a t . p. 135. See also Paul H. Hirst and
R S. Peters, The l*ogic of Education (New York: The Humanities Press, 1971); Paul H. Hirst.
"Liberal Education and the Nature of Knowledge", in R. E Dearden, P H, Hint, and R. S.
Peters, Education and Reason (London: Routledge 8c Kegan Paul, 1972).
” The word "research" should be taken lightly Genuine research, advancing knowledge,
does more than grindingly apply a central theme to various areas. On "research programs" see K
R Popper, "Metaphysical Epilogue" to Theon and the Schism in Phpics, op. dL; and also
chapter 18 below.
222
THE UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS OF POPPERS OPPONENTS
hese separate logics or grammars. In this spirit three generations of

British and American professional philosophers came to write books
nth titles such as The Vocabulary of Politics,The Language of Morals,
he Logic of Historical Explanation, The Language of [Literary] Criticism,
he Language of Fiction, The Uses of Argument, The Logic of the Social
ciences,The Logic of the Sciences,The Province of Logic, The Language of
'ducation, The Logic of Education, The Logic of Religious Language, Faith
nd Logic, Christian Discourse,The Language of Christian Belief, The Logic
f Colour Words, and so on ad nauseam.
Any philosopher, even a novice, was thus provided with a simple
research formula” whereby a book or learned paper could be
reduced: “Take one of the phrases ‘The Logic of x,’ ‘The Lan-
uage of x,' or ‘The Grammar of x,‘ substitute for x some activity or
iscipline such as just named; write a treatise on the topic so
reated.” The ease with which such programs could be executed
jrther aided the practical success of such philosophising—as witness
> which each of the titles cited has decorated a book or mono-
raph actually published.29 The Wittgensteinian research program, in
ion, was useful to professional philosophers; it had what Gilbert
yle, following William James, called “cash value”. And it was
enerated immediately from the assumptions of the Wittgensteinian
roblematic.’"
" Set? my pp. 167-170. or (second edition, op. cit.), pp. 144-145.
w
I n my **Achilles, the Tortoise, and Explanation in Science and i n History". British Journal
- the Philosophy of Science, May 1962, 1 examine one product of the application of this research
ogram: the debate about historical explanation. In the light of the Wittgensteinian problematic,
aders will be able to appreciate more fully why that debate—often called the “covering law
odel" debate—was one of the most intense controversies in professional philosophy during the
e 1950s and early 1960s. I t was a test case. The debate, it will be recalled, concerned whether
fpper’s model of scientific explanation (also referred to as the “Popper-Hempel model" or the
Dvering law model") could be applied, as Popper and C. G. Hempel maintained, to explanation
historical writing as well as to explanation i n physics and other sciences. This debate was
culiar for several reasons: (a) because of the large numbers of philosophers independently
rarted to i t ; (b) because it was a pseudo-debate, depending almost entirely on misreadings of
tat Popper and Hempel had actually written, and on a string of non sequiturs; and (c) because
e issues involved were intrinsically not very important: what Popper says about historical
planation is trivially correct —and rather uncnlightening about the actual practice of historical
pcstigation.
This debate can be understood only within the wider context of the Wittgensteinian problcrn-
C. I f it is assumed that standards of inference must be field-dependent and not universal, then
y important standard-setting feature of investigative activity in any area—and certainly so
portant a feature as explanation— that purported to be universal, applying to all fields, would
se a challenge. Hence the debate over the covering law model was really an attempt (an
empi contemptuous of the facts and of what was written) to show that explanation must be
Id-dependent too. What was really involved —though I do not believe anyone mentioned it was
r a prwn rejection of the contention that a model of scientific explanation could apply anywhere
-ept in the strictest scientific undertaking — for anything else would have to have a different
223
6. Further Consequences and Reactions
The essentials of the Wittgensteinian problematic have now been

set down, but some important matters have not yet been mentioned.
There is, for instance, the way in which the whole line of thinking
was reinforced by positive reactions on the part of other disci-
plines—especially those that had previously been under siege.
Take religion as an example. One can find in much philosophy
of religion of the past sixty years a development parallel to that in
professional philosophy. Traditional apologetic philosophy of religion
had also been imperialistic, insisting that findings in other areas of
human life at least conform to those of religion. With the theologian
Karl Barth, however, one finds a reversal of that strategy. Barth
rejects apologetic theology and substitutes for it kerygmatic theology,
wherein the job of the theologian is simply to describe the ultimate
presuppositions of Christianity. Consequently, it is hardly surprising
that philosophy of religion and philosophical theology have been
given a new lease on life by the Wittgensteinian problematic.” For
the self-conception of such disciplines now matches the typical professional
Wittgensteinian characterisation of the way all disciplines and ways of life
must be.
Another important element in the problem situation should also
be noted. Psychological and sociological in character, it provides
what amounts to a recipe for generating team-style departments of
philosophy, in which one professional does logic, another does
science, and so on—where “does” means “describes the logical struc-
ture, the ‘grammar’ of’ various established fields. The characteristic
activities of old-fashioned positivism may even remain here: that is.
formalism and the descriptive analysis of the methods and presup-
positions of the natural sciences and logic. What must be sacrificed
are not such activities (in which individual academics may have
heavily invested in terms of formal training) but the positivistic
tendency to censure other forms of life. A “live and let live” attitude
arises—subsumed under a common paradigm or point of view from
which it is assumed that the problem of induction is a pseudo-
problem, insoluble on its own terms.
"logic". Consequently this debate produced no serious investigations of historical narrative, but
only disguised and misplaced polemics against what was conceived as scientific imperialism.
" See The Retreat to Commitment, 2nd edition, op. cit., pp. 124-133. See also Antony Flew and
Alasdair MacIntyre, eds,. New Essays m Philosophical Theology (London: Macmillan. 1955), chapter I
224
THE UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS OF POPPER’S OPPONENTS
Thus it is that Ludwig Wittgenstein, for all his trials and tribula-
tions, never had to batde for recognition—-for he, like Kuhn, told the
professionals what they wanted to hear. It is consoling for “specialists"
isolated from the wider culture to be reassured that it is all right
merely to “do their thing”. It is consoling for them—ironically,
through “team work” with colleagues—to believe that there is no
alternative to continuing to destroy rather than to create communi-
ty, and that their own particular usage and activity, whatever it may
be, is indeed authoritative.52 1 wrote in Parts 1 and II of the cre-
ation of intellectual cartels—a phenomenon not restricted to the
profession of philosophy. Here, in the underlying abstractions of contem-
porary philosophy, one finds a theoretical defense of such cartels and of
protectionism—a ready-made ideology to defend such cartels (al-
though, needless to say, these words are not used and these paral-
lels are not drawn).
Yet, ironically latent in this theoretical justification of fragmenta-
tion and protectionism, is a new imperialism, generally unarticulat-
ed, according to which disciplines or forms of life must conform.True
forms of life (a) must not judge one another; and (b) must not try
to describe some common world in collaboration with other disci-
plines since each form of life creates its own world. In this generally
agreed theoretical justification itself resides all that remains of unity.
Popper’s approach does not conform to either of these principles.
Hence he and his students are not simply followers of a different way of life,
to be treated tolerantly like all the rest. Rather,in Wittgenstein’s words, they
are "bad pupils".
Before turning from the examination of the Wittgensteinian

problematic to the remainder of our argument, a qualification
should be made. Despite his pervasive influence, Wittgenstein alone
is not to blame for this problematic, nor is it peculiar to
professional philosophy carried out by his students. Although
I Wittgenstein's style is distinctive, one finds the underlying problema-
tic, and the resulting fragmentation, in many places. Its prevalence
amongst members of Arts and Humanities Faculties throughout the
u
'orld confirms the continuing persistence of “Two Cultures”. The
idea is also held by many scientists. To many persons it seems
Conimonsensical. One also finds it in the work of people who have
” See Thf Rrtreal to Commitmrnt. 2nd edition, op. dt., p. 100 & n.. as well as chapter 15
K
below
225
never read Wittgenstein. And one finds similar doctrines especially

in the sociology of knowledge;” in Habermas and in the writings of
the Frankfurt school; in Heidegger and hermeneutics;” in the work
of Michel Foucault and the “archaeologists of knowledge”; and in
the sort of American neo-pragmatism once represented by Morton
White and now by Richard Rorty.
7. A Different Look at the Matter
Popperians see the problematic, and the whole matter of the

unity and division of knowledge, utterly differendy.”
The whole chain of argumentation just rehearsed depends on the
first steps: the claims that sense experience is the foundation and
justification of all knowledge, that induction exists, and that the
problem of induction cannot be solved nor scientific method charted
in a purely deductive way. But Popper argues that these claims are
all invalid. If he is right, the whole argument unravels, and a whole
generation of philosophising is undone.
Popper gave a solution to the problem of induction, showing that
there is a falsifying deductive relationship between evidence and
theory (see chapters 10 and 11 above). Thus there is no need to
chart a separate inductive logic for science. Quite the contrary, there
is no such thing as induction. If logic can maintain its sway in the
natural (or “inductive”) sciences, if it is not necessary to chart a
special canon, an “inductive logic" for the natural sciences, then the
rest of the argument—the extended strategy for permitting a special
“ See Peter Muru, 'Philosophy and the Mirror of Rorty". and my "Alienation Alienated The
Economics of Knowledge versus the Psychology and Sociology of Knowledge", both in Radnitrky
and Bartley, Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge, op. cil.
M
See Hans Albert, “Hermeneutics and Economics: A Criticism of Hermeneutical Thinking ,n
the Social Sciences". Kiddos, vol. 41. 1988. fiuc. 4. pp. 573-602.
“ My statement here challenges those who say that Popper and Wittgenstein —whatever thru
differences may be—are in agreement with regard to "non-foundationalism" or “nonjustifica
tionism". Thus J. J. Ross writes of “an approach in epistemology held in common by Karl Popprt
and the later Wittgenstein . . . which has now come to be called ‘non-foundationalism’". ("Th c
Tradition of Rational Criticism: Wittgenstein and Popper", in Wi/Zgeruton, the Vienna Circle, and
Critical Rationalism. Proceedings of the 3rd International Wittgenstein Symposium (Vienna: Hdlder-Pichler-
lempsky, 1979), pp. 415-419.) Ross and others who have argued in this way are wholh
mistaken —as I hope will be evident from the argument and evidence of the present chapter. ♦»'
well as from my “Non-Justificationism: Ripper iwjm Wittgenstein", in Epistemology and Philosophy a/
Science: Proceedings of the 7th International Wittgenstein Symposium (Vienna: Hdlder-Pichler-Tempsky-
1983), pp. 255-261). See also Alvin 1. Goldman, "What Is Justified Belief?", in George S. Papp35 *
d-. Justification and Knowledge, op. cit., p. 14.
226
THE UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS OF POPPER’S OPPONENTS
canon or set of criteria for each form of knowledge or way of

life—does not arise; and there is no reason any longer for the assump-
tion of underlying and irreducible disunity.
What then lies at the heart of the dispute between the two sides?
It is the question whether Popper has indeed given a sound deduc-
tive solution to the problem of induction. If he has, there is no
difficulty in formulating a universally valid account of the growth of
knowledge. If he has not, the argument that we have re-
viewed—what 1 call the “Wittgensteinian problematic"—may continue
to exert some force.
This is the context of the dispute. No one who neglects it, or
fails to consider what rides on the rival claims that the problem of
induction has or has not been solved, is likely to reach understand-
ing or agreement on any subordinate issue.
227
Chapter 15
JUSTIFICATION AND RATIONALITY
1. Comprehensive Rationality
As claimed at the opening of the previous chapter, two indepen-

dent yet closely related features of the Wittgensteinian position force
the conclusion that knowledge is essentially fragmented and create a
gulf between Popper’s approach and that of the philosophical
profession. We have reviewed the first, contextual, feature—"the
Wittgensteinian problematic”. The second —to which I now turn—is
structural, and comes from “justificationism".1 Since justificalionism is
already deeply woven into the Wittgensteinian problematic, some of
the motifs already discussed will surface again.
If the Wittgensteinian problematic generated the doctrine of the
division or fragmentation of knowledge, it is justificationism that
leads to the doctrine of the limits of rationality. The two positions
work closely together, and reinforce one another. For once one has
conceded that rationality is limited in its critical range, it becomes
more plausible that there exist disciplines or fields (or forms of
knowledge or ways of life) wherein the standards of logic and sci-
ence, the chief instruments of rationality, should be forbidden to
range. Yet justificationism is more important in explaining Popper's
differences with other philosophers than is the Wittgensteinian prob-
lematic. Although its influence has spread, the Wittgensteinian
problematic occurs first, and chiefly, amongst followers of Wittgen-
stein. Justificationism, however, is to be found everywhere.
What is justificalionism?
Justificationism is a characteristic of most philosophical theories of
rationality. Rationality is of course opinion and action in accordance
with reason. But what this amounts to is disputed by philosophers,
and the theory of rationality grows from such disagreement.
While there are numerous ways to draw an inventory of theories
of rationality, all important variants fall into one of three main
categories: comprehensive rationality (the traditional account, of which
logical positivism is an example), limited rationality (the most common
Wittgensteinian account of rationality, and the account accepted by
niost contemporary philosophical professionals), and pancritical
1
See Thr Krtrral to Commitment. 2nd edition, op. cit.; and also K. R IVipper. Realism and the
? ,m
' of Science. op. cit.. Part I, section 2.
rationality (the generalisation and interpretation that I have imposed

on Popper’s views).
The first two share the assumption that rational opinion and
action must be justified or given a foundation. Different writers
characterise the process of justification in slightly different ways. For
example, a theory of rationality may be concerned with how to
verify, confirm, make firmer, strengthen, validate, make certain,
show to be certain, make acceptable, render more probable, defend
whatever opinion or action is under consideration.
Comprehensive rationality dominates traditional philosophical ap-
proaches and remains even today perhaps the most common under-
standing of rationality? It is stated as early as Epictetus (Discourses.
Chapter 2), and requires that a rationalist accepts all and only those
positions that can be justified by appeal to a rational authority.
What is the nature of this rational authority? Here again defend-
ers of comprehensive rationality differ, their answers falling into two
main categories. The first is Intellectualism (or Rationalism), accord-
ing to which rational authority lies in the Intellect or Reason. A
Rationalist justifies his opinion and action by appealing to intel-
lectual intuition or the faculty of reason. This position is associated
with the philosophies of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz.
The second is Empiricism (or sensationalism or positivism),
according to which the rational authority lies in sense experience.
An empiricist justifies his or her actions and opinions by appealing
to sense observation. Associated with this view are the philosophies
of Locke, Hume, Mach, and the Carnap of Der logische Aufbau der
Welt.3
There are a number of reasons why comprehensive accounts of
rationality—or comprehensive justificationisms or foundational-
isms—are today widely thought to have failed. I shall cite only four.
First, the two main candidates for authority—pure reason and
sense observation —are hardly reliable. Sense observations are psy-
chologically and physiologically impure: they are theory-impreg-
nated, and subject to error and illusion (see chapters 10 and 11
above).4
* See W. P. Alston and Richard B Brandt, The Problems of Philosophy (Boston: Allyn arid
Bacon, Inc., 1978), p. 605: George S. Pappas and Marshall Swain, eds.. Essays on Knowledge
Justijtraium (Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1978).
’ Rudolf Carnap. The Logical Structure of the World, op. cit., p. xvii.
This consideration plays a prominent role in the theories of Popper and Hayek-
230
Second, even if reason and sense observation were infallible, both

authorities are intrinsically inadequate to do what is required, for
they are either too narrow or too wide (or both at once). Clear and
distinct ideas of reason let in too much (are too wide) in the sense
that they can justify contradictory conclusions—as Kant showed with
the antinomies of pure reason. Sense observation, on the other
hand, is logically inadequate to justify scientific laws, causality, the
accuracy of memory, or the existence of other people and the
external world; and in this sense it excludes too much and is too
narrow.
Third, the two requirements for comprehensive rationality— that
all and only those positions be accepted that can be justified by
appeal to the rational authority—are mutually incompatible. If we
accept the second requirement we must justify the first. But the first
requirement is not justifiable by sense observation, intellectual
intuition, or any other rational authority ever proposed. Moreover,
any such justification of the practice of accepting the results of
argument, even if it could per impoasibile be carried out, would be
pointless unless it were already accepted that a justification should
be accepted at least here. And this may well be at issue. In sum, if
the first requirement cannot be justified, either theoretically or
practically, the second requirement forbids that one hold it. Worse,
the second requirement also cannot be justified by appeal to rational
criteria or authorities. Therefore it asserts its own untenability and
must, if correct, be rejected.
Fourth, and most serious, no version of comprehensive rationality
can defeat the ancient argument about the limits of rationality,
ivhich is found as early as Sextus Empiricus and the ancient sceptics,
o the effect that there are essential limitations to justification? Any
new may be challenged by questions such as “How do you know?”,
Give me a reason”, or “Prove it.” When such challenges are ac-
cepted by citing further reasons that justify those views under
challenge, these views may be questioned in turn. And so on forev-
er. Yet if the burden of justification is perpetually shifted to a
hgher-order reason or authority, the contention originally ques-
ioned is never effectively defended. One may as well never have
evgun the defence: an infinite regress is created. To justify the
Sextus Empiricus, Works in four volumes. Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University I >*
fe also Richard H. Pupkin. The History of Srrpnrinn from Erasmus to Spinoza. op. dU a n d "W
to Pyrrhonism, op. cit.
231
original conclusion, one must eventually stop at something not open

to question for which one does not and need not provide justificatory
reasons. Such a thing—whether it be called a standard, criterion,
authority, basic presupposition, framework, way of life—would mark
the halting point for rational discussion, the limit of rationality.
To sum up these four insuperable difficulties in comprehensive
rationality: the first two argue that all proposed authorities are, for
various reasons, inadequate to their task; the third argues that the
position is inconsistent; the fourth, that it demands unlimited
justification whereas justification is essentially limited.
2. Limited Rationality
There have been two chief responses to the collapse of compre-

hensive rationality. There is no essential difference between the two,
only differences of emphasis. Both reactions fall under what I call
theories of limited rationality.The first is openly irrationalist, or fideist.
With joy, fideisls take any difficulties in comprehensive rationalism
to mark the breakdown of over-reaching reason. The fideist makes a
claim. It is less than an argument, and indeed the radical fideist is
concerned with argument only to the extent that it is an effective
weapon against someone, such as a rationalist, who is moved by
argument. This claim is simple. Since an eventual halt to rational
justification is inevitable, justification must be brought about without
reason, subjectively and particularly. Thus the fideist deliberately
makes a final, unquestionable, subjective commitment to some partic-
ular principles or authority or tradition or way of life, to some
framework or set of presuppositions. Such a way of life creates and
defines itself by reference to the limits of justification accepted
within it: by reference to that to which commitment is made or
imposed, in regard to which argument is brought to a close.
Although this limit to justification is a limitation to rationality,
and although reason is now relativised to it, it remains a logical
limitation. This point is emphasised in order to press home the
attack on rationality. For if no one can escape subjective commit-
ment, then no one may be criticised rationally for having made such
a commitment—no matter how idiosyncratic it might be. If ° n C
must, then one may: any irrationalist thus has a rational excuse f»
subjective irrationalism. He has a tu quoque or boomerang argument
To any critic the irrationalist can reply; tu quoque, reminding him
232
that those whose rationality is similarly limited should not berate

anyone for admitting to the limitation. The limitation is the more
telling because it appears that in those things which matter
most—one’s ultimate standards and principles—reason is incom-
petent, and that those matters which reason can decide are of
comparatively little importance. Kierkegaard, in his Fear and Trem-
bling, in his Johannes Climacus, or De Omnibus Dubitandum Est, is one
of many writers who have used such an argument to reach such a
conclusion.
The second main reaction to the difficulties of comprehensive
rationality does not differ structurally from the one just described;
and it reaches most of the same conclusions. Yet there is a marked
difference of emphasis and mood. It too is often called “fideism”,6
and yet if it is so, it is a fideism “without glee". It is taken up by
some, such as Wittgenstein, who, although deeply ambivalent in
their attitudes towards reason, nonetheless indicate their respect for
argument by taking the arguments against comprehensive rationality
seriously and by attempting to chart a more adequate, limited
approach to questions of rationality.
Such a limited view of rationality is common within British
philosophy of the so-called analytical sort, and also within American
neo-pragmatism. Taking such a general approach, but differing
greatly in individual emphasis and attitudes, are Sir Alfred Ayer,
Robert Nozick, Hilary Putnam, W. V. Quine, Richard Rorty, Morton
White, and many others. It is now difficult to find a philosopher
who does not take some such approach, however reluctantly.7
Despite differences, virtually all who take this limited approach to
rationality share at least two assumptions to which we shall now
turn in more detail. One concerns commitment and the limits of
justification. The other treats description as the only alternative to
justification. In both respects the Wittgensteinian problematic is
reinforced.
First, these philosophers accept that grounds, reasons, or justifica-
tions must be given for rational claims, but insist that the stand-
ards—or principles, criteria, authorities, presuppositions, frameworks,
* See Kai Nielsen. Scepticism (London: Macmillan, 1973), p. 102.

1
A. J. Ayer, The Problem of Knowledge, op. dt.; Robert Nozick. Philosophical Exp/iinu/wnu
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981); Hilary Putnam, "The •Corroboration’ of Theories .
£ Schlipp, O p. W . V . Quine, From a Logical Pbint of View (Cambridge: Harvard University
1953); Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, op. du and Morton White. Touun
in Philosophy, op. dt
233
ways of life— to which appeal is made in such justification cannot

and need not be themselves justified, and that a non-rational com-
mitment to them must hence be made.
A few examples may be given. The Wittgensteinian philosopher
of education, Professor Paul Hirst of Cambridge University, has
developed an account of rationality conforming to this first assump-
tion. For him any rational activity, “as such”, is characterised by
commitment to fundamental principles of justification which mark
the limits of rationality." These principles are ultimate in that they
themselves cannot be justified and hence cannot be assessed or
questioned. Rather, justification, and hence assessment, can be made
only by means of them. Hirst explains that such principles do not
need to be justified, since their justification “is written into them”.
In On Certainty, Wittgenstein himself states such a position:
Must 1 not begin to trust somewhere? . . . somewhere I must begin

with not-doubting: and that is not, so to speak, hasty but excusable:
it is part of judging. (150) . . . regarding (something) as absolutely
solid is part of our method of doubt and enquiry. (151) . . . Doubt
itself rests only on what is beyond doubt. (519) , . . The questions
that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propo-
sitions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which
those turn. . . . If 1 want the door to turn the hinges must stay
put. (841) . . . Whenever we test any thing we are already presup-
posing something that is not tested. (163) . . . At the foundation of
well-founded belief lies belief that is not founded. (253) . . . Giving
grounds . . . justifying the evidence, comes to an end— but the
end is not certain propositions’ striking us immediately as true, i.e..
it is not a kind of seeing on our part; it is our acting, which lies at
the bottom of the language-game. (204) . . . The language-game is
. . . not based on grounds. It is not reasonable (or unreasonable).
(559) . . . if the pupil cast doubt on the justification of inductive
arguments. . . the teacher would feel that this was only holding
them up, that this way the pupil would only get stuck and make
' Hirst gives different accounts of the alleged principles of rationality in different places A
"third" principle that turns up is that to be rational one must sun with clear and specific
objectives. No one would deny die general desirability of clear and specific objectives: and if one
does specify one's objectives as best one can, one may get a somewhat clearer idea of what is
happening in one’s life as one meets or fails to meet them. But it is "scientism" to identify
rationality with any such goal. Any such approach is dioroughly undermined by Hayek's
argument concerning complex orders, and the discovery that in objective knowledge it is
impossible for one ever to know what one is talking about. See Part I above; K. R . Poppet-
t'nmdfii Qutu. op. dL, sec. 7; and F. A. Hayek, Thr fatal Contnl. op. dt.. chapters 4 and 5.
234
no progress. —And he would be right. . . this pupil has not learned

to ask questions. He has not learned the game that we are trying
to teach him. (315)
Wittgenstein's statements are dear and, confirming our interpreta-

tion of them, his student Norman Malcolm has explained in his
essay on “The Groundlessness of Belief that Wittgenstein means
that justification occurs within a system, and that there can be no
rational justification of the framework itself. Rather, as Malcolm puts
it: “The framework propositions of the system are not put to the
test.” It is, he maintains, a conceptual requirement that inquiries stay
within boundaries.9 The implications of this claim for the “unity” of
the sciences are obvious, as are their relation to the Wittgensteinian
problematic.
Scientific and religious frameworks are simply alleged to be on a
par. In line with Wittgenstein’s own remarks about the justification
of induction, Malcolm states"’:
the attitude toward induction is belief in the sense of “religious"

belief—that is to say, an acceptance which is not conjecture or
surmise and for which there is no reason —it is a groundless
acceptance . . . . Religion is a form of life . . . . Science is another.
Neither stands in need of justification, the one no more than the
other.
Yet there is a difference between Wittgenstein and the gleeful fideist

who glories in the limitations of reason and calls for deliberate
commitment to the absurdity of one's choice. Malcolm reports that,
on the Wittgensteinian view, one does not decide to accept frame-
work propositions. Rather, “we are taught, or we absorb, the sys-
tems within which we raise doubts. . . . We grow into a framework.
We don’t question it. We accept it trustingly. But this acceptance is
not a consequence of reflection.” No doubt: but while one often
accepts positions without reflection, and indeed could hardly live
without doing so, experience may lead to reflection, which may in
turn lead one to modify or reject what one has absorbed.
* Norman Malcolm. "The Groundlessness of Beller, in Stuart C. Brown, cd.. Reason and
Religion (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977). pp. 143-157.
'• Ibid.
235
So much for these assumptions made by proponents of “limited

rationality”. Another assumption —which we have already seen at
work within the Wittgensteinian problematic—is that the task of the
philosopher, since it has been shown that any attempt to justify
standards (or frameworks or ways of life) must be in vain, is to
describe these. The task of the philosopher is the subject-neutral
description of all standards and frameworks—a description in terms
of which no particular set of them is given authority or precedence
or superiority over any other. We have examined above the re-
search program that is part of this second assumption.
Most contemporary philosophers assume that there are no options
other than the several sorts of comprehensive rationality and several
sorts of limited rationality just reviewed, and indeed consider no
other possibilities. On this point, those who are developing Popper's
position disagree utterly. I should like to indicate our own solu-
tion— pancriltcal rationality—in the next section. The solution to the
problem of induction, the consequent dissolution of the Wittgen-
steinian problematic, and the nonjustificational account of criticism
that I am about to present, work together to enable us to avoid the
related Wittgensteinian doctrines of the division of knowledge and
3. Pancritical Rationality
Our position differs from the theories of rationality just rehearsed

in that it provides a nonjustificational account of rationality. In this
account, rationality is unlimited with regard to criticism (although
there are various other limitations to rationality" which Popper, like
Hayek, stresses, in opposition to various forms of “scientism”).
Moreover, there are no intrinsic logical features that require the
division or fragmentation of knowledge.1*
11
See my list in The Retreat to Commitment, secund edition, op. dt.. "Introduction 1984". See
also Hayek's discussion in The Sensory Order, op. dt. of limits of prediction and explanation of
complex phenomena, and his review of limits of rationality in The Fatal Conceit, op. d t , chapters 4
and 5 .
” See E A. Hayek, The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason, op. d t . , and
The Fatal Conceit, op. dt,, as well as his other writings, some of which are dted in Part 1 above
Hayek is sometimes misunderstood on this point. Ihus I disagree with John Gray's study in The
Ijteralure of liberty. 1983. where he states (p. 32) that Hayek believes that in social theory " " r
come to a stop with the basic constitutive traditions of social life”, which “like Wittgenstein's forms
of life, cannot be the objects of further criticisms, since they are at the terminus of critidsm and
236
justification and rationality
Before stating the position briefly, 1 would like to note and

concede—lest we be sidetracked in textual exegesis— that there are,
in Popper’s early works (e.g., in his first book. Die beiden Grundprob-
leme der Erkenntnistheorie, in The Logic of Scientific Discovery,and also
in the first three editions of The Open Society and /Is Enemies) a few
fideistic remarks and passages. In The Open Society and Its Enemies
(chapter 24) this fideism appears in Popper’s “irrational faith in
reason”, as he calls it, when he urges us to "bind” ourselves to
reason. In The Logic of Scientific Discovery (chapter 5), a similar
fideistic “decisionism” emerges briefly in his discussion of the accep-
tance of basic statements, and in Die beiden Grundprobleme such a
fideism appears in his remarks about the selection of aims and
goals, and about "Kant’s idea of the primacy of practical reason’’.15
These early fideistic remarks are relatively unimportant; they play
no significant role in Popper’s early thought and none at all in his
later thought, but are superfluous remnants of justificationism, out
of line with the main thrust and intent of his methodology, empty
baggage carried over from the dominant tradition. When, in I960, I
proposed to contrast justificationist and nonjustificationist theories of
criticism as a generalisation of his distinction between verification
and falsification, Popper dropped this remaining fideism, and
adopted instead the approach that I am about to describe, thereby
considerably improving his position in consistency, clarity, and
generality. Our contrast between justificationist and nonjustificationist
accounts was introduced at that time. 14
The alternative approach, which Popper continues to call “critical
rationalism" and which I prefer to call “comprehensively critical" or
“pancritical" rationality, is then an attempt to overcome the problem
of the limits of rationality by generalising and correcting Popper’s
early approach.
lu’iifiiation: they are simply given to us and must he accepted by us”. A more accurate account of
raayek's views on such matters is given by Walter Weimer i n his “Hayek’s Approach to Complex
Phenomena: An Introduction to the Theoretical Psychology of The Sensory Order", in Walter B.
Reimer and David S. Palermo, cds„ Cogni/wn and ihe Symbolic Process, vol. 2 (Hillsdale: Lawrence
•ribaum, 1982). pp 241-285. especially pp 283-284. Weimer quotes Hayek's Nrw Sludui, <>p- ••
’• 298: “the liberal must claim the right critically to examine every single value or moral rule of
* society".
“ Dir hrulm Grundproblrmr drr Erkenntnisihronr . op. cit, p . 394.
” See my discussion in Thr Rrtrrai to Commitmrnt. 2nd edition, op. cit., and also Poppet s
“tuition in Rrahim and thr Amr of Scinur, op. dr. part I . section 2.
237
We begin by denying both assumptions of limited rationality

mentioned above: that is, we deny that justifications must be given
in order for actions or beliefs to be rational. And we do not turn to
description when justification proves impossible. Rather, all justifica-
tion whatever is abandoned.Criticism, not description, becomes the alternative
to justification.
While Wittgenstein is right to claim that principles and standards
of rationality (or, again, frameworks and ways of life) cannot be
justified rationally, this is a triviality rather than an indication of the
limits of rationality. Nothing at all can be justified rationally. There
is no such thing as "well-founded belief’ anywhere in a “system".
Not only do we not attempt to justify the standards; we do not attempt to
justify anything else in terms of the standards.
Rather, rationality is located in criticism. (Hence the name “pan-
critical rationality"—or comprehensively critical rationalism, as I
initially called it.) A rationalist becomes one who holds everything—in-
cluding standards, goals, criteria, authorities, decisions, and especially
any framework or way of life—open to criticism. He or she with-
holds nothing from examination and review. The rationalist, by
contrast to Malcolm, does wish to put the framework of his system
to the test. The framework is held rationally only to the extent that
it is subjected to and survives criticism. Thus the rationalist wishes
to enhance the role of “reflective acceptance” of frameworks, not to
forbid it. In connexion with the examination of frameworks, some
rationalists, such as Popper, have gone so far as to challenge the
existence of inductive reasoning, and neither believe in induction
nor regard it as immune from criticism. Anyone who reads the
selections from Wittgenstein quoted earlier will see that Popperian
rationalists definitely are. from his point of view, “bad pupils".
Some may object to our position that it is simply impossible—not
only practically impossible, but also logically so. They will insist that all
criticism is in terms of something which must be taken for granted as jus-
tified, and which is hence beyond criticism. They may add that it is a
mark of our being bad pupils that we do not understand this.
But we do understand it: we understand what the claim means
and know that Wittgensteinians (and many others) make it all the
time. We also understand something of the historical background ol
the claim. This claim is itself a “framework" or structural feature.
But we deny it. We deny that it is correct: we deny that it is logically
necessary to trust something—that there need be a “hinge”—that is
beyond doubt. The idea of the hinge is one of many bad metaphors
238
with which Wittgenstein seems to have mesmerised some philoso-

phers. Hinges come loose, as any architect should know. "Regarding
something as absolutely solid” is not part of our method of doubt
and enquiry. Nor do we suppose that something that is not tested
must be presupposed whenever a test is made.
The distinctive character of our position lies in its separation of
the question of justification from the question of criticism. Of course
all criticism is “in terms of something. But this “something” in
terms of which criticising is done need be neither justified, nor
taken for granted, nor beyond criticism. One example of such
nonjustificational criticism is Popper’s account of corroborability. To
test a particular theory, the sorts of events incompatible with it may
be determined, and then experimental arrangements may be set up
to attempt to produce such events. Suppose that the test goes
against the theory. What has happened? The theory has been
criticised in terms of the test: the theory is now problematical in
that it is false relative to the test reports. The test reports may at
the moment be unproblematical. In that event, the theory may be
provisionally and conjecturally rejected because it conflicts with
something that is unproblematical (or less problematical). Does this
establish or justify the rejection of the theory? Not at all. Test
reports are hypothetical, criticisable, and revisable—forever—just like
everything else. They may be reconsidered, and they may become
problematical: they are themselves open to criticism through tests of
their own consequences.
This process of testing and attempted falsification is of course
potentially infinite: one can criticise criticisms indefinitely. Rationality
is in this sense unlimited. But no infinite regress arises since there is
no question of proof or justification of anything at all. This ap-
proach may produce in one unused to it an uncomfortable feeling
of floating, of having no firm foundation. That would be appro-
priate: for it is floating; it is doing without a foundation. But this
approach does not produce paradox, nor is floating logically impossible,
however physically difficult it may be in some environments. Thus
the tu quoque argument is defeated: no commitment is necessary, all
commitments may be criticised.
In sum, we separate justification and criticism; whereas in Witt-

gensteinianism justification and criticism remain fused. The uncon-
scious fusion of justification and criticism that permeates Wittgen-
stein’s thought explains why Wittgensteinians do not have the option of
239
using criticism as an alternative to justification, and turn to description

of frameworks and standards when justification turns out to be
impossible. Criticism only appears as an alternative to justification
after the two notions are separated.
4. The Ecology of Rationality and the Unity of Knowledge
The new problem of rationality—of criticism and the growth of

knowledge—now becomes the problem of the ecology of rationality.'-'
Instead of positing authorities to guarantee and criticise actions and
opinions, the aim becomes to construct a philosophical program to
foster the growth of knowledge and to counteract intellectual error.
Within such a program, the traditional “How do you know?” ques-
tion does not arise. For we do not know. A different question
becomes paramount: “How can our lives and institutions be ar-
ranged so as to expose our positions, actions, beliefs, aims, conjec-
tures, decisions, standards, frameworks, ways of fife, policies, tradi-
tional practices, and such like, to optimum examination, in order to
counteract and eliminate as much error as possible?”1®
Thus a general program is demanded. The questions raised by
this approach have implications leading to the need for a vast pro-
gram to develop critical institutions and methods which will contrib-
ute to the creation of such an environment.
An ecological approach leads back to the question of the unity of
the sciences (as well as to the questions about educational institu-
tions with which this book began). There is a unity within all
knowledge, the sciences included, through a unity of method. This
unity is not one of reduction: chemistry and physics, say, cannot be
reduced to one another, let alone to observation, but they employ
the same methods. The same applies to other domains of knowl-
edge: thus more is claimed than the mere unity of the sciences.So
far as underlying methodology is concerned, there is a unity to all
11
Sec Radnitzky and Bartley, Evolutionary Epistrmology. Rationality and th/ Sociology of Knowl-
edge. op. de, chapters 1 and 18.
'• These questions are not merely rhetorical. Detailed partial answers to them are provided
by the “public choice" school of economics. Buchanan and Tullock are primarily concerned with
the reform of political institutions. An approach parallel to theirs needs to be developed for the
reform of educational institutions. See Part I above.
240
areas devoted to the advancement of knowledge, whether or not

they be called scientific.17
What is this underlying common method?
John Dewey was right to say, in his essay “On the Influence of
Darwin on Philosophy", that evolutionary thought had introduced a
mode of thinking that should transform die logic of knowledge.
Human knowledge grows by the method of variation and selection
found in living organisms. Furthermore, evolutionary adaptation in
organisms is also a knowledge process, a process in which informa-
tion about the environment is incorporated into the organism.
Human knowledge—like other processes for acquiring knowl-
edge —increases by conjecture (blind variation or untested new
theories) and refutation (selective retention). This process resembles
evolution, with variations of organic forms sometimes surviving,
sometimes disappearing.
Why then have twentieth-century philosophers, who have known
and often advocated evolutionary theory, not adopted a similar ap-
proach? Not for want of trying. The problem is that it is impossible,
within a justificationist approach, consistently to work out a truly
evolutionary epistemology. Whereas there is a clear counterpart in
biology to nonjustificational criticism, there is no counterpart to the
“justification" that plays so important a role in Wittgensteinian and
most professional philosophical thought. Indeed the concern for
justification is non-Darwinian, even pre-Darwinian and Lamarckian
in character.18 The question of the justification of opinion is as
irrelevant as a question about whether a particular mutation is
justified (or foresighted, or suitable in advance of natural selection,
in the Lamarckian sense). The issue, rather, is of the viability of the
mutation—or the proposed opinion. That question is resolved
through exposing the opinion to pressures, such as those of natural
selection—or attempted criticism and refutation. Mere survival for a
time is not enough to show either adaptation or truth: a species
that survives for thousands of years may eventually become extinct
just as a theory that survived for many generations may eventually
be refuted—as was Newton’s. A framework for thought—such as the
inductivist framework, or the justificationist framework— may even-
* ’ Within this basic unity, many important subdivisions or speciations of knowledge may of
course exist — as in Hayek's distinction between simple and complex phenomena On these
questions see my paper. The Division of Knowledge", op. cit.. and my discussion of Hirst in the
next section.
“ See Radnitrky and Bartley, Evolutionary Efnstrmology . op. cit., p . 25.
241
tually be refuted too. 19 All disciplines and forms of life can be seen
as evolutionary products which, as far as their intellectual viability is
concerned, are to be subjected to critical examination—an examina-
tion which includes the critical review of their fundamental princi-
ples. There are no longer any principles—or frameworks—that are
fundamental in the sense of being beyond criticism. There is no
method peculiar to philosophy or to science or to logic (see the
epigraph to chapter 9). The same general critical method, itself
subject to modification, is universal. Moreover, it is only now that
the question can arise as to what extent the methods of the sciences
are applicable to other areas.
♦***
In this chapter and the last I have argued that the Wittgen-
steinian problematic lies at the heart of the differences between
those who approach matters in a Popperian spirit and most of those
who are professional philosophers. I have argued that Wittgenstein,
like most professional philosophers and the entire philosophical
tradition, is thoroughly justificationist in his approach, abandoning
justification only vis d vis frameworks rather than systematically; and
that where he does abandon or retain justification, he does so for
thoroughly justificationist reasons.
The approach taken by professional philosophy is then so much
at odds with our approach that when one compares and contrasts
them one risks failing to get anywhere at all: failing to reach any
understanding of the underlying disagreements let alone any resolu-
tion thereof. In such a situation, it is relatively ineffectual to dispute
details. In such situations, a little preparatory work, a little context,
helps.
Thus the presentation that 1 have given—contextualising the
doctrine of the fragmentation of knowledge and revealing its struc-
ture—may prove more effective than haggling about details that
arise only within that structure. I have aimed to pull the rug from
under such philosophy.
“ The claim that there is a parallel between, on the one hand, natural selection in or 8‘*1' 9
evolution, and. on the other hand, trial and error learning, involves no naturalistic fallacy
claim is not that the growth of knowledge ought to follow an evolutionary pattern, best 1 '
processes that lead to increased fit—or correspondence —do happen to be parallel in n ' "’
respects. Whether anyone should aim for such "fit" is another question.
242
5. Some Specific Criticisms and Some Minute Philosophy:

Incantation and a priori Claims
Fool: The reason why the seven stars are no more than
seven is a pretty reason.
Lear: Because they are not eight?
Fool: Yes, indeed: thou wouldst make a good fool.
King Lear, V, i, 39-41.
In this section, however, now that the context of the dispute is in

place, I shall make a few more detailed objections to the positions
that arise from justificationism and the Wittgensteinian problematic.
First, these positions are usually a priori. This point ought to be
driven home to illustrate the bogus character of the claim that
Wittgensteinian and professional philosophy is “analytical" and
depends on careful study of individual concrete cases. Take as an
example the influential Wittgensteinian philosopher. Paul Hirst,
whom 1 have already mentioned, Professor of Philosophy of Educa-
tion at the University of Cambridge. Hirst’s work—which is an
application of the Wittgensteinian research program to education—is
in?uential not only amongst philosophers; he also appears to have
succeeded in introducing his account of the essential division of
knowledge into the basic school curriculum in England and Wales.
Professor Malcolm Skilbeck, Director of Studies at the British Coun-
cil, testifies: “an academic theory of liberal education underlies Her
Majesty’s Inspectorate’s view of the curriculum. I am referring to
Paul Hirst’s analysis of forms and fields of knowledge.”*0 Writing of
Hirst’s account of “the forms of knowledge" and of their bearing on
education, Richard Peters (for many years Professor of Philosophy at
the Institute of Education of the University of London) states that
"anyone working in the field has to take up some stand with regard
to them”.*'
I stand opposed. Not that the problem originates with Hirst: I
w
ant to expose the Wittgensteinian assumptions from which his
. ” See Skilbeck's Inaugural Lecture at the London Institute of Education. .< Can Curriadum
Common School (London: University of London Institute of Education. 1982). esp. p 19. See
Hvi Majesty’s Inspectorate. A View of the Curriculum (London: HMSO, 1980).
R. S. Peters, “General Editor's Note” to P. H. Hirst. Knowledge and the Curriculum. op. at-,
243
approach derives, and to illustrate the reach they now have into the
very heart of our cultural life.25
Hirst claims that all knowledge is divided into “seven or eight"
essentially different, “primary", “necessary”, “final”, “unique", and
“irreducible" categories or forms, each of which has a “distinctive
logical structure" stemming from the “logic”, "truth criteria”, “criter-
ia of validity", “criteria of meaning”, “manner of justification”, and
"central concepts” that are peculiar to it and distinguish it from all
the others. These categories are described alternately as “forms of
knowledge" and “forms of understanding" and are explicitly linked
with, and sometimes identified with, Wittgenstein’s language games.
These essentially separate, “logically delimited” domains seem to
be mathematics, the physical sciences, knowledge of persons, litera-
ture and die fine arts, morals, religion, and philosophy. I write
"seem" because Hirst makes differing listings in different places: for
instance, he once seemed to want to classify “historical knowledge"
as a separate form, but later thought it best “not to refer to history
or the social sciences in any statement of the forms of knowledge as
such". He also sometimes writes as if there is a more general
underlying distinction between the “human sciences" and the “phys-
ical sciences”. And he has vacillated over the question whether
religion constitutes a separate form of knowledge.
About one thing, however, he is unwavering: whatever the forms
may be, they are essentially different, “primary", “necessary", “final”,
"unique”, and “irreducible”. That is, his theory, like much profes-
sional philosophy, despite its pretence to analyse the concrete, is a
priori. Hirst got his ideas from reading Wittgenstein, not from any
investigation of the different areas of knowledge about which he
purports to write. He did not for instance gel it from investigation
of, or reflection on, the current state of die sciences.
One sees this a priori quality from a brief look at one of his
"separate and irreducible forms”— mathematics. The most casual
look at mathematics shows that one could, on Hirst’s own terms,
push the number of “forms of knowledge” very much higher than
In any case Hirst does not claim originality for his position, and acknowledges as precur-
sors. in addition to Wittgenstein, Michael Oakeshott's Experience and Its Modes, John MacMurrray *
Interpreting the Universe, R. G. Collingwood's Speculum Mentis (Oxford: Oxford University Pre**-
1956). and Louis Arnaud Reids Wiiyj of Knowledge and Experience. A position similar to Hirst s 1,1
some ways, and similarly inspired, was published by Stephen Toulmin in The Uses of
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1958) and Human Understanding (Princeton: Princeton
University Press. 1972).
244
seven or eight. For instance, few practising mathematicians would be

prepared to specify the central concepts or principles of mathematics.
Just restricting ourselves to geometry, consider the following familiar
table of the various geometries: 25
(4) Metrical (Euclidean) geometry

(3) /Wine geometry
(2) Projective geometry
(1) Topology.
The relation between the higher and lower geometries is complicat-

ed, but it is not one of reducibility, as it would have to be were
there a set of principles of mathematics. Metrical geometry, for
instance, is only partially reducible to projective geometry; better,
metrical geometry is an enrichment of projective geometry. The
enrichment is partly of concepts, but mainly of theorems: there are
concepts essentially present on higher levels which are lacking on,
and unobtainable from, lower levels. But Hirst stipulates that each
form of knowledge possesses concepts peculiar to it. Then why not
say that there are four “forms of knowledge" within geometry
alone— not to mention the rest of mathematics? The same tactic
could be taken in other areas of mathematics and also in the natur-
al sciences, wherein chemistry is not reducible to physics but is an
enrichment of it—and biology in turn an enrichment of chemistry.25
There are other ways to break down whatever initial plausibility
Hirst’s division may have.25 Even factual and moral statements, for
” See K . R. Popper and John C. Eccles, The Stif and Its Brain, op. cit., pp, 20-21; and Peter
B- Mcdawar. "A Geometric Model of Reduction and Emergence", in F. Ayala and T. Dobzhansky.
cds.t Studies tn the Philosophy of Biology (London: Macmillan. 1974), pp 67-73.
* 1 suppose that Hirst might try to evade part of this objection by claiming that the concepts
of natural science, however they may differ i n character, are all rmpinral. But this would be
positivist nonsense, as can be seen from Popper's reductio demonstration of how, on positivist
terms, even "God" can be rendered an "empirical concept". See K , R. Popper. CewyectHrcs and
Refutations, op. du chapter 11, pp. 274-277. See also Popper’s discussion in The Open Universe, op.
Gt, Addenda 2 and 3, on reduction, esp. pp. 166-167.
” 1 wish simply to list, without comment or explanation, some of the more detailed points on
w
hich 1 disagree with Hirst: a) he wrongly restricts knowledge to true statements, thus revealing
•‘gain that he holds to the epistemology of "justified true belieF, and has failed to absorb (or even
to notice) die biological and epistemological arguments that objective knowledge includes false as
W
®11as true statements; b) whereas he wants to distinguish forms of knowledge according to truth
criteria, there are no truth criteria of any interest; c) whereas his division of die forms of
*towledgr proceeds according to criteria of meaning, meaning analysis is irrelevant to most
P*o enil> philosophy —and the idea dial such analysis is relevant is based on a false analogy
tween the propositions of philosophy and the logical paradoxes, and d) his “principles o
rat
>onality, which he regards as beyond assessment, are incoherendy stated and, so far as they can
245
instance, can be shown to be logically interrelated (without commit-

ting the “naturalistic fallacy”) as I have argued elsewhere.26 Thus
Hirst’s “forms" have little real basis, but result from an a priori
imposition of Wittgensteinian ideas on existing, crude, disciplinary
distinctions.
A priori character is not the only remarkable feature of such
positions. Another is mystification and ritual affirmations and denials.
This mystification takes several different but typical forms that use
rather similar . . . let us call them “argumentations", for they are
not arguments.
One such argumentation, mentioned briefly earlier, is that if one
is to pursue knowledge rationally, one must be committed to the
ultimate standards of rationality and justification. These, Hirst says,
cannot be justified and hence cannot be assessed or questioned, but they
also do not need to be justified, or are, in some higher sense,
justified after all. As Hirst puts it: the fact that they cannot be
justified does not mean that they are “without justification" for “they
have their justification written into them". In effect, he implies that
these standards act as judge in their own cause. “Nor”, he insists,
“is any form of viciously circular justification involved by assuming
in the procedure what is being looked for. The situation is that we
have here reached the ultimate point where the question of jus-
tification ceases to be significantly applicable.”
What Hirst contends is not an argument; it is simply a series of
claims, simply words. It seems as if many analytic philosophers go
into a kind of trance and repeat such phrases as a kind of magic
formula when they reach any question of the assessment of prin-
ciples. Hirst does not show how his procedure avoids circularity or
infinite regress; he just denies that it does. He begs the question
and denies that he does so. He says that his principles are “sell
authenticating”, that they “have their justification written into them",
but he would condemn a similar move made by another. How does
he know that we have indeed here “reached the ultimate point
where the question of justification ceases to be significandy applica-
ble”? If he does not know, if his claim is a conjecture, how might it
be tested? He might reply by saying that the "apparent" circularity
is due to “the inter-relation between the concepts of rational jus-
be understood, false
1,
” Ser chapter 17 below; my Morality and Rriigion, op. cit„ and my The Retreat to Commit ■
op. dL, Appendix 2,
246
tification and the pursuit of knowledge". But by arranging matters

so, i.e.» by defining his concepts in terms of one another, he avoids
considering the possibility that knowledge might be pursued nonjus-
tificationally yet rationally. Not to mention that he has “solved" his
problem by definition.
Another example of the same incanting is to be found in Sir

Alfred Ayer’s The Problem of Knowledge, in which Ayer states explicitly
that his standards “act as judge in their own cause” (p. 75). He also
concedes that it is impossible to give a proof “that what we regard
as rational procedure really is so; that our conception of what
constitutes good evidence is right” (p. 74). Yet simply to discard the
demand that the standards of rationality be justified hardly suffices.
Ayer must proceed to show how his approach, as a theory of
rationality, can afford to dispense with the requirement that stan-
dards be justified. He does nothing of the sort. Why on his account
do our standards of rationality not need rational justification? His
answer is that any such standard
could be irrational only if there were a standard of rationality

which it failed to meet; whereas in fact it goes to set the standard:
arguments are judged to be rational or irrational by reference to it.
. . . When it is understood that there logically could be no court of
superior jurisdiction, it hardly seems troubling that inductive
reasoning should be left, as it were, to act as judge in its own cause
(p. 75). . . . Since there can be no proof that what we take to be
good evidence really is so, . . . it is not sensible to demand one (p.
81).
When it is “understood” . . . Wittgenstein’s word again. But

whether there could, logically, be any “court of superior jurisdic-
tion” is the issue and cannot be conceded or “understood" in ad-
vance. Such a position, even if assumed to be coherent, must fail as
a theory of rationality. The nub of the fideist attack on comprehen-
sive rationality, as we saw earlier, was not simply that it is impossi-
ble, but that since it is impossible, choice amongst competing ulti-
mate positions is arbitrary. A theory of rationality that begins by
admitting the unjustifiability of standards of rationality must go on
to show that irrationalism can be escaped without comprehensive
rationality. In failing to do so, Ayer's discussion begs the question
ar
>d is itself a variety of fideism—and hence no answer to it (con-
trary to his intention).
247
Matters are even worse. Consider Ayer's argument more closely.

He contends that our standards of rationality enjoy an immunity
from the demand for justification since it would be impossible to
judge them to be irrational. Why? They set the standards on which any
such judgement of their own irrationality would have to be based. An
argument such as this could not be valid unless some particular
standards and procedures of rationality, such as Ayer’s own (which,
like Wittgenstein's, include “scientific induction"), are assumed to be
correct. If some particular standards of rationality are correct, then
there can exist no other rational standards which are also correct
yet could nevertheless invalidate the former as irrational. This “if’
marks a crucial assumption: this is precisely what is at issue. Criticisms
of proposed standards of rationality have always questioned whether
they were correct. Alternative conceptions of scientific method, such
as Popper's, which deny the existence of inductive procedure, let
alone its legitimacy, do claim that there are standards of rationality
which positions such as Ayer’s, Wittgenstein's and Hirst's fail to
meet.
Many other examples of such incantation, as opposed to argu-
ment, about circularity could be given,17 but the point has been
made.
I have been able to find in Hirst (and not in Ayer) one addition-
al, only partly overlapping, argumentation on behalf of the necessity
of a sort of circularity or begging of the question. Hirst argues:
To ask for die justification of any form of activity is significant only

if one is in fact committed already to seeking rational knowledge.
To ask for a justification of the pursuit of rational knowledge itself
therefore presupposes some form of commitment to what one is
seeking to justify.”
This is a misapplied and garbled rendering of a very old argument

that has an element of truth to it but is for the most part specious.
The old argument is that one cannot persuade a man to be moral
n
Sec my discussion of Hilary Putnam in The Retreat to Commitment. op. de, second editin’1 '
PP 102-105. and in chapter 10, section 8 above.
■ Hirst, op. de, p. 210.
248
unless he is already moral, or persuade a man to be logical with

logical arguments unless he already accepts logic, and so on.29
Such arguments are clumsy and in themselves invalid applications
of the more general point that one cannot argue a man into a
position, including the position of listening to argument, unless he
has accepted that argument counts. That is, if both morality and
immorality are arguable positions, then one can argue a man into
either position only if he accepts that argument counts—i.e., if he is
prepared to accept the results of argument.
I briefly mentioned a version of this argument earlier, in my
discussion of the third objection to comprehensive rationality. I'he
argument, when put correctly, is valid. Nonetheless it seems to me
to be a rather weak argument, one to be avoided if possible. For it
remains verbal, and is more concerned with die source of a decision
to adopt a particular position than with the more important ques-
tion whether that decision or position is open to examination. Thus
when one is concerned with the question as to whether a decision is
criticisable, it hardly matters whether that decision was originally
made as a result of logical discussion, or whether the individual in
question just stumbled into it, or whether he or she decided by
tossing yarrow stalks, or by some other arbitrary method.
In fact, even if the rationalist position had originally been adopt-
ed as a result of an irrational arbitrary decision, it is possible that
the person who made the choice would, by living in accordance
with critical traditions and precepts, gradually become very rational,
very open to criticism, as an unintended consequence of this origi-
nal choice.“
My own view is that important choices in life, such as philo-
sophical viewpoints, ethical standards, even the decision to try to
argue logically, are often, indeed usually, not the result of argument
or logical reflection, any more than scientific theories are the result
of sense observation. Theories are put forward and choices are
" For an example of this sort of reasoning see Aristotle, Nuhamarhean Ethia, book I . section
*'■ and book X, section i x ; F. H . Bradley, "Why Should 1 Be Moral?", in Elhwal Studio. Essay I I .
second edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927); H . A. Prichard, "Does Moral Philosophy
on a Mistake?", in Mmd. N.S. vol 2 1 , 1912. and in Moral OHtgalum (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1949). See m y discussion of these arguments in my “Rationality, Criticism, and
opc", op. ciL. footnote 37.
“In this connection sec my discussion of unintended consequences in my “Fin schwieriger
■ crisch: Fine Portritskizze von Sir Karl Popper", in Eckhard Nordhofen, e d . PhtlMophm do 20
J rhuiuirrt. tn Portrait. (Kdnigstein/Taunus: AthenAum Verlag, 1980), as well as m y Alienation
cnaicd", in Radnitzky and Bartley, eds.. Evolutionary Epulmology, op. cit.
249
made. The question is whether or not they are open to criticism,

not whether they were made as a result of logical reasoning. If the
former, then they are held rationally, even if they were not original-
ly made rationally, as, for instance, the result or conclusion of a
logical argument.
To return this argument to Hirst: he sees none of these nuances,
and he misses the point entirely. Remember, he maintains that to ask for
a justification of any activity is significant only if one is in fact
committed already to seeking rational knowledge. He also claims
that to question the pursuit of rational knowledge is self-defeating
since it depends on the very principles whose use is being called
into question. Both contentions are false: as we have seen, fideists
who have nothing but contempt for reason have repeatedly de-
manded from rationalists justifications of the principles of rationality
precisely and only to taunt these rationalists with the observation that
they cannot do so—and thus cannot live up to their own standards.
Far from defeating themselves, these irrationalists very effectively
undermine their opponents, for the argument may be used by an
irrationalist in order to defeat a rationalist on his own terms. This
ploy, which I call the tu quoque argument, has always been the most
effective argument in the armory of irrationalism. That is, fideists
use rational argument, including this one, in order to frustrate
rational argument; they use it not because they are committed to it,
but because their opponents are committed to it. They attempt to
turn the paradoxes of justification against would-be rationalists, and
thus to evoke in them a sceptical crisis—a arise pyrrhonienne.
In sum, while I concede the validity of the argument that one

cannot argue a man into a position, including the position of
listening to argument, unless he has accepted that argument counts.
Hirst's invalid argument is that one cannot ask for the justification of
rational activity unless one is already committed to it.”
The purpose of the minute philosophy of this section has been to
show that not only the background context, and not only the
justificationism, of professional analytic philosophers is at fault
There are other serious faults too, defects in the detailed working
" For a related argument about presuppositions of logic in logical argument, see my
Rrtreal to Commilmml, op. dL, Appendix 5 , as well as my "Rationality, Criticism, and Logic”, op
at, sections 17-19.
250
out of the program of professional analytical philosophy. And nei-

ther program nor practice is very “analytical".’2
6. Scientism and the Buddha
Although Popper rejects the scientific imperialism—the old “unity

of science” program —of the positivists, he nonetheless, in contrast to
Wittgenstein and the bulk of the philosophical profession, also
rejects the fragmentation and division of knowledge, and holds to a
basic unity of method underlying further growth of knowledge
(whether in biological adaptation or in science). As a consequence he
is sometimes accused of “scientism"—despite his long association
with the thinker who coined that word, F. A. von Hayek, and their
expressions of mutual agreement in rejecting just such scientism.
” There is within biological thinking a line of speculation somewhat reminiscent o f Hirst’s

forms of knowledge. I am thinking of the ideas of biological archetypes and internal selection
associated with L L. Whyte. W. H . Thorpe. Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Arthur Koestler, Helen
Spurway, and A. Lima de Faria. Some of this is related to D’Arcy Thompson’s great work On
Gnmth and Form (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1942).
The idea of internal selection refers to the "coordinative conditions'* (Whyte's term) of
biological organisation, conditions under which life may evolve at all. These conditions restrict the
range of possible mutations on the basis neither of the facts of the external ecological niche nor
of the internal dispositional state but rather on prc«compeutive internal genetic grounds. This
kind of selection is intended to be non-Darwinian, and supplements Darwinian theory by adding
a separate source of selection. On this account, mutations reaching the external test have
previously been sifted internally. These organisational restrictions in effect define unitary laws
underlying evolutionary variety. While the number of variations possible is unlimited, they are
restricted to a limited number of themes, thus confining evolution to particular avenues not
defined or determined by external factors. Thus there is not only selection at the phenotypic level
hut pre-selection at the molecular and chromosomal levels. (It is essential to the argument that
this pre-selection is not random or even blind in Campbell's sense.) Some discussions developed
along these lines are interesting, even though most biologists seem to believe that the limited
evidence for this kind of evolution can as easily be interpreted in a Darwinian way. I n any case,
there is no evidence to suggest that Hirst or other Wittgensteinians even know about this line of
thinking, let alone that they would want to tie their own program to it.
I f one takes an evolutionary and non-justificationa! approach, something somewhat resembling
forms of knowledge may remain, but no longer have most of the fundamental properties that
Hirst attributes to them. What remains would be akin to varieties, not forms. Within such an
approach. the fundamental speciation or demarcation that occurs within the structure of objective
Knowledge is with regard to the sorts of selectors or critickers appropriate to different kinds of
«Hims; moreover, all these presuppose a common organon of criticism. In disagreement with W.
Quine, 1 believe that such an organon is presupposed in any self-correcting, self-revising
*y»tem. Any further speciation that might simulate Hint’s forms of knowledge must be subordi-
nate to this complex underlying —and unifying —structure. (For a development o f this argument
*** my The Retreat to Commitment , op. dt.. Appendix 5.)
251
Such an accusation has come from the Wittgensteinian philoso-

pher H. L. Finch.” Finch argues that Popperian philosophy is
scientistically oriented, that it forgets that the progress and future
growth of science is only one amongst many values, and that it is
particularly oblivious to the precious insight of the great oriental
religious masters that stresses the value of living fully in the present
moment. Wittgenstein, so Finch believes, was different: he was fully
aware of this wisdom, and acted and developed his thought in
accordance with it.
This is all simply untrue. It is nonsense: not in the positivist
sense of being “meaningless", but in being simply cock-eyed. Let us
leave aside the question whether someone as clearly disturbed
(should I say “unhinged”?) as Wittgenstein could possibly have been
"living in the present moment" in the oriental sense, and consider
whether his philosophical approach, as opposed to his practice, was
like this. I too am interested in the many programs for the
transformation of consciousness which are deeply steeped in the
various oriental disciplines and religions, and particularly in Bud-
dhism and in Zen.” In The Retreat to Commitment I identified three
“metacontexts" in which the search for knowledge and understand-
ing takes place. One of these is the justificationist metacontext of
true belief shared by Wittgenstein and most of traditional and
contemporary professional philosophy (and which invariably leads
either to fideism or to scepticism); another is what I call the “orien-
tal metacontext of detachment”, rooted in Buddhism and in yoga; a
third is the nonjustificational fallibilistic metacontext. In that book
and elsewhere I indicated my rejection of the first, my deep sympa-
thy but partial disagreement with the second, and my general agree-
ment with the third.
It never occurred to me, in reporting and advocating elsewhere
the Buddhist and Zen emphasis on living in the here and now, that
1 was in any way deviating from good Popperian practice. On the
contrary. Although some aspects of oriental thought are antithetic to
a Popperian approach and may indeed be more in the spirit of
Wittgenstein, this is not one of them. Rather, the whole point ol
” H . L. Finch. "Wittgenstein and Pnpper". in Thr Srardi for Absolute t'alurs and thr Crration "/
lhe- New World: Proceedings of the I Oth International Conference an the Unity of the Sciences, op. cit.. PP
1173.1190.
M
See my U'rnier Erhard: The Transformation of a Man (New York: Clarkson N. Potter,
my ZJw Prtrrat to Commitment. op. cit., Appendix I; and my “Rationality, Criticism, and Logic . 111
Philasophta, vol. I L February 1982, pp. 121-221, especially section IV.
252
living in the here and now is to attain detachment, which of course

includes detachment from our beliefs and theories,an eminently Popperian
goal. Beliefs and theories held in an attached or committed way fix
one in the past and in the future, and thus lure one away from the
"here and now”.
Perhaps 1 may quote the Buddha—not as a precursor of Popper,
lest that appear irreverent, but as one with whom he shared an
important insight. The Buddha says:
It is proper that you have doubt, that you have perplexity . . . .

Now, . . . do not be led by reports, or tradition, or hearsay. Be not
led by the authority of religious texts, . . . nor by seeming impossi-
bilities, nor by the idea: “this is our teacher.” 55
Referring to his own view, the Buddha states:
Even this view, which is so pure and so clear, if you cling to it, if
you fondle it, if you treasure it, if you are attached to it, then you
do not understand that our teaching is similar to a raft, which is
for crossing over, and not for keeping hold of.”
This is plainly in the spirit of fallibilism, and goes very much against
what Wittgenstein teaches—even in its use of metaphor. For to quote
Wittgenstein:
If the place I want to get to could only be reached by a ladder, 1

would give up trying to get there . . . . Anything 1 might reach by
climbing a ladder does not interest me.”
Buddhists, like Popperians, realise that one needs rafts and ladders
(we call them conjectures) to get anywhere—including that evanes-
cent space known as living in the present moment. It is not the use
of ladders and rafts that keeps one from living in the present
moment; rather, it is attachment and dogmatic commitment to those
rafts—for example, the belief that one has the right raft or the best
ladder. It is this attachment—whether deliberate or uncon-
scious—which keeps one stuck in the past and fixated on the future,
and to that extent unable to grow.
” Angullara nikaya. ed. DevamitU Thera (Colombo. 1929). p 115.

„ Man hma m>una. ed. V. Trenckncr (London: Pali Text Society, I960- 1964). p 160.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, CuJturr and Value (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1980). p. 7e.
253
Like the Buddhist, Popper gives no importance to right belief,

and searches for a pervasive condition of non-attachment to models
and representations generally. For one must, on his view, detach
from and objectify one’s theories in order to improve them. The
very asking of the Popperian question—“Under what conditions
would this theory be false?”—invites a psychological exercise in
detachment and objectification, a kind of intellectual yoga, leading
one to step outside the point of view shaped by that theory.51*
Hence it is not surprising that Popper, the enthusiastic proponent
of “The Open Society", lays such importance on freedom of thought
and on toleration. Here too he is aligned with the Buddha. Indeed,
the freedom of thought and the tolerance allowed in Buddhism,
from the example of the Buddha himself to that of the Emperor
Asoka, to the present time, is quite astonishing and is particularly so
to one soaked, as are Wittgenstein and many of his followers, in the
blood-drenched dogmatism of the Christian tradition.59
Wittgenstein did pick up bits and pieces of oriental
thought—Tagore, for instance—but in the end he speaks firmly
from within the justificationist tradition, the tradition that empha-
sises not detachment but commitment to beliefs and indeed the
necessity of commitment to them. Thus in On Certainty, as we saw
above, Wittgenstein wrote:
Must I not begin to trust somewhere? . . . somewhere I must begin

with not-doubting . . . regarding (something) as absolutely solid is
part of our method of doubt and enquiry. . . . Doesn't testing come
to an end?
Or as Norman Malcolm explains Wittgenstein’s position: “The

framework propositions of the system are not put to the test.”
Unlike Popper and the Buddha, Wittgenstein and Malcolm say
nothing of the critical examination of frameworks, and clearly believe
such examination to be impossible. They assume that what cannot
be justified also cannot be criticised. This so-called “conceptual
requirement" is self-serving and acts to reinforce their dogma,
buttressing established frameworks—such as inductivism and justifi-
cationism —and insulating them from criticism. It rules out in advance
the very idea that the problem of induction could be solved or that
* See FA* /o CommifmzrU. op. dL» Appendix I.

,B
See Walpola Rahuta, What the Ruddha Taught (New York: Grove Press, 1974), p. 2.
254
criticism could be preserved where justification is impossible. Those

who are stuck, by whatever “necessity”, conceptual or otherwise, in
their own frameworks, will never live in the present moment.
Rather, they will live in their frameworks, in their ways of life.
255
Chapter 16
T H E POPPERIAN HARVEST
When I reflect on what has gone before in the light of the theme
of transformation, I have to conclude that there is nothing trans-
formative in Wittgenstein's philosophy. It is a playing out of the
structural assumptions of justificationist philosophy, and these
structural assumptions prevent all the main problems of philosophy
from being solved. With Popper’s philosophy the situation seems to
me to be quite different. Not only does Popper solve fundamental
problems, he effects a structural transformation. To suggest what I
have in mind and to bring this part of my discussion to a close, 1
shall state without elaboration the main achievements of the Popper-
ian work and perspective, and thereby remind the reader one final
time of themes that recur throughout this book.
(1) Popper solved the problem of induction, in all its classic
manifestations?
(2) His solution to the problem of induction proved to be ex-
emplary, in the first sense that Kuhn gives to the term “paradigmat-
ic”.1 Exactly comparable approaches, using the same strategies and
ideas, could immediately be applied to all the main problems of
epistemology and methodology: the is/ought problem;’ the problem
of other minds, of the external world, of the uniformity of nature,
of the existence of the past, of the existence of matter, of the
existence of physical space, and of time independent of perception.
This is no arbitrary listing of epistemological problems. These are
the problems treated by Bertrand Russell in his classic work The
Problems of Philosophy (1912), and by A. J . Ayer in his The Problem of
Knowledge (1956) and The Central Questions of Philosophy (1973). They
are Hume’s epistemological problems?
Popper has rendered obsolete classical epistemology—and also
many other areas of traditional philosophy. .Ml classical epistemology
can be shown to depend on a mistaken fusion of justification and
criticism.
1
See The Logic of Scientific Discovery. op. dt., for extended treatments by Popper of the
Problem of induction in its various aspects; see also his Conjectures and Refutations, op. dt.. Objective
Knowledge, op. dt., chapter 1. and Realism and the d m of Science, op. dt., chapter I, esp. sees. 4-7.
also David Miller, "Conjectural Knowledge: Popper’s Solution to die Problem of Induction".
,n
Paul Levinson, e d . In Pursuit of Truth, op. cit., pp. 17-49, for a detailed reply to Popper’s
pities.
’ Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2d ed., op. dt.. "Postscript— 1969 .
PP I75ff.
See my Morality and Religion, op. dt.. chapter I.
’ See my “Logical Strength and Demarcation", Appendix 2 of The Retreat Io Commitment, op.
(3) In place of classical epistemology, Popper introduced a new

evolutionary epistemology,at once descriptive and normative (or meth-
odological). This epistemology is embedded in a metaphysical outlook
rooted in biology, in physics, and in a characteristic morality oriented
to the advancement of human self-knowledge and knowledge of the
universe. This approach delineates the metaphysical, philosophical,
and scientific presuppositions of the open society. This approach
also argues that these presuppositions in fact obtain in our uni-
verse—the open universe in which something comes from nothing? This
aspect of the Popperian perspective is paradigmatic in Kuhn's
second main sense: it identifies a constellation of views and values: a
viewpoint about one's self-nature and the nature of consciousness,
about the nature of society and of the universe.
(5) Popper’s solution to the problem of induction proved to be
exemplary not only for epistemology, but also for a variety of other
subject matters. Thus we saw that Gombrich applied it to the theory
of learning and to the history of art; Campbell applied it to biolog)
and evolutionary theory; and Watkins applied it to ethics. Tyrrell
Burgess and H. J . Perkinson have applied it to educational theo-
ry—which is appropriate in that educational theory is one of the
chief sources of Karl Popper’s own perspective. Other examples of
such application have been given throughout.
(6) Although exemplary and paradigm-shifting from the start,
Popper’s approach originally contained no explanation of its own
power, no identification of the source of its originality. I provided
such an explanation and identification in The Retreat to Commitment,
and thereby generalised the approach, in the course of my own
resolution of the problems of rationality. The source of the power
of the Popperian approach lies in its implicit fission, division, unfus-
ing of justification and criticism.6 Involved here is not merely a
paradigm shift in either of Kuhn’s main senses, but something
farther reaching which I call a “metacontextual shift.”
(7) A need for an extensive revision of the history of science was
immediately created —a problem-oriented program conforming t 0
principles of evolution and economics rather than to the principles,
presuppositions, and style of inductivism.
’ See Popper, The Open Universe, op. at

* See my The Retreat to Commitment, op. d t . ; “Rationality versus the Theory of Rationality . ‘'I,
di.; and "Rationality. Critidsm. anti Logic”. op. dt. On metacontext see The Retreat to Commit”''’1
Appendix I , and "Rationality, Critidsm, and Logic", sec. 4.
258
THE POPPERIAN HARVEST
(8) A need for rewriting and restructuring the history of philoso-

phy was created. When seen anew from the perspective of a separa-
tion between justification and criticism, the chief crises and turning
points of the history of philosophy undeqjo metamorphosis.
259
Chapter 17
ON MAKING A DIFFERENCE:
T H E DIFFICULT MAN AGAIN 1
It was from Popper that I first learned of Alpbach, and I remem-

ber vividly that winter afternoon in early 1961 when Lady Popper
brought out an album of photos to show me what Alpbach looked
like. Later, in August of that year, I came to Alpbach in the compa-
ny of the Poppers. It was a wonderful time—perhaps the most
stimulating three-week period in my life. I fell in love with Alpbach
then; and ever since, whenever 1 have thought of Alpbach I have
also thought of Popper and of his many Alpbach friends—many too
many to name, and many of w'hom, I am delighted to see, are
present this evening. All these people, through their connexion with
Popper and with Alpbach, have contributed greatly to my life and
work.
Some years ago I was asked to contribute a portrait of Popper to
a German book on the great philosophers of the twentieth century.
1 entitled my essay “Ein schwieriger Mensch”—a difficult man? 1
should like to return to this line of thought now—although in a
rather different form. The title of my talk today is “On Making a
Difference". It is about how to make a difference to the world in
which we live, and about how to put “critical rationalism" into
practice personally by being more “difficult” people. For my dear
friend Karl Popper’s birthday celebration 1 shall not ask, with
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: "How do I love thee? Let me count the
ways." Rather, I shall ask: “How do I find thee difficult? Let me
count the ways." And you know, it may amount to the same thing.
First, a word about how I do not find Popper difficult.

I could hardly refer to the theme of the difficult man in Austria
without mentioning two other difficult Viennese: Ludwig Wittgen-
stein and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Throughout his work, culminat-
ing in his comedy “Der Schwierige” (1921), Hofmannsthal insisted
that talk —not just obvious chatter, Gerede, but serious talk about
This chapter was originally given as a lecture at the celebration of Popper’s 80th birthday
« P ach European forum. Alpbach. Tirol. Austria, on 26 August 1982. In it. retaining the
die original talk. I return to the theme of the “difficult man” with which this Part of the
opened.
* See my "Ein schwieriger Mensch" in Eckhard Nordhofen, ed.: Physiognomm: Phtlosoffhrn drs
i ‘ rn PortraUS, op. dL. pp. 43*69. Another part of this essay, also in a revised form,
Included in the “Afterword" to the revised and expanded second edition of my K'urgensldn. op.
morality, about politics, about literature and aesthetics—was deeply

defective. It was not just inadequate to its task, but was disgusting
and indecent. Thus Count Hans Karl Buhl, the hero of Hofmanns-
thal’s play, bitterly rejects an invitation to address the Austrian
House of Lords, exclaiming: "It is impossible to open one’s mouth
without causing the most ineradicable confusion." Ludwig Witt-
genstein took a somewhat similar but more radical line, stating in
that succinct and unforgettable closing line of his Tractatus-. “Wovon
man nicht sprechen kann, dariiber muB man schweigen”—whereof
one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.’
Although all of us have had enough troubles with language —and
with propaganda and the inflated verbosity of oracular philoso-
phy—to feel a pull of sympathy towards such sentiments, we also
must resist this pull, for such a practice, however fastidiously and
discreetly it may be carried out, puls one above the battle of life. It is,
as it were, to say: “Why bother to talk? It never makes any differ-
ence. / know better of course. But other people are too foolish to
listen to me.”
I do not want to judge this altitude—and certainly do not wish to
censure Wittgenstein or Hofmannsthal here. Yet the attitude does
have certain consequences that should be noticed. To the extent
that one takes this attitude, to the extent that one abandons
communication, to that extent one does not engage, one does not
participate. And one’s affinity for other persons is also damaged.
Willy nilly, one becomes an dlitist—whatever one’s social class,
whatever one’s beliefs. The Wittgenstein literature is hence full of
anecdotes—they are supposed to be amusing, even sources of
inspiration, although I find them sad—stories of how Wittgenstein
often refused to engage in conversation with other people, many of
whom he dismissed as philistines, and even regarded as foes, stories
about how he would evince his superiority by putting down, humili-
ating, other—eager — persons who wished to talk with him.
Such an attitude of superiority is also almost inevitably accom-
panied by an unrealistic, naive, and often seriously distorted view of
the world, and of action within it. Thus, at the height of the Rus-
sian purges in the 1930s, Wittgenstein sought permission to immi-
grate to Russia. His friend, the British economist John Maynard
Keynes, reported then that Wittgenstein “has strong sympathies with
• Tractatiis Logico- Phikaophicus , op. at., pp. 150-151.
262
ON MAKING A DIFFERENCE: THE DIFFICULT MAN AGAIN
the way of life which he believes the new regime in Russia stands
for". 4 And on the very evening before the Anschlufl, Wittgenstein
I dismissed the report that Hitler was poised to annex Austria as “a
[ ridiculous rumour"? But enough of this sort of difficult man. I do
not recommend this sort of difficult man.
Karl Popper is also a difficult man, and his difficultness also
| stems in part from his view of language. But he is a very different
sort of difficult man from Count Buhl or from Wittgenstein. Popper
f speaks out—and does so whether one likes it or not; he engages in
the battle; he is a passionate partisan in the fight for freedom; and
he is as much a realist in his politics as he is in his metaphysics.
Quoting Schopenhauer’s famous remark about Hegel, Popper
I demands, “If we are silent, who will speak?", and thus reminds us of
our responsibilities.
******
I want to approach my theme in two steps. First, I want to say a
I brief word about Popper’s own attitude towards language. And then
I want to connect this attitude to the difficult dialogue in which he
engages us, and to the philosophical reasons for it.
First, as to language, Popper would not for a moment deny
Buhl's remark that “It is impossible to open one’s mouth without
I causing the most ineradicable confusion”. That, Popper would say, is
one of the unintended consequences of using language at all.
Indeed, Popper spends a section of his autobiography, Unended
Quest, arguing that, literally, none of us ever knows what we are
talking about (see my development of this theme later in this
chapter and also, especially, in part 1 above). But Popper also finds,
in this welter of confusion and in the unintended consequences of
language and of ideas, the seeds of and the explanation of our
creativity and the justification of our claims to freedom and respon-
sibility.
Perhaps I should return one last time to the theme of unfathom-
able knowledge, and state again briefly why we never know what we
ate talking about. There are many reasons, but one of the most
important is this: when we affirm a theory, we at the same time
propose its logical implications. (Otherwise we should not have to
‘ Ludwig Wittgenstein. Lettm to RuistU, Krynn and Moon (Oxford: Blackwell. 1974). p. I SB.
w * M. O’C. Drury, "Conversations with Wittgenstein”, in Rush Rhees. ed„ Ludwig WiUgmdnn
nona! Recollections (Totowa: Rowman & Littlefield, 1981), p. 153.
263
retract it when these are contradicted by experience or observation.)

That is, we affirm all those statements that follow from it—as well as
those implications that stem from combining it with other theories
that we also propose or assume. But this means that the informative
content of any theory includes nontrivial statements which cannot be
known in advance. As a direct consequence, it transpires that the
content of an idea is far from identical with some particular per-
son’s thoughts about it. At the time a theory is proposed it will be
applicable to an infinite number of situations, some of which it will
not be possible to imagine in terms of the information then avail-
able. In short, even the inventor of a theory cannot possibly fully
have understood it—as many historical examples attest.
This means that we cannot afford to set ourselves above the
debate. For we need one another. We need one another to help
objectify and to probe our ideas, and thereby to find out better
what we are saying. Especially, we need to be able both to give and
to receive criticism and correction—not in order to dominate or
humiliate one another, but in order to learn better what we our-
selves and others are saying, and thereby to approach the truth. In
this context, the more that all the participants lose, the more we all
win. Here there is no winning and losing in the sense of domin-
ating one another. Here there is only a win for humanity in the
advance of understanding. Such critical conversation, conducted in
the service of the truth, is moreover a token of our respect for.
even our love for, one another, grounded in our mutual recognition
of the fallibility which is the human condition.
This also means that it is self-defeating to be overly fastidious in
choosing one’s partners for discussion. Popper’s faith in rational
argument is so passionate that he will discuss with people even, and
especially, when it seems irrational to do so. He will continue to
discuss despite the fact that the other person is indeed often a bore
or a philistine, or at least someone whom he does not like.
Indeed, conversation is often a waste of time, creates rather than
dispels confusion, leads to loss of temper and to people becoming
deeply offended. We must go through, suffer through, all this in
order to put reason into action: we must not merely believe <n
reason and in criticism (in my experience I have found that every-
body believes in criticism and that virtually nobody wants to recet' 1
it), one must put it into practice—and do so with people who'1
views and styles are different from, and hence more of a challeng1
to, our own. For if we do not allow others to make a difference 11 ,
264
ON MAKING A DIFFERENCE: T H E DIFFICULT MAN AGAIN
us, to make an impact on us, we create a world in which people do

not make a difference to one another and we ourselves make no
difference either. These are the true roots of what is sometimes
fashionably called alienation.6
We have already arrived at my second step: a discussion of how
Popper himself engages in dialogue with others. By thinking of him
as a “difficult man” in this regard, 1 refer not only to his method of
teaching but also to his basic way of being in the world. To come
into contact with him—at his office, in his home, or in a place such
as Alpbach—is immediately to be swept into an intense conversation
and to be recruited as a collaborator in the search for truth. But this
collaboration involves certain demands. Such conversation is no
mere pastime. It is a battle on the frontiers of human understand-
ing and values. Popper’s “difficult" practice is hardly more than an
honest recognition of the difficulties inherent in living and learning,
whereas customary conversational conventions, including the genteel
rituals of the university, are in fact often not genteel but vicious, in
that they tend to cut one off from others, to diminish the sense of
community, and to turn those who do not agree into foes. Discus-
sion, conversation, argument, are often ways to dominate and
impress others. And although these too are “things that one can do
with words”, Popper will have no truck with such practices.
Popper’s deep respect for other persons has therefore demanded
an intrusiveness: he will always try to dislodge his conversational
partners from any habits or tricks that preserve their ability to
impress and dominate, and to maintain the pretence of knowledge
they do not possess.
I have given earlier (in chapter 9) some brief recollections of my
own first meetings with Popper in London, as a student twenty-
three years in age. These may convey just a flavour of his approach
to those who do not know him personally. I told how he stated to
me
plainly his opinion of some of the essays of which 1 was proud-
est: namely, that I was more interested in the effect 1 was pro-
ducing than in reaching towards the truth. And I told of the stu-
dent who could not bear to accept any criticism from Popper and
had to leave his seminar. Let me recall Popper’s explanation of his
Procedure. There is nothing, he told me, easier than to nod sagely
at
a student—as so many professors do—and tell him that what he
chapters 2 and 3 above. Sec also Radnitzky and Bartley, Evolutionary Epistemology, op
* and W. W. Bartley, 111. Man and Alienation: A Refutation. op. ciL
265
LNFATHOMED KNOWLEDGE
wrote or said was "interesting". But that is not teaching, and does
not involve learning. That is, again, only the genteel ritual of
academe which gives no immediate personal offence. (Of course it may
offend against truth, and may later anger those students who
awaken and discover that they have been cheated or fobbed off.)
Another unintended consequence of talk—of clear talk—is indeed
that people may be offended by what you say. Of course this poses
no hazard for those who are silent or for those who are obscuran-
tists. Although such people cannot offend because they do not com-
municate and cannot be understood, they may nonetheless succeed
in impressing and in dominating. For their listeners may not wish to
risk offending them or to risk appearing ignorant or to risk revealing
that they do not understand. The inflated language and jargon that
is endemic in our universities is not there by accident. It is there
precisely to shore up pretentiousness by hiding ignorance. If it were
not for our fear of giving offence and our fear of appearing igno-
rant, there would be no such thing as oracular obscurantist philoso-
phy.
Thus in his interactions with his students and with his readers
Popper challenges the pretence of expertise and of knowledge and
the fear of appearing ignorant and of giving offence. This pretence
and these fears are the calling cards of many students and profes-
sors, yet Popper has calculated, and his philosophy explains, the
high cost of this pretence and these fears. For example, the experi-
ence of study and the joy of learning are destroyed—as is also the
character of the student. The search for truth is aborted; personal
relationships are diluted; personal energy is diminished. Popper’s
reminders of these high costs—reminders that we often do not want
to hear—are what make him seem so difficult, so “unreasonable” in
his reasonableness.
One of those who seems to have understood Popper’s assessment
of the costliness of avoiding correction and criticism—and also the
wider social and political ramifications of that—is Helmut Schmidt,
the former Chancellor of West Germany. In an article about Pop-
per, Schmidt writes:
Those who claim to possess ultimate truth find that the world falls
into two camps —friends and enemies . . . . In a world of deep-
reaching interdependence, this means that one has to win in order
not to go under. But since in reality, only one who accepts im-
provement can ever improve others, every seeming victory in the
fnend/joe schema only brings about one’s own undoing . . . such black-
266
ON MAKING A DIFFERENCE: T H E DIFFICULT MAN AGAIN
and-white, utopian thinking does not make peace more secure, but
to the contrary increases disorder, and thereby makes war more
likely.’
Perhaps now it is clearer why my talk is called “On Making a

Difference"—a difference which all of us can make to our world
through being more difficult in o u r conversation with one another
and in being open to criticism. 1 am afraid, however, that I may
have disappointed some of you. You may quite rightly have ex-
pected me to talk here about Popper’s social and political philoso-
phy, his epistemology, philosophy of physics or biology, or his work
in the foundations of logic. Instead I have talked about what could
be called his account of, or at least his practice of, personal relation-
ships. 1 do not suppose that many have done this before, and yet
this lies, I believe, at the heart of the man and his philosophy, his
critical rationalism.
1
Helmut Schmidt, “Foreword: The Way of Freedom", in Paul Levinson, ed.. /n Punuit of
op. de, p. xii.
267
3
Chapter 18
O N IMRE LAKATOS1
I knew Imre Lakatos intimately between the autumn of 1958 and

the summer of 1965. During this period we met almost every day
and corresponded on those days we did not meet. In the summer
of 1965 we had an extraordinary and widely discussed quarrel, after
which there was no further communication between us. Since the
implications of this quarrel shattered me and altered permanently
my attitude to my fellow professionals in philosophy, Lakatos must
count amongst those who have influenced my life most deeply.
There was a time, both before and after our quarrel, when I
regarded Lakatos as the most immoral man I had ever met. I later
came to think this judgement naive. Lakatos merely talked openly
and appreciatively—with a certain connoisseurship—of the sort of
behaviour which is widespread yet, at least at that time, almost
universally covert. I can now appreciate the merits of his practice:
although I often heard Lakatos lie when it suited his purposes, he
was never a hypocrite. He was remarkably without se/f-deception
and quite without cant. In this regard he was morally superior to
me and to some of our friends and colleagues at the London School
of Economics. 1 remember vividly the scolding he gave me in the
autumn of 1964: “Beel, you moralise too much. It doesn't get you
anywhere. I used to do that in Hungary, and 1 ended up in pris-
on.”
Although Lakatos was of course a highly talented thinker who
contributed many ideas, his chief importance both in Hungary and
in England was as an educator. His fascination with research pro-
grams in the history of science reflected his interest in the strategies
whereby a good idea might come to power. In this connexion he
explained to me in 1961—against my considerable scepticism and
resistance—that Popper was quite wrong to say that words do not
matter. Quite the contrary, Lakatos insisted, ideas are of secondary
importance compared to the names one gives to them: if you give
your ideas good names, they will be accepted —and you will be
named the father. It was a double-edged strategy, he explained,
which brought one fame without demand, and at the same time
idvanced the ideas one favoured. Thus this second Adam explained
md defended his term “monster-barring”.
1
Originally published in R. S. Cohen ct al., eds.. Euayt m Mmon of Im Isikalm. op. cit.. PP
7-38.
It is then appropriate that Lakatos should have acquired his chief

fame during the final decade of his life for his “scientific research
programs”. This was an idea which he took over from the accounts
by Popper, Agassi, and Watkins of “metaphysical research pro-
grams”, an idea that they had already extensively developed. Laka-
tos had the good sense to see that the word “metaphysics” pres-
ented an insuperable public-relations obstacle to the professional
philosophers of scientific bent who lacked his own sense of humour.
So he calmly changed the word “metaphysical" to the word “scientif-
ic" and won great acclaim amongst both scientists and philosophers.
What Popper meant of course is that words shouldn’t matter. But
Lakatos knew better than to moralise.
270
Part IV
FORGOTTEN PAST, UNKNOWN FUTURE
We are none of us defined by membership in a single community or

form of moral life. We are “suckled on the milk of many nurses", as
Fulke Greville put it, heirs of many distinct, sometimes conflicting,
intellectual and moral traditions. Further, the traditions to which we are
heirs are not windowless monads, self-sufficient and fully individuated
entities which (like pebbles) may coexist without interacting. They are
rather prisms, each of which refracts the light cast by the other tradi-
tions which environ it, and which together throw into each of us a
shifting pattern of colours. The complexity and contradictions of our
cultural inheritance give to our identities an aspect of plurality and even
of multiplicity which is not accidental, but . . . essential to them. For us,
at any rate, the power to conceive of ourselves in different ways, to har-
bour dissonant projects and perspectives, to inform our thoughts and
lives with divergent categories and concepts, is integral to our identity as
reflective beings. . . .
In the subtle mosaic of traditions which is modern society, government is

ill-fitted to act as guardian or protector of any of the traditions it shel-
ters. It cannot claim to express any undergirding moral community in
the society, since no such community exists. In this circumstance, the
task of the state is to keep in good repair what Oakeshott calls civil
association —that structure of law in which, having no purpose in com-
mon, practitioners of different traditions may co-exist in peace. Modern
states are peculiarly apt to be distracted from this vital task by the reflex
of governmental hyperactivism which they all exhibit. Every problem or
evil, from drug abuse to family breakdown, is perceived as a dire threat
to an established order which it is the duty of government to protect.
Against this modern prejudice, I would cite Wittgenstein's lovely remark
that trying by deliberate contrivance to shore u p an ailing tradition is
like trying to repair a broken spider’s web with bare hands.
Chapter 19
FORGOTTEN PAST, UNKNOWN FUTURE:
AMERICA AND T H E WORLD COMMUNITY'
Human society is not composed of nations in the same clearcut way

in which it is composed of individuals, or, for that matter, of
sovereign states. The spectrum of nationalities is full of interpreta-
tions. ambiguities, twilight zones. It follows that the conception of
nationalism (as a universal principle), the conception of a “just" or
“natural" order of nation states is—in fact and in theory—pure
utopia. There can be neither an order of states nor of frontiers in
which there does not enter to a large extent the factor of arbitrari-
ness, contingency and historical accident.
Aurel Kolnai2
All Europe seemed, within a few years of the halcyon year 1929, to
have turned into one anarchic feudal state. As in the chaos which
succeeded the barbarian conquest of the Western Roman Empire a
millennium earlier, small peoples “commended” themselves for
safety to greater; the destruction of a common canon law and order
resulted in arbitrary rule and justice; and the worst features of die
Dark Ages became familiar happenings—assassinations, beheadings,
serfdom, the Ghetto, banditry, piracy, expropriation without process
of law. Indeed, the Dark Ages seemed almost bright by comparison.
Graham Hutton’
The Time Before Ou.r World Became Divided
Our popular historians have taught us how to name the cen-

ries: the mediaeval “Age of Faith” was followed by the Renaissance
d the "Age of the Reformation" and then by the 17th-century
je of Reason". This in turn was succeeded by the 18th-century
?e of Enlightenment". For the 19th century, we have the "Age of
lology”, and for the 20th century a hundred different epithets,
one could blame us if we were to select “The Age of Division"
“The Divided Century" to name our own time. Or at least we
This chapter is a revised version of the Plenary Keynote Address, delivered at the .Annual
|n
g of the Southwestern Social Science Association, Little Rock. Arkansas. March 30, 1989.
ponsored by the Vera and Walter Morris Foundation.
Aurel Kolnai, “Les ambiguity nalionales". in La Nmntilr Releve. Montreal. 1946147. pp 533-
644-655. Published in translation as “The Politics of National Diversity". The Salisbury Kevin'.
. no. 3. April 1987, pp. 33-37.
I939)iam HUUOn
' Danulnan
* Survey After Munuh (London: George G. Harrap & Co-
would not be blamed if we explained that we were speaking meta-

phorically, and did not really believe in metaphysical entities called
"ages" that set and measured the pace of time in neat segments of a
hundred years.
Let us try the metaphor. At the end of the nineteenth century
the world was one in a sense now vanished. People could wander
throughout the world without passports or identity cards, and could
settle, and create lives for themselves, almost anywhere they
pleased.4 .Although there were outrages and crimes, and thus dan-
gers in this travel—there are always outrages and crimes, and dan-
gers in travel—the influence of the Roman and the Common Law,
and of the Napoleonic Code, extended throughout much of the
world. It must also be admitted that the numbers of persons in-
volved, and the volume of information and goods exchanged, were
small by our standards. This achievement nonetheless remains
extraordinary, and was due to the development and globe-spanning
domain of the Empires, with their common European legal heritage,
and to the commercial, trading, and military ventures that preceded
and reinforced them.5 The British navy, for example, had nearly
eliminated piracy; America had opened the doors of Japan; and the
threat of retaliation from imperial forces made citizens of all coun-
tries relatively safe wherever they might wander.
Although there were pockets of resistance to this civilising law,
and minor despotisms, usually in relatively inaccessible locations, the
law itself recognised no boundaries or limits. This law continued,
after the Great War, to claim universal respect. When British
passports were finally introduced, they proclaimed in large script on
their initial pages:
Her Britannic Majesty doth command and require all those whom
it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or
hindrance and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection
as may be necessary.
This universalism was shared in France, and in the Austro-Hun-

garian Empire. It was also shared by that virtual adjunct to the
British Empire, the Empire established by “Britain’s oldest ally".
' See John Maynard Keynes, The Economu Consequences of the Peace (New York: Harcourt.
Brace, Howe, 1920).
* See for example Lord Macaulay's essay on Lord Clive in the former's Historical Essays (New
York: Macmillan. 1926).
274
Portugal. We too shared this universalism, as our Declaration of

Independence, our Constitution, and also the Statue of Liberty
proclaim. So did the Germans. The Hinneberg encyclopaedia, which
recorded the cultural achievements of the nineteenth century and
forecast those of the twentieth, named its first volume Die allgemeinen
Grundlagen der Kultur der Gegenwart, that is, “The General Founda-
tions of Contemporary Culture”: the general foundations. We find
here not a comparative approach to a world culturally divided, but
an attempt to specify universal foundations. In December 1913,
Hinneberg’s encyclopaedia was the Christmas present coveted by F.
A. von Hayek.
Although he did not get his wish, Hayek has spent much of his
life describing how these general foundations come into being and
what effect they have. As he has written in The Fatal Conceit:
That the human race eventually was able to occupy most of the
earth as densely as it has done, enabling it to maintain large
numbers even in regions where hardly any necessities of life can be
produced locally, is the result of mankind's having learnt, like a
single colossal body stretching itself, to extend to the remotest
corners and pluck from each area different ingredients needed to
nourish the whole. . . . To an observer from space, this covering of
the earth’s surface, with the increasingly changing appearance that
it wrought, might seem like an organic growth. But it was no such
thing: it was accomplished by individuals following not instinctual
demands but traditional customs and rules. 6
Hayek explains how the following of moral standards and legal

rules of procedure governing property and commerce brings about,
spontaneously, and then binds together, the extended, open, order
of human cooperation. The analysis of the resulting civilisation—a
civilisation that reached its peak in the Whig liberalism of the late
nineteenth century—lies at the core of Hayek’s work.7
One must not of course exaggerate or romanticise the universal
spirit, the liberality, the agreement about basic legal and procedural
rules, or the tolerance of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. The greatness of the European cultures, and of the tradi-
tions and families that dominated them, was rather uncritically
assumed. Racism was everywhere. Many of the world’s migrants and
" F. A. Hayek. The fatal Conceit, op. dt., p. 43.

’ The fatal Conceit, op. dt.. p. 6.
275
UNFA! HOMED KNOWLEDGE
immigrants were treated intolerantly, and even when they were not,
a certain smugness prevailed, as well as that subtler form of in-
tolerance that confines itself politely to patronising those who do not
meet its standards—which may go so far as to shun or “cut” those
who do not conform, but at least does not stab them. “The frogs
(or the “wogs”) begin at Calais”, as the English continue to say even
today: but Englishmen continued to trade with them, travelled safely
in their countries, and were governed by similar laws and traditions.
In one of those Victorian anecdotes that reveal volumes, we learn
from the nephew and biographer of Lewis Carroll (the author of
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass) that his uncle had
been an unusually broad-minded man—as demonstrated by his
having had a Methodist for a friend.8 At a far extreme from this
rather limited broadmindedness, anarchism and terrorism also now
began to appear, and the threat of socialism loomed larger.
Yet if western culture was nonetheless still celebrated and its
superiority assumed, it did not dominate in the sense of excluding
or despising other great cultures. The European powers, and we
ourselves, came to take pride in having assimilated the achievements
of many cultures that had been in many ways our equals and
sometimes our superiors. In the museums and university depart-
ments that were being built up throughout Europe and North
America, larger budgets and grander exhibition halls were often
provided for the study of the cultures and artifacts of Egypt and
the Middle East, of India, South-East Asia, China and Japan than
were initially devoted to the cultures of Greece and Rome, ol
I ra nee and Spain, or of the Germanies, including Britain and
Scandinavia. Lord Macaulay, who had served in India, ranked its
culture as far greater than that of Spain. Max Muller, Oswald Siren.
Arthur Waley, rarely patronised or scorned the foreign cultures that
they investigated, and whose literary treasures and art they collect-
ed. There was only one major exception to this: the African cultures
south of the Sahara." Only two higher cultures were truly destroyed
’ Stuart Dodgson Collingwood. The life and Letters of Lnris Carroll (London: T. Fisher Unwin.
1898).
* See Lewis H. Gann. IWiUr Settlers tn Tropical Africa (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1962); Lewis
H. Gann and Peter Duignan. Burden of Empire: .tn Appraisal of Writem Colonialism m Afnea South of
the Sahara (London: F. A Praeger, 1967); Peter Duignan and Lewis 11 Gann, Africa: the Land &
the People (San Francisco: Chandler. 1972); Lewis H . Gann and Peter Duignan. eds.. African
Proconsuls (New York: The Free Press, 1978). p 15; Lewis H. Gann and Peter Duignan. Africa
South of the Sahara: The Challenge to Western Security (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1981).
Africa between East and West (Cape Town: Tafelberg. 1983); Peter Duignan and L. H Gann. The
276
FORGOTTEN PAST, UNKNOWN FU1URE
by the conquering and colonising expeditions of the West, the

ancient and fairly primitive empires of the Aztec and the Inca. The
larger part of this destruction was accomplished quite early in the
days of exploration—as by Cortez with his eleven ships, fourteen
guns, and 400 brigands and adventurers freshly arrived in the new
world from European wars, or by Pizarro with his even smaller
crew—before these outlying posts had been brought into
communication with, and restraint by, the civilised centres of the
West. Shameful episodes also occurred later, such as the Opium
War with China'" and, later, the burning of the Summer Palace
outside Beijing. But even these, in all their brutality, were, in
historical perspective, minor episodes, hardly characteristic of th<
West in its relationship to the East. They were also much less
malign than what was, within a few years, to become the way in
which parts of the West were to deal with one another.
2. The Division
There are many who would disagree with these reflections on the
time before our world became divided. Edward W. Said’s Orientalism
is only one example of a different and perhaps now more common
point of view." Let us turn however to the Division, for while there
may be some doubt about the Unity that preceded it, there can
hardly be any doubt of the existence of the Division that has domi-
nated our divided century.
Only a little over forty-three years ago Winston Churchill de-
clared that “An iron curtain has descended” across the European
continent. The expression was not new: Dr. Goebbels had used it in
February 1945, and in 1920 Ethel Snowden had used the expression
in her book Through Bolshevik Russia to describe the Soviet Union
and its sphere of influence.12 The earlier date is important, foi it is
'• Arthur Waley. Thr Ofnum Hhr through Chmru Eya (Sunford: Sunford Un.vcr.ity
979
'■ Edward W. Said, Onentafoar (New York: Vintage Book. . 1 >’ h "„ d ‘.mp’ "
leglects to consider Islamic law. Said, who is Parr Professor o K [hc pLO.
vc
■iterature at Columbia University, happen, to be a member of t e g" '
be Palestine Liberation Council. See Oavid Gress. "Talking "lerronsm at Stanford . o p . ,
“ Ethel Snowden. Through Bolshevik Russia (London: Cassell and (ximpa y.
277
in 1914, with the outbreak of the First World War, that our world
began to divide.
Before reflecting on this divided world, I must make two ac-
knowledgements. Inspiring my reflections here are two sources: first,
the ideas of Hayek, as presented for example in The Fatal Conceit.
My talk does not expound or analyse Hayek's ideas, it uses them. I
also want to acknowledge the vast historical, theoretical, and eco-
nomic knowledge of Stephen Kresge.” I am borrowing approaches
and ideas that stem from Hayek’s books and from Kresge’s intro-
ductions to them, and I hope that this may entice readers to study
these books, and to profit from them as I have done.
The Great War, which was to break apart our century and to
bankrupt many of the people living in it, has little to do with the
assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. It was unleashed
deliberately by the Germans, having been planned by them in detail
already late in 1912.14 Its chief root was widespread belief (not only
on the part of the Germans) in an intellectual mistake. It was
started on the assumption that wars can be profitable. In fact, very few
wars, if any, have ever been profitable; almost all have been ruinous
to all parties. But there was one war—the Franco-German
war—which, in 1870, had won Alsace-Lorraine for Germany, and
also required France to pay massive reparations: five billion francs
“ Kresge is editor of volumes 5 and 6 of Hayek’s Collected Hfcrts. namely: Money and Nations.
and Nations and Gold. „
'• See John A Moses, The Politos of Illusion. The Fischer Contonterty m German
mcA drr Weltmarht. Di, KnegsurlpolUsk drr kaiserlichen Deutschlands 191 /1918 (DOsseldorf.
1961); Fritz Fischer. Krieg drr Illusion™. Ito Deutsche PolUik von 1911 bis 1914 (Dusseldorf. .
1969); Fritz Fischer. Wort) Pou-er or Declme—The Controversy over Germany s Aims m l h e first
War (New York: Norton, 1974); Immanuel Geiss. "Weltherrschaft durch Hegemonic ~l
deutsche Polilik im 1. Wellkrieg nach den Riezler lagebUchcm". dus Pnhtik und Zeitgeschuhie , ■
December 9. 1972. pp. 3-22; Kurt Riezler. Tagebtoher. Aufsdtu. Dokumrnte. ed.. with mtroc
by Karl Dietrich Erdmann (Gflttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967); K°nra J ’ voln
"Die AUdeutschen und die Regierung Bethmann Hollweg-Eine l>" «hnft Kurt Riezlers
Herbst 1916”, Virrteljahnheftc fiir Xeiigeschschtr. vol. 21. 1973. pp. 435-46 , J. ■ ■ •
Admiral von Muller and the Approach of the War. 1911, 1914 , Historical Journo . vo . - .
pp. 659-662. Admiral von MOller recorded in his diary on 8 December 1912: rhe Kaiser p
the conference by envisaging the exact sequence of events of July 1914: Austria wou
Serbia, Russia would intervene o n Serbia's behalf, and Germany would n terse ar * al
Russia, France and Great Britain." The Chancellor. Bethmann Holweg. who was not pre
the War Council, insisted that Britain could be kept neutral. However, nett er <us<-
Chancellor were informed of modifications in the Schlieffen plan in 1913 prosi mg or a s
attack on Lidge, in Belgium, on the outbreak of war—the step that brought Britain into a
The Archduke s murder in 1914 provided, so General von Moltke stated, an unusually I.
able opportunity to strike which ought to be exploited".
278
FORGOTTEN PAST. UNKNOWN FUTURE
within four years. This war was also brief, lasting a mere six weeks;
and it had the extra edge, appreciated on both sides, of humiliating
France. Moreover, it was immediately followed by the formation of
the German Empire, with the crowning of Kaiser Wilhelm I in the
great hall at Versailles in 1871. To be sure, the war was widely
perceived as having been far more profitable than in fact it was— if
indeed it was profitable at all. John Maynard Keynes later argued
that the indemnity actually damaged both France and Germany and
led to the world economic recession of the 1870s.[S Had those who
held power in 1914 paid closer attention to the American Civil War,
or, say, to the Boer War, they might have been more sceptical
about the profitability of war. But the lessons of these wars were
neglected, the profitability, if any, of the Franco-German war was
exaggerated, and the attention of the world—and especially of
Germany and France—was fixated on the Franco-German War as, in
effect, a model war—one that might be repeated.
The Great War took place, and virtually everyone who took part
came out the worse for it. The German Empire, which had seemed
by the spring of 1918 to have accomplished most of its goals for the
war, and therefore, in its own eyes, to have won it, was tricked into
an Armistice by the Allies'4; lhe Austro-Hungarian and the Russian
Empires collapsed; the Soviet Empire was created; and the ruinous
treaties of Versailles and Saint-Germain made a second world war
almost inevitable. The world was divided.
5. Curtains of Iron, Economic Barriers
The Iron Curtain for which Stalin is usually blamed, and which
is commonly thought to have crashed into place only after the
second world war, was a much more direct outcome of the first
world war. Although Russia was involved from the start, this wall or
curtain was not, initially, the handiwork of Russia. Few persons
recall how the curtain that still divides Europe really came into
place.
“ See Thr Collrclrd Wnlmgi of John Maynard Knn/i. vol. XVI. Activiius 1914-1919 (London:
Macmillan and Company for the Royal Economic Society, 1971), pp. 313-34.
w
See Paul Johnson. 4 Hislon of the Modem World (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 1983),
chapter L
279
L’NFATHOMED KNOWLEDGE
Some of its foundations were laid in the 1920s, and it was vir-
tually completed by the 1930s, chiefly through the ingenuity of a
German economist, the brilliant president of the Reichsbank who
put a stop to German inflation in 1923 and became Economics
Minister during the first four years of Hitler's regime (but was
dismissed and then eventually imprisoned by the Nazis on a charge
of high treason)?’ I have in mind Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht
(1877-1970)?“ It was Schacht who invented the modem world economically,
and who put into place the sorts of controls and restrictions that still divide
east and west.
During the first world war there had been few exchange con-
trols. As John Maynard Keynes had put it, reflecting on the tasks of
paying for the war, “Complete control was so much against the
spirit of the age that 1 doubt if it ever occurred to any of us that it
was possible."19 During the first world war, money and credit could
be freely exchanged between, for example, Austria and Switzerland.
Those Germans and Austrians who had cash resources—as opposed
to those who had their assets tied up, say, in bonds and
trusts—were, if they acted promptly, able to avoid ruin in the
Austrian and German inflations.
Schacht’s problem, beginning in the early 'twenties and extend-
ing into the late 'thirties, was how to finance internal development
within Germany whilst maintaining a given foreign exchange rate.
This was no easy problem to solve, for France had, in shaping the
Treaty of Versailles, imposed two incompatible aims on Germany: to
pay, and thus to be able to pay, massive reparations to France; and
yet to be so hobbled that it could never again become rich or
powerful, and thus dangerous to France.
Schacht’s first achievement was to gain for the Reichsbank almost
complete control over the German economy, and thereby to bring
11
Thr Economit, M a r c h 25, 1933. p. 6S0. For background information, sec Heinr Habcdank
Dir Rrichsbanh >n det Wrtinam Rrpublik Zur Rolli drr Zmtralbank m drr Pohtdt drs druUthm Imprrvdu
mtu 1 9 1 9 . 1 9 3 3 (East B e r l i n : Akademie-Verlag. 1 9 8 1 ) ; Harold James, The Rnehsbank and Pubhi
Finance m Orwwjny 1924-1933: A Study of the Politics of Economics during the Great Depression
(Frankfurt a . M.: Fritt Knapp Verlag. 1985).
” Sec .Norbert M (Ihlen, Drr 'Aaubertr. l eben und Anleihen des Dr. Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht
(Zorich: Europa Verlag, 1938); Amos E. Simpson. Hjalmar Schacht tn Perspective (The Hague:
Mouton, 1969); Hjalmar Schacht. 76 jahre memes l bens, translated as My First Seventy- Six Years. Thr
Autobiography of Hjalmar Schacht (London: Allan Wingate. 1 9 5 5 ) ; Kleine Bekenntmsse aus 80 Jahrrn
4 6 Handschnfl fiir Freunde gedrucki anldflhch memes achizigsten Geburtstages (Munich, 1 1 January
1957). See also The Economist, August 1 1 . 1 9 3 4 . pp. 264’265.
'* J o h n Maynard Keynes, 1939-1945: Internal Hhr Finance, vol. X X I ! of The Collected
IWuiwgs of John Maynard Keynes (London: Macmillan and Cambridge University Press, 1978), p . 10.
280
German inflation to an end. Foreign credit, in particular, was strictly

controlled by the Reichsbank, thereby stemming the flow of marks
abroad.
When Schacht became Economics Minister under Hitler—suc-
ceeding, among others, the socialist and “Austro-Marxist” Rudolf
Hilferding*0—he extended his pattern of operations throughout
Eastern Europe.! l The United States had confiscated Soviet assets,
refused to accept Russian gold out of respect for Tsarist claims, and
later had imposed a protectionism which led to the Depression
These actions gave Schacht the opportunity, as well as an urgent
need for, an ingenious solution to the problem created, and perpet-
uated into the 'thirties, by the incompatible aims pursued by France.
Having earlier accepted a loan of British gold, Schacht also accepted
Russian gold, in blocked accounts, to underpin the mark and to pay
for German exports to Russia.
I n this way Schacht arranged for payments from abroad, and for
exports abroad —i.e„ for the flow of money into Germany and for
exports out of Germany. H e also imposed strict controls on the
Germans themselves. Individual German citizens could no longer
borrow from abroad, and thus could not obligate payment in marks
abroad; even if they already had debts abroad, they could not pay
them, or interest on them, in foreign currency13 ; they were forced
to report all property owned abroad; they could not exchange
money freely*’; and individuals, as well as German firms, were
forced, in a variety of ways, to save internally. In the case of Jews,
their property was simply sequestered. Thus Schacht cut Germans
off from the world, but did not cut off the world from Germany
Money could flow in, but not flow out; goods could flow out, but
could not flow in except when they were commodities, such as wool.
the cd
namely ' X' “ "or of volume 2 of Hayek'. CaUrrW
Us a. -
1967). aeton Watson. Ea f um p, i 9l8 . l94l (New Vork . Harper
9 ,9M 365 41
671. * ' ’ P ' *«*«“« 26- P >• October 7. 1933, P
December 2 1933 „ W till I!. 8 ' Nove ' nber «• l 9 ” - P WM. November 18. 1933. p. W
6 9M ,l76
” nirtrUnV i ' ' * ' P ‘ 23. 1933. p. 1231
of May 17 iq«« ’ J n< i ,2.' ,1 9 3 S ' P' , 3 0 S ’ and September 16. 1933. p 534, See also the
9 ,9 S55
December , 6 . 1933,
1933 p. 11163,
I M VJune'“i 6, 1936. pp.' 550-551.
' ' “ 28. 1936. pp.7 '411-411
”‘ PNovember d l953
' ” "M
281
deemed desirable by the state?4 This “iron curtain” was not quite
rigid: it screened chiefly in one direction. In this manner, which I
have only outlined, Schacht created the virtually “complete control"
that, fifteen years earlier, Keynes had seen as unthinkable.24
Schacht’s arrangements with Russia formed a model that could be
implemented elsewhere. He rushed into the ruins of the Austro-
Hungarian Empire to take advantage of the disaster created by bank
failure and depression, and there created a blueprint for economic
relations that the Soviet Union would take over, virtually intact,
almost immediately following the second world war.
For long after the first world war, most of the successor states of
the Habsburg Empire could trade and communicate with one
another only with difficulty. Lines of communication and trade
throughout this massive midland of Europe had for centuries moved
through Vienna, the Empire's centre of trade, finance, and industry,
either by rail or down the Danube. These lines were now cut by
frontiers, tariffs, and customs barriers, aimed to reduce mutual
dependence to a minimum,26 and by the representatives of nation-
alistic hatreds and resentments who stood guard along the borders.27
Moving rapidly through these territories, Hjalmar Schacht created
a series of bilateral trade and transport treaties with the successor
states. The trading centre for Eastern Europe was thus moved from
Vienna to Berlin. This was one reason why Bohemia, Moravia and
the Sudetenland became so important to Hitler, for tolerably good
M
The free import of cereals was forbidden for 1933-1934. See Thr Economist, July 22, 1933.
pp. 179-180. As to tourism. German citizens were permitted pleasure trips to Austria only on
payment of a 1,000-marlt tax See Thr Economist, August 12, 1933, p. 323; Thr Economist.
September 15, 1934, pp, 488-489; September 22, 1934. pp. 535-536.
“ See "Exports by Default". Thr Economist, December 2. 1933, p. 1057.
" See Graham Hutton, op. dt.. p. 24. Sec also Thr Economist. March 25. 1933. p. 640.
" Many of the successor states engaged in wars with one another: little German Austria,
already cut off from trade with German-speaking Bohemia, its industrial heartland to the north,
was attacked by Yugoslavia from the south and by Hungary from the west. Hungary and
Rumania fought several battles for territory, and Hungary diminished greatly in sire. By 1921
Poland had been at war for three years, and was three times the size anticipated by the treaty
Violent attempts at communist coups occurred in almost every one of the new states. For several
months in 1919 there was danger that a communist state would be established extending from
Bavaria through Austria and Hungary all the way to the borders of the new Soviet state. Indeed
communist governments were set up at this time both in Bavaria and in Hungary. It is interest-
ing that this communist power would have crossed central Europe from west to east, where
communications were at their best- Communication in the eastern Habsburg domains had never
been good, not even in die best of times. It is often claimed that the standard of living in eastern
Europe declined absolutely from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to the nineteenth
century, that this was chiefly due to poor communications, and that the greatest economic
contribution of the Empire of Franz Josef after 1848 had been to build up communications
somewhat throughout his eastern domains.
282
railways linked Berlin—through Bohumin and the Moravian

Gap—to Hungary as well as Austria, and through Hungary again to
Yugoslavia and the Adriatic to the south, and to Rumania and
Bulgaria, and the Black Sea, to the east. After 1938, no country
beyond Germany and Italy could communicate by rail, road or river
with the countries of Western Europe without crossing Germany or
Italy. (Schacht forged similar trade arrangements with Latin Amer-
ican nations, especially with Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina,
and, most importantly, Brazil28.)
To circumvent any remaining difficulties in communication within
their land-based trade empire, the Germans began to build the
Autobahns. The Autobahn building program had already been an-
nounced in June 193319, and by the late ’thirties, the area had the
best system of highways in the world, and trade moved rapidly by
truck as well as by rail, river and canal.
I have said that these treaties were bilateral, and it is important
to emphasise this. The countries of the former Danube monarchy
had little to trade with one another since they exported more or
less the same commodities: moreover they frequently imposed high
tariffs on one another. On the other hand, the terms of the agree-
ments with Germany forged by Schacht gave them incentives (such
as preferential freight rates and preferential prices for commodities)
to trade primarily with Germany.5® All roads began to converge on
Berlin.
There is an easy way to understand and remember this compli-
cated situation which Stephen Kresge has taught me. It consists in
the simple declaration: “Albanians don’t take aspirin.” This remains
curiously true today, despite what the medical profession has recent-
ly discovered about the general cardiovascular benefits of aspirin.
Why should this be so? Why are the Albanians so eccentric? They
are not eccentric; they are vengeful and have long memories.
Schacht forced the countries of Eastern Europe, including Albania,
to purchase Bayer aspirin and German typewriters with the money
earned from trade with Germany—money placed in blocked ac-
counts in marks that could be used only to purchase German
" So much so that one might indeed, without loo much poetic license or plain exaggeration,
see the war over the Falkland Islands as the last battle of the Second World War. See 7 hr
Economist, December 2, 1933, p. 1057-1058.
” See The Economist, July 1, 1933. p . 19.
” This was however slow in starting. See The Economist. August 5. 1933. pp. 279-280. But nee
The Economist. March 9. 1935, pp. 526-527: August 26. 1939. p 103.
283
property or certain German goods—such as chemicals and typewrit.

ers—at fixed prices. The hatred that the Albanians later acquired f Or
the fascists led them to foreswear the use of aspirin. In case anyone
should ask, 1 had better confess that my research has been incom-
plete. and that I do not know how widespread the use of typewrit-
ers is within Albania. This is the sort of research that gives one a
headache.
In sum, by these internal controls and external trade agreements,

Germany cut its citizens off from the world, but did not cut off the
world from Germany. Despite defeat, ruinous inflation, absurdly
punitive reparations, and world depression, Germany was the first
country to emerge from the depression. By the mid-thirties, it had a
greater industrial capacity than it had possessed in 1914; and by
then it in effect already controlled the old Austro-Hungarian Em-
pire. In 1938, with the Anschlufl, it completed this task by taking
over the remnant state of German Austria itself. In October 1938,
Schacht’s successor, Walter Funk, claimed that the German Reich
was “free of’ the world economic system.” It supposed itself, that is,
free of the extended order—a state of affairs that was referred to
proudly as “autarchy".52
After the end of the second world war, the Soviet Union took
over what Schacht had created but Goring and Hitler had lost. Bi-
lateral trade pacts were again imposed on all the countries of
eastern Europe, this time in blocked rouble accounts, and on far less
favourable terms for the eastern European countries. Using much
more force than Germany had exerted, the Russians made to their
new allies "an offer that they could not refuse”. This time Russia,
instead of Germany, became the main partner. The partners traded
with, or transported goods to, one another only in a limited way-
There was no “common market” in the successful western European
sense. AU roads converged on Moscow. And the iron curtain in some-
thing like its Churchillian configuration fell in place. To a large ex-
11
Graham Hutton, op. dt, p. 168.
” Schacht himself was removed from power, after a long conflict with Hermann
when he insisted that Germany could not afford to pursue its war policies. O n Schac
difficulties with the Naris see ITu Eammnut. April 11. 1936. pp. 75-76. May 2, 1936. pp 2 3 '
May 2, 1936. pp. 244-245. May 9. 1936. pp 304-305, May 23. 1936. pp. 422-423. Octobe. - •
1936. pp. 160-161. On autarchy see Tht Econmusl. September 1, 1934. p. 399. September
1934. pp. 584-585, November 3, 1934, p. 827-828; November 17. 1934. p. 922; January > 9 ' 1
p. 123; and September 26, 1936. pp. 559-560.
284
tent these agreements and barriers remain. They help account for
Poland's perennial economic difficulties. In contrast, East Germany,
to which West Germany now gives highly favourable treatment, has
virtually become a member of the Common Market, and is far more
prosperous than the other members of the eastern block.
4. lb Perpetuate the Division,to Remove the Division
The Division that began in this convoluted way, and which has
marked the greater part of our century, is hardly entirely the fault
of either Germany or the post-war Russian economists and bureau-
crats who copied Schacht's methods. Schacht, who hated socialism
and controls, was forced to devise his ingenious methods—methods
which isolated Germany from the west—by the trickery of the
Armistice and the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The United
States imposed a similar isolation on the Soviet block—a policy for
which there were of course many good reasons, but for which, as it
now begins to become more evident, we have also paid rather
dearly. For example, the Soviets invented Eurodollars—which have
played an important role in bringing about the fall of the dollar—in
order to avoid exposing Soviet assets to American control.
At Bretton Woods, Keynes tried to avoid further division, and to
discourage western nations from themselves imposing Schachtian
methods. He succeeded in winning agreement amongst them to a
common monetary standard, based on the U. S. dollar. Moreover,
English had by the time of Bretton Woods already emerged as a
new universal language. Together, these worked against division and
helped to shape al least a partial new postwar unity. But tariffs and
trade and movement of capital were excluded from the Bretton
Woods agreement—which helps explain why there continues to be
virtually no really free trade anywhere in the world, Hong Kong is
an exception; Singapore, often thought to be an exception, is not: it
bars certain information from its borders.
Moreover, it is not only the Soviet Union that has spread dis-
unity. The United States is also at fault, however lofty its motives.
Its mistake lay in its insistence during and after the second world
'var, an insistence made effective by its financial and military domin-
ance, on dismantling the remnants of the old empires. Continuing
to follow the nationalism that carved up old Europe after the first
'vorld war— indeed, championing nationalism as if it had worked
285
instead of failing miserably—the United States pushed the creation

of weak and artificial countries—artificial countries linked by artifi-
cial alliances—countries that are nations in hardly any sense of that
word and which, whatever our artificial treaties may say, are allied
with us in no honest sense of that word.15 The destruction of the old
empires has been accompanied in most cases by dictatorship or a
return to tribalism. And thus new borders of all sorts, and new
divisions, have come into being. This creation of nations by planners
is usually done in the spirit of the “constructivist rationalism" that
Hayek has spent much of his life opposing. 54
These states that America had helped to establish in what it
thought to be its own image were of course supposed to be in-
dependent. But they could never be allowed to be independent: for
America stood dedicated to preventing the advance of the one
empire that, in the mid ’forties, not only remained intact, but
seemed for a time to be growing: that of communism. As Hayek
shows in The Fatal Conceit, such a socialist empire could never have
succeeded for long, and has always been parasitic on the West. It is
now collapsing under its own dead weight. But American leaders,
not understanding the weakness of socialism, and indeed often
overrating its strengths55, could not predict these developments.
Instead, they saw it as their bounden duty to prevent it anywhere
from spreading. The new states, in particular, those bodies that had
been pulled away from the old European empires with such effort
and cost, would not be permitted to succumb to it. Thus the new
states could not really be independent—no matter what we were to
tell ourselves. This led to an elaborate network of secret service and
“intelligence” operations on both sides of the iron curtain to keep
watch on the peripheries of civilisation. In the operation of Ameri-
can and other western governments, “secret intelligence” replaced
public knowledge as the main guide for government policy. The
” See Peter Bauer (Lord Bauer), Equality, the Third World, and Economic Dflusum (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1981); Dissent and Development, revised edition (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1976).
* Constructivist rationalism is, for Hayek, the theory of rationality underlying socialism and
many other approaches, according to which one can design human institutions by reason, with
regard to shared aims and predictable consequences. See Law. Legislation and Liberty, in three
volumes, op, du. a n d The Ealal Conceit, op, du esp. pp. 22, 50-51, 60-61, 63-66, chapters 4 and
5.
“ For some sense of the flavour of this cold-war period, during which there flourished the
idea that the West was handicapped by its diversity, see the contrasts between the views of John
Wild and James Bryant Conant in m y old essay. “Religion at Harvard**, The Harvard Crimson,
March 28, 1958, and, slightly abridged, in The New Republic, April 21, 1958.
286
idea that knowledge was the result of free competition in the open
marketplace of ideas was thus pushed aside, or at least no longer
remained the operating guide to state policy. The theme of western
free thought and speech since Milton, and the main idea behind
Hayek’s theory of knowledge as a competitive discovery process, thus
fell to a poor second place behind secret intelligence, that is, alleged
intelligence on which there was no assured check by reality.3*
For we do enter fantasy land here: these states that the United
States would so ardently control are not at all obedient. We cannot
even control Panama or subdue the Sandinistas, although we have
perhaps intervened effectively in a few cases, as in Chile and in
Guatemala.
So much might have been expected with any state, or other
operation, that wished to control events. The results of a competi-
tive discovery process are always unpredictable. As we saw in Part 1,
even knowledge that we already possess is unpredictable—and
indeed “unfathomable". While the unpredictability of the growth of
knowledge may threaten government control, secret intelligence
unexposed to the contest of ideas is even more unreliable.
5. Portents of Unity: Vanishing Barriers
My reflections may seem pessimistic. I may seem to be suggesting

not only that our century has been divided, but that it must remain
so, and that we ourselves are even partly to blame for this division.
In fact, 1 am relatively optimistic. Borders are now once again
tending to weaken, and—despite signs to the contrary, despite the
state's being, almost as a matter of definition, an organised system
of exclusion—our world is, 1 believe, growing closer again.” One
portent that the unity of procedural law enjoyed during the late
nineteenth century may eventually be restored is the recent Soviet
declaration that it will accept the authority of the World Court in
" For an amusing example of the lengths to which this can go, see "The Ultimate Secret: A
Pentagon Report Its Author Can’t See", Wall Stmt Journal, February 18, 1986 — which includes
this statement: "Officials from Congress and the Pentagon say they can t think of any previous
case in which the administration has, in effect, seized a report prepared by an arm of Congress
and classified it beyond what members of Congress are entided to see. Some worry that the
handling of the report suggests that the Pentagon can shut the Congress out of its most
important affairs."
” See “Unsichcre Rezepte fur Osttnitteleuropa”. Neur Zurcher Zntung, April 8-9. 1989, p. 1-
287
all human rights cases, a move which—if the declaration is to be

believed—appears to end forty years of Soviet opposition to the
jurisdiction of the court in such areas.” This step is perhaps more
important than "glasnost”, and also complements it. Taken by itself,
glasnost chiefly governs Soviet policy within the USSR. If that were
all there were to it, one might conclude that Gorbachev has simply
freed the serfs again, and note that such actions can be undone as
well as done. The new declaration parts the iron curtain, to allow
the World Court, as a representative of the extended order, to
extend an arm within the Soviet Union.
1 have used Hayek’s term, "the extended order” again. There is
an extraordinary explanatory power in this idea, and in Hayek’s
account of how the order spreads, through competition of various
kinds including, especially, the competition of knowledge—which in
turn includes the competition of traditions and institutions that
embody knowledge. In this competition, that information —and those
traditions and institutions which are adaptive to reality—are evohi-
tionarily selected. This extended order knows no borders.
6. The Japanese:“The World’s Most Dedicated Empiricists’’
As an example, let us for a moment turn from Europe to Asia

and consider the Japanese. Prior to the second world war, despite
many rapid advances, the Japanese were still mired in the past, in
the old traditions of the Shoguns and of militaristic families, and
were motivated largely by a sense of destiny. They saw themselves,
as many of them of course still do, as a superior race. We are
hardly in a position to be censorious; the Japanese were not, and
are not, alone in this. The theme of the chosen people is not only
Biblical and Judaic: Americans have invented such doctrines as
manifest destiny; and whatever the Statue of Liberty, looking east-
ward, may say, our Exclusion Clause of 1924 shut out the Japanese
from this country in insulting racist terms. Hitler had his master
race; socialism and communism were, in Marx’s theory, inevitable,
the victory of the proletariat assured. American thinking on these
matters, an incompatible mixture of old time religion and pragma-
tism, is often confused—a confusion reflected in Vice President
u
Reported in dir media o n March 8, 1989. For a general discussion o f events in rhe Soviet
Lnion. see Calo InMttuif Polity Analysis, March 20. 1989.
288
Quayle’s statement: “I believe we are on an irreversible trend

toward more freedom and democracy—but that could change.”39
These historicist approaches usually founder, although it may in
some cases take a disastrously long time for them to do so. They
founder not simply because they are historicist, not simply because
they rely on false deterministic and racist ideas, but because policies
so motivated, and so entrenched, cannot readily adapt or adjust to
unpredictable change—the unpredictable change that is at die
bottom of the evolution of order both in living nature and in
human society.
When that bomb exploded over Hiroshima, what happened to
the Japanese was that, as a friend of mine, an old army colonel,
used to put it, “they had their thoughts separated from their ideas".
I do not mean to minimise the human tragedy of that horrible
event by noting that it constituted massive shock therapy. The
Japanese have now undergone an extraordinary adaptation to the
real world, and have set aside many of their illusions. They have,
indeed, become perhaps the world’s most dedicated empiricists,
devoted to understanding, and mastering, the natural world, as well
as the institutions of our social world.
The second world war, which was concluded by the shock that
generated this reform, represented a major episode in the develop-
ment of new standards for a united world: the standard language of
English, the dollar as the monetary standard, and most important,
the demonstration of the awesome power of objective standards
rooted in science. The Japanese, in their adaptation to all of these,
have been exceptionally flexible. Compare them, say, to the
French—whose resentment of the replacement of French by English
is still pushed to absurd lengths, and whose laws prevent the ap-
pointment of anyone but a French citizen to the title of “Professor".
Science, which works to extend the extended order, does not
change by crossing borders or speaking in a different tongue.
Science—the attempt at an accurate objective representation of
physical and social reality— unifies the world. “Speak the truth often
enough and your word will become law in the universe."49 The
Japanese have learned the lesson that new scientific knowledge is
more powerful than almost anything else. The military lost the war
• 77u»Wall Strutt Journal, May 26, 1989, p. I.

* I owe this declaration to my friend Werner Erhard. See my Erhard: Z7w Zranj/orwr
turn of a Man, op. tit.
289
in Japan, and won it in America. The Japanese turned from militar-

ism to the cultivation of facts, whereas many Americans, like the
Soviets, have often defiled their heritage, and wasted their capital,
by investing in illusion.
1 do not mean to praise the Japanese naively. They respect facts,
but have not yet learnt to develop original theory, and thus neglect
that part of the evolutionary process, and of learning, which consists
in variation*' The quality of scientific research in Japanese universi-
ties is very poor; three-quarters of all scientific research occurs not
in the universities but under the sponsorship and supervision of
private business. The Japanese are far from enjoying an open
society amongst themselves. Nor, open as they may be to science
and other products from abroad, are real foreigners very welcome.
Neither do they follow all the laws of the extended order, and their
stubborn violation of these bodes ill. Some Japanese steal as much
knowledge as they can get away with, without payment. Although
they subscribe to international copyright agreements, in practice
their publishers engage in piracy and rarely pay royalties to non-
Japanese authors. I speak from experience. With patents, as op-
posed to copyright, the situation is a little belter, for the stakes are
higher.
The Japanese are nonetheless worlds ahead of most of the coun-
tries that emerged from the old empires, and which are now part of
“the third world". The leaders of these other countries, including,
especially, their western-trained intellectuals, routinely deny the
power of objective knowledge. The third world, freed from colonial
rule, denies or ignores the existence and power of what Popper
calls “World 3”, the world of objective knowledge, and what Hayek
refers to as our treasured, unconsciously and spontaneously evolved
moral and economic traditions. They elevate political or religious
dogma above objective reality. Thus China, for many decades, and
Russia and its eastern block, sank into poverty. The same is true, on
far worse a scale, in Africa and parts of south and central America.
41
See Radnitzky and Bartley, eds,, Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of
Knowledge, op. cit. Japanese weakness in original discovery is often discussed. See for example.
“Stifled Scholars: Japan's Scientists Find Pure Research Suffers under Rigid Life Style: They
Discover the Job System and Pressures to Conform Prevent Big Discoveries”, The Wall Street
Journal, October 3 1 , 1988, p p . I and A I 2 . See also: “Research center: There's nothing like it in
Japan”, Campus Report, Stanford. March 22, 1989. p. 7; and “No ideas, thanks, we’re academics'.
The Economist. April 2 3 . 1988, p. 40.
290
FORGOTTEN EAST. UNKNOWN FUTURE
The Islamic world is engaged in self-destruction driven by religious

fanaticism.
7. The New Divisions of Fanaticism:“Unification" by Force
Indeed much of the world today has fallen prey to—and is even
trying to overcome divisions by means of —religious and political
ideologies that would have been laughed at or at least more openly
and honestly despised at the turn of our century. Religion plays a
more important role today in world politics, internal and external,
than it has since the Thirty Years War. Unlike most Japanese,
representatives of such positions have fallen prey to ideologies that
have interfered with their ability to exploit the rapidly growing body
of knowledge.
Such positions include the attempts of fundamentalists in this
country to capture state power to impose their metaphysical views
on their fellow-countrymen. Their numbers have risen rapidly whilst
the numbers of the old mainline Protestant denominations—which
represented the gentler, kinder, decent and unfanatical Christianity
of such thinkers as Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich—are dwind-
ling.42 The fanaticism of Islam is perhaps different in degree from
the fanaticism of fundamentalist Christianity, but is not different in
kind.45 The countries of the middle east are largely dosed societies.
The rule of law, and the sense of liberty, does not prevail within
them. This is so not only in our enemy Iran, but also in our ally
Saudi Arabia, as any who watched “The Death of a Princess” will
suspect. Islam goes so far in challenging traditional western law’ and
individual liberty of expression as to oppose the freedom to dissent
from and to criticise religion, a freedom that lies at the heart of all
our liberties. It would override this with so-called Islamic law, with
its casual recipes for murder and terrorism. Thus Iran has now set
a large bounty on the head of a British author who has dared to
" My strung critique of Niebuhr and Tillich, in my The Retreat to Commitment. op. d t , should
not conceal my appreciation of these men and of their work. On the decline of the old mainline
Protestant churches, see the discussion and figures given tn The Son Francisco Chronicle, February
IS. 1989, p. A8.
" Both are what I call "belief religions", belunging to the "juslificalionist metacontext of true
belief See my The Retreat to Commitment. 2nd edition, op. dt-. Appendix I
291
write critically—the word is “blaspheme"—about Islam.44 Some

American intellectuals have come to the defense of the Iranians,
explaining to us patronisingly that Islam simply has a different law.
This so-called cultural relativism, in which western intellectuals
condone the murder of western intellectuals out of what they
45
imagine is respect for a barbarian law, is despicable. This is the
philosophy of “Anything goes”.
8. Knowledge,Cultural Diversity, and Open Borders
What are these fanatics resisting? They are resisting what the
Japanese and some others have accepted. They resist exposure to
alternative points of view. They resist the fact that we live in a
world marked by substantial cultural diversity and in individual
countries that are themselves not unified by any single cultural
tradition. Failing to consider the question of what legal and political
forms are best suited to such a world-wide condition 4*, they continue
to attempt to impose their own political, ' behavioural, and religious
forms—which they perceive as a universal human identity—first on
their own diverse countrymen, then on the rest of the world. Thus
they shut out the competitive process in which new knowledge, and
new wealth, are generated. Whereas the way to join Hayek’s ex-
tended order of human civilisation is to open one’s borders, person-
al or geographical as the case may be, to knowledge and new
experience. This is exceptionally difficult for these closed states,
since knowledge, being, as already remarked, unpredictable and
** They have already murdered several Islamic leaders who have disagreed on the point,
Their victims indude the Saudi Arabian Imam who was leader of Belgian muslims. The latter
agreed that Salman Rushdie’s book was blasphemous but had defended Rushdie's right to speak
his thoughts.
“ 11 it not only western intellectuals who have defended the Iranians. So has the Vatican.
L'Osservaiew Romano, o n March 4, after noting, correctly, that Rushdie's novel was offensive to
millions of people, argued dial "the right of free expression must not trample on the dignity of
others". This lofty sentiment is one of the oldest recipes in the cookbook for the suppression of
criticism. Serious, fundamental criticism is bound to offend; knowledge itself is often offensive (see
chapter 17 above). To protect oneself against being offended is to protect oneself from learning.
As | write this, a debate is raging at Stanford University over a ‘Fundamental Standard’, defended
by many faculty members, that would restrict First Amendment rights on campus and prevent
persons — speakers, for example — from departing from 'acceptable community standards* and
saying anything that might offend those who had chosen to be members of their audience.
** See John Gray’s remarkable essay, “The Politics of Cultural Diversity", in Quadrant,
November 1987. pp. 29-38, from which the epigraph to this Part is drawn.
292
FORGOTTEN PAS'!’ UNKNOWN FUTURE
therefore uncontrollable, threatens authoritarian and dogmatic states

and institutions, and the artificial borders that they create.
These kinds of borders can hardly be expected to vanish over-
night, but I remain optimistic here too. The artificial states that we
created following the second world war, and the ideologies that have grown
up in the retreat of western culture, are weakening not for political or
ideological reasons, but for economic reasons and, especially, because of
technology. Part of this is due to the internationalisation of produc-
tion and the speed of transportation. More important, computers,
satellites, and instant transmission of information throughout the
world—steps in the development of which our own land has
led —make it immensely expensive, for any society or group that
would remain closed, effectively to shut out the competing knowledge
now dispersed throughout our globe. Such knowledge is now so
quickly available that traditional borders—even the borders of these
remaining closed societies—begin to become meaningless. During the
uprising of 1989 in China, Chinese students in the middle of
Beijing used fax machines to communicate with American students
at Stanford.47
Thus we return to the themes struck in the Prologue to this
book. For representatives of open societies, like free individuals,
have the liberty to make use of such channels of communication to
persuade other societies to lay down their exclusions. Open societies
and their members willy-nilly meddle in the internal affairs of one
another and of other states. Businesses and financial institutions,
when they grant credit or engage in commerce or production in
other countries, have a far from predictable impact on the life of
those countries and on the behaviour and traditions of their in-
habitants. So have cultural products, literature and art, and all the
products of the media. In a world criss-crossed by networks of trade
and communication, it is easy to declare persons, institutions, ideas,
practices, and things excluded. But it is harder, and very costly, to
implement most such exclusions.
In such circumstances, some individuals and governments become
understandably confused. They continue to wish, at one and the
same time, to receive and to exclude. Thus some people confuse the
right to exclude with alleged entitlements, and often loosely blend
" "Securities companies are no longer companies that buy and sell shares and need a hit of
information to do it: they are global information companies that happen also to buy and sell a
few shares", Tht Economist. December 10, 1988, p. 16.
293
rights and alleged entidements of individuals with those of “peo-

ples", communities and states. Thus the application for a foundation
grant, mentioned earlier, which read as follows:
Every people, every nation has a right to a life-style of its own, to

forms of governmental, legal and social organisations and cultural
identity that reflect its own history and correspond to its nature.
Without this there can be no genuine creativity, no innovation, no
“development".
People have whatever “life-styles”, forms of government, legal

and social institutions, and histories that they do in fact have, and
have the right to cling to or prize them, wisely or foolishly as the
case may be. But from whom do they claim a "life-style of their
own” if they do not already have it? What is this “nature” that is
claimed for every people? And who could supply them, if they
lacked it, a “cultural identity that reflects their own history"? There
is hardly a people or society in the world today which is unified by
a single cultural tradition, let alone by “its own life-style".
One can readily guess what the author of this proposal must
have expected for an answer. Many persons see it as part of the
role of political institutions to prop up tottering cultural identities.
When the winds of change damage or threaten their own moral,
religious, political and legal traditions, many people see themselves
as indeed “entitled” to state protection. This can mean restricting
the rights of others (fellow-countrymen as well as foreigners) to
supply them with, or even to inform them of, alternative moral,
religious, political or legal traditions, or to practise them them-
selves —at least within viewing or hearing range.
The duty of the state, however, is not to defend individual tradi-
tions and lifestyles whose representatives move within its matrix, but
to preserve a structure of law in which practitioners of different
traditions and lifestyles may coexist.
Creativity, innovation, and die growth of knowledge have always
been associated with culture clash, almost never with cultural isola-
tion and state protection. This is also the setting in which liberty
grows. The technology and means of communication developed in
recent years intensify this culture clash. The fanaticism of recent
years, on the other hand, expresses the hysteria of those who know
in their hearts that they have lost, and the self-destructive ressenti-
ment of those who would bring us down with them.
294
9. Vanishing Borders, New Boundaries
New boundaries have, then, taken the place of old national

borders made largely irrelevant by technology and by renewed
appreciation of effective legal and economic institutions. These new
boundaries—which may have little to do with national boundar-
ies—are those divisions between peoples and groups that are pre-
pared to accept the changing and unpredictable world, on the one
hand, and those who want to resist it and make it conform to some
arbitrary pattern of belief or plan, on the other. The latter believe
that it is the borders of other people that must vanish—by capitula-
tion and not interaction — whereas knowledge is a two-way street.
CODA
In dosing, I should like to return briefly to the beginning of this

chapter—and yet also to close on a musical theme, “'rhe war to end
all wars" was in fact a war that would tarnish all values. Called a
World War, it was actually a civil war, one that ruined a common
European and North American culture wherein more individual
liberty, and more wealth, had accumulated in the course of a mere
century than ever before in human history.
"It’s all in the music." Elias Canetti, the Nobel laureate in litera-
ture, was—as a boy of nine—attacked by a crowd in a Vienna park
when he innocendy sang out the familiar English words "God save
our noble King" to the music of the Prussian hymn, “Heil Dir im
Siegerkranz" (the melody was the same, and Canetti had spent
much of his early boyhood in England)?*
Why was the Prussian national hymn being sung in a Vienna
park in 1914? Was it out of the enthusiastic mutual admiration that
these German-speaking populations felt for one another now that
they were marching to war together? Yes, but also no—for they had
always felt that; now that they were marching together they felt
perhaps freer to express it. Besides, they already shared another
hymn. For Haydn’s “Austria” (“Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser"), the
“ Elias Canetti, Zhz grrrtttit Zungt Gwhirhlr nwr Jugrmi (Frankfurt: Fischer Kaschenbach
Verlag. 1984). pp. 106-107.
295
national anthem of Austria, just happened also to provide the

melody for “Deutschland, Deutschland uber Alles”.
There is another question. Why had the pre-war national an-
thems not only of Germany and Great Britain but also of Switzer-
landw and (at various times in the 18th and 19th centuries) of some
twenty different continental European states, including Denmark,
Russia, Liechtenstein, and parts of Italy and Sweden, all used the
same melody—a melody (Thesaurus Musicus, 174430) that was also
the same as the American hymn “My country! 'tis of thee"? This
had grown out of the common and non-nationalistic culture that
spanned not only the channel but also the Adantic prior to the
summer of 1914.
Was this culture really destroyed by the war? Not quite. In 1922,
die new Weimar republic (having no further use for “Heil Dir im
Siegerkranz”) adopted as its anthem the tune "Austria”—a melody
abandoned within all parts of the empire to the south that had just
ceased to exist—but of course with the words "Deutschland,
Deutschland uber Alles”. Which makes one realise, if one does not
already know it, that—whatever the treaties and history books may
say—the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation has never
really been allowed to cease to exist/1
In West Germany, most of which was once part of die Holy
Roman Empire, ruled by the Habsburgs, “Deutschland, Deutschland
iiber Alles" (Haydn’s “Austria") remains the national hymn. Whereas
in East Germany, the music for a new national hymn was composed
in 1949 by Arnold Schonberg’s student, the communist composer
Hanns Eisler, brother of Stalin’s wartime chief spy in America,
Gerhard Eisler. It is called “Auferstanden aus Ruinen” (“Resurrected
from the ruins”). But “composed” is perhaps the wrong word:
“Hanns Eisler’s" music was resurrected, or lifted, from a hit tune of
the ’thirties, entided “Good-bye, Johnny", written by the popular
composer Peter Kreuder.
And thus it happened that, when Kreuder was touring East
Germany in 1976, his audiences would—to his surprise at first—rise
** In German-speaking cantons. “Rufst du. mein Vaterland"; in French-speaking cantons. "O

moots independents".
“ Not J74O, as sometimes claimed.
” The imperial hymn was sung again in St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna on 1 April 1989.
probably for the first time since 1918, at the state funeral and Requiem Mass for die Empress
Ziu.
296
solemnly and patriotically to their feet whenever he played "Good-

bye. Johnny".51
Music, like science, knows no borders. Music, unlike science, has
very little depending on it—and certainly not our survival. It is, in
its own way, a perfect example of spontaneous order: certainly the
universal language of its notation evolved spontaneously. And a
symphony orchestra is a wonderfully Hayekian institution. Music
continues apart from personnel even while it depends essentially
upon individual performers and listeners. It is made by following
rules—rules in which when the score says rest, you rest, and when
it says play, you play. And yet this universal rule-based language
does not inhibit individual expression: no two performances are ever
the same. Rather, this language, and this following of rules, enables
expression to become communication.”
Nor should we be misled by the presence of the conductor on
the podium—or by vulgar fascination with his personality—into
supposing that in orchestras we require something analogous to a
dictator. For the performance is guided by information of all sorts:
the musicians attend to the score, to the baton of the conductor, to
one another. And sometimes, if one listens very carefully, one finds
that the most crucial information comes from an unexpected source.
Thus, in listening to the San Francisco Symphony, 1 have on several
occasions found that it was the timpanist, in keeping the beat, who
was really "conducting” the orchestra.
" Krcuder had not expected the reaction. Made aware thereby of possible damage to his
priority rights, he brought a lawsuit—the "Eisler-Kreuder case"—to the copyright commission of
the United Nations. See Hans JQrgen Hansen. Hnl Dir rm Siegrrkrant Dir Uymnrn der Deulsehen
(Hamburg: Verlag Gerhard Stalling AG. 1978), p. 77.
“ Karl Barth has written of Mozart. "This man was creative, even and precisely while he was
imitating. Verily, he did not only imitate. From the beginning he moved freely within the frame
of the rules of the art of his time, and later more and more freely. But he did not revolt against
these rules, nor break them. He sought and found Ins greatness in remaining himself precisely
while binding himself to these rules. One must see both his freedom and his restraint, side by
side, and seek his singular quality behind this very riddle." See Karl Barth. ‘'Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart", in Walter Leibrecht. ed., Religion and Culture (London: SCM Press, 1959), pp. 72-73. See
the discussion of Barth in my Morality and Religion, op. cit., chapter 3.
297
NAME INDEX
Aalto, Alvar, 187n Bernstein. Leonard, 187n

Acton, H. B„ 50n BertalanfTy. Ludwig von. 25 In
Adler. Alfred, 154, 179 Bethel), Tom, I27n
Adorno, T.W., 186n, I91n Beveridge. Lord, !30n
Agassi. Joseph, IO3n, 156-157, 159, 184n, Biggar. Robert J., 53n
190 & n Billiau, A.. 53n
Albert, Hans, 131n. 140n, 186n, 190 & n, Blackmore. John T., I67n, I82n
191 n . 197, 226n Blaug. M., 106n
Alchian, Armen A., 102n, 11 In Blaug. Mark. 136n
Allan. R. S„ 161 Bletlstein, Burton J.. 206n
Allgaier, Walter, 186n Bloor. David, 73n, 74n. 109n
Allison. A. C„ 54n Boaz, David, 9n
Alston, William P., 196n, 230n Bodmer. D. B.. 54n
Amacher, Ryan C„ 89n Bohr. Niels. 173-174, 186
Amos, D. B„ 54n Bok, Derek, 29 & n
Anderson, Martin. 9n, 14n Bolognesi, Dani. 43n
Anderson. R. M.. Jr., 178n Bonjour, Laurence. I96n
Andersson. Gunnar. 169n, 178n, I84n Booth. A. D., 53n
Angelidis. T. D„ I36n Borcherding, Thomas E., 80, 8 l n
Annis. David B„ I96n Born. R., 90n
Anshen, Ruth Nanda, 3n Born. Max, 62, 134n
Arendt, Hannah, 187n Boswell, John, 50n, 123
Aristode, 249n Bowen, Howard R., 1 1 In, I I2n
Asoka, Indian monarch, 254 Box. C. B„ 149n
Auden, W. H„ 128 Boyer, Alain, 178n
Ayala. F., 245n Boyer. Ernst, 119n
Ayer. Sir Alfred J.. I53n, 170n, 17ln, 19In, Boyson. Rhodes, 149n
191-192. 194, 233 & n. 247-248, 257 Bradley. F. H„ 249n
Bradley. Philip D.. IO2i>. I l i n
Babchuk. Nicholas, 118n Braeman, John, I l i n
Bailey, Ronald. 127n Brandt. Richard B.. 230n
Ballou, Robert O„ 25n Brennan. H. Geoffrey, I l i n
Baltimore, David, 43n Bridgman, Percy W., 167
Banfield, Edward C., 142n Briskman, Larrv, I91n
Bang. F. B., 53n Broad, C. D., 167
Barnes. Barry, 73n, 109, I I On Broad, William, 97n, 99
Barnes. Jonathan. 131n Broder, S., 4 1 n
Barth, Karl. I87n, 297n Brooks, David. I49n
Barut, A. O.. 136n Brown, Charles, 52n
Barzun, Jacques. vi. 90. 95 & n Brown. Harold I.. 1 lOn, 198n. 198-199
Bates. Alan I’.. 118n Brown, J. R„ 74n
Bauer. Peter (l-ord), lOln, 286n Brown, Stuart C., 235n
Beard, Charles. 123 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 261
Beer, William R.. 64n, 143n Buchanan, James M.. Chapter 7, 20n. 80,
Ben-David, Joseph, 122n 81 n, 91.99. I U n , 240n
Berenbaum. M., 41n Buckley. William F., 9n
Berkeley, Bishop. 168, 204 Buhl, Count Hans Karl, 262
Berlin. Isaiah, 192, 212-213 Buhler. Karl, 66 & n . 141n
Bernholz, Peter, 90n Bunge. Mario, 132n
Bernstam, Mikhail. 3. 102 &- n Burgess, Tyrrell, 258
NAME INDEX
Burke. Donald. 52n Dreyfus, Hubert, 132, 140

Btimet. F. M., 43n Drucker. Peter F„ I27n
Butler. Bishop. 219n Drury, M. O'C, 263n
Duesberg, Peter, 39n
Campbell, R. H.. 92n Duhem, Pierre, 174 & n
Campbell, Jeremy. 135 Duignan, Peter, 276n
Campbell. Donald T., 75 & n, 77n. 78-79. Dutcher, R. M., 54n
79n. 182n, 186, 187n, 190. 199. 203 & n . Dworkin, Ronald, I In
205n, 251n, 258
Campbell. W. Glenn, 99. 1 17 & n. 118n Eatwell, John, 166n
Canetti, Elias. 128, 295 & n Eccles. John C.. 44n. 63n, I26n, 182, 186,
Carnap, Rudolf. 98n, 169-170. l70n. 179n, 200n, 245n
188 & n, 230 & n Eckholm, Erik, 40n
Carroll. Lewis, see C. L. Dodgson Eco, Umberto, 28 & n
Carter, C. F„ 96n Eddington. Sir Arthur, 167
Cavell, Stanley, 104n Edwards, Jim, 182n
Ceppelini, R.. 54n Einstein, Albert, 36-37, 49 & n, 61. 124.
Chase, Marilyn, 40n, 41n 135n, 172, 173n, 179, 197
Chisholm, Roderick M.. 196 & n Eislcr, Hanns. 296
Church, Alonzo, 39. 216 Eliot, T. S.. 128
Churchill. Winston, 100 & n, 186 Epictetus. 230
Clauser, J . F., I36n Erhard. Werner, 252n, 289n
Clcmmesen, J.. 54n Erdmann. Karl Dietrich. 278n
Clifford, W. K.. 167 Evans, Richard 1., 187
Clive, lord. 274n Everhart, Robert B.. 14n, 142n
Clough, Arthur Hugh. 26n
Cease, Ronald H., 28 & n, 100 & n . 101 n. Faraday, Michael. 124
106n, 107 Faulkner, William, 128
Cohen, R. S., 75n, 164n, 269n Feigl, Herbert, 188
Coleman, James S„ 130n Ferdinand. Archduke, 278
Collingwood. R. G„ 244n Ferguson. Adam, 25
Collingwood. Stuart Dodgson. 276n Feyerabend, Paul K., 158, 190 & n, 193,
Conant, James Bryant, 286n 203 & n
Cornman. James W„ I96n Finch, Henry Leroy, 212 & n, 252n
Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard von. 187n Finkelstein. Martin J., 1 19n
Crane. Edward H., 127n Finn, Chester E.. Jr., I l i n
Cushing, James T.. I36n Fischer. Fritz, 278n
Flew, Antony, 48n. IO2n, 130n, 224n
D'Agostino, Fred. 13n Flinn, Michael, 30n, 98n
Dahrendorf, Ralf, I86n Foley. Richard, I96n
Darwin. Charles, 62n. 124, 205. 216 Foley. Ridgway K., Jr.. 6n
Darwin, Erasmus, 124 Forster. E. M., 128
Daries, Stephen, lOn Foucault, Michel, 73n, 211 & n. 226
de Faria, A. Lima. 251 n Frank. Phillip, 156
De Ropp, Robert S„ 52n Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria-Hungary,
Dearden, R. F., 222n 282n
Descartes, Rene 27, 170, 230 Frege, Gottlob. 125
Devletoglou, Nicos E.. 11 In Freud. Sigmund, Chapter 3, 67n. 125-126,
Devlin, Lord, I In 179 Sen
Dewey, John, 241 Friedland. Claire, 118
Director. Aaron, lOln Friedman. Mihon, 106n
Dobzhansky, T.. 245n Friedrich, Volker. 186n
Dodgson. C. L.. 175n, 276 & n Frohmann. Bernd, 98n
Dodds, J . A., 53n Fromm. Erich, 67-68
Dolci, Danilo, 187n Fukumoto, Siunichi, 4 ) n
Doring, Eberhard. 186n Fulda. Joseph S„ 49n
Dorn, Georg, 178n Funk, Walter, 284
Dreben, Burton S„ 11 In
NAME INDEX
Gadatner, Hans-Georg, ISIn, 140n Hilbert. David. 39

Gallon. Francis, 124 Hilferding, Rudolf. 281 & n
Gann, Lewis H„ 201 n . 276n Hill. E. U . 134n
Garg, Anupam, 136n Hinneberg, Paul, 275
Gartner. Michael. 7n Hinrichs, Gerard, 168n
Gass. William H., 99n, 128 Hippias, 26
Gaston, Jerry, 121 n Hippocrates. 5n
Gellner, Ernest. 73n, 158. 175n, 185 & n . Hirono, L. 41n
190n Hirst. Paul H.. Chapter 15, 21 1 & n . 220n.
Geiss, Immanuel, 278n 222 & n, 234 & n . 244n, 245n, 251n
Gentile, Gary, 8n Hitler. Adolf, 130n, 263, 281-282. 288
George. Henry, 128 Hobbes. Thomas, 35n
Georgiadcs, J. A., 53n Hochkeppel, Willy, I86n
Gibbon. Edward. 123 Hofmannsthal. Hugo von. 261-262
Gmeiner, Hermann. 187n Hollis, Martin. 73n
G6del, Kurt. 39 & n . 172-173, 172n, 216 Holmes, Oliver Wendell. Jr„ 26n
Goethe. Johann Wolfgang, vi Holtzman, Eric, 111 n
Goldman, Alvin I., 226 Holweg, Bethmann, 278n
Goldmann, Lucien, 74 Homer. 26
Gombrich. Sir Ernst, 158 & n . 186, 203, Hook, Sidney, xiv, 105n, I I4n
258 Home. M. A., 136n
Goodman, Nelson, 169 & n. 178 Homey, Karen, 67-68
Goring, Hermann, 284n Horowitz, Irving louis, 129 & n
Gould. Julius, 149n Horwitz, Jerome P., 4()n
Gray, J o h n . 236n, 271, 292 Hume, David, 25, 123, 137, 168, 218, 230,
Gress, David. 207n, 277n 257
Griffin. James, 216n Hutton. Graham, 273n, 281 n. 282n, 284n
Gropius, 128
Grote, George, 123 lannone, Carol. 205n, 207 & n
Grunbaum, Adolf, 134n, 179n Ichazo, Oscar, 51 & n
GurdjiefT, 51 Itao. Y„ 54n
Habedank, Heinz, 280n James, Harold, 280n. 281 n

Habermas, Jurgen. 73n, 130n, 131n. I86n. James, William. 25 & n, 52n, 124, 223
207n, 226 Jarausch, Konrad K-, 278n
Hagstrorn, Warren O.. 121 Jarvie, Ian C., 13n, 103 & n, 106n. 108-109.
Hamilton, R. I., 53n 109n, HOn, !20n, I47n, 157, 190 & n
Hansen. Hansjurgen, 297n Jeans, Sir James, 167
Harre. Rom. 74n Jeffers, Robinson. 128
Harris, Ralph, 127n Jefferson, Thomas, 6
Hartmann, Eduard von, 50n Jergius, Holger, I86n
Hartwell, Max. 5 jevons, W. S„ 134n
Haskell, Thomas L., 30n, 101 & n. 206n Johnson, Paul. I49n. 279n
Haydn, Franz Joseph, 295-296 Jones, Stephen, 52n
Hayek, F. A. von, 1 I n . 12n, 28 & n, 29n, 40 Joseph II, Emperor of Holy Roman
& n, 47n, 59n, 64n, 64456, 65n, 73n, 80. Empire of the German Nation, 209
82n. lOOn, 127 & n . 13ln, 147n, 153n, Jung, C. G„ 125-126
158, 186-187, 192, 230n, 234n, 236 & n.
241n. 275 & n, 278 & n. 286n, 286-288 Kalecki, Michael, 107n
Heckler, Margaret, 122n Kant. Immanuel, 55n, 77n, 124. 170. 231,
Hegel. 62n, 67n, 68, 71. 263 237
Heidegger, Martin. 130n, 132n, 140n, 226 Kantrowitz., Arthur, 23n
Heilbroner, Robert, 127n Kaufmann, Walter, 28n, 71 n, 103n. !20n,
Heisenberg, Werner, 173 120-121, 141n
Hempel. C. G„ 169, 171n, 178, 188n. 223n Keller. Kenneth H-, 1 15n
Henderson, David R.. 127n Kempski, Jurgen von. 1410
Hesse, Hermann, 128 Kessel, Reuben A., I l i n
Higginson, John, 54n Keuth, Herbert. 1410
NAME INDEX
Keynes. John Maynard. lOOn, 107n. 126. Lorenz, Konrad, 76n, 76-77, 77n, lOOn,
167. 226-227. 274n. 279n. 279-280. 187 & n
280n. 282 & n. 285 Lucian. 25
Kierkegaard. Saren, 25. 124, 233 Luhrs, Georg, I86n, I 9 l n
Kindleberger. Charles P., 137 l.ukacs, Georg, 74
King, Preston, 158 Lukes. Steven, 73n
Kirchner, Laron, 128
Kirzner. Israel, 147n Macaulay, Lord. 123, 274n, 276
Klein, Larence R.. 140 & n Mach, Ernst. 167n, 167-168, 230
Koertgc. Norctta, l90n Machlup, Fritz. 49n, 146n
Koestler, Arthur, 29 & n , 186, I87n. 192 MacIntyre. Alasdair, 224n
Kolakowski. L., 64-65 MacIrtish, Archibald, 128
Kolnai, Aurel, 50n, 273 & n MacMurray, John, 244n
Kors, /Man C„ 205n, 207n, 207-208 MacRoberts, Barbara R., I I9n
Krantz. David L.. 204 & n, 205n MacRoberts. Michael H.. 1 19n
Kreisler, B. Robert. I l i n Madison. James. 1 1 & n
Kresgc, Stephen, 137n, 278 & n, 283 Magee, Bryan. I63n, I93n
Kreudcr, Peter, 296n, 296-297 Malcolm. Norman, 235 & n, 238, 254
Kreuzer, Franz, lOOn, 186n Malthus. Thomas, 138 & n
Kuhn, Thomas S.. Chapter 6, 29, 73n, 81, Mann, Thomas, 128
84, 95-96, 103n, 105n, 115, 149, 166, Mannheim, Karl. 73-74
198-199. I99n. 213, 225. 257 & n Maramorosch, K., 53n
Kuno. Sachiko, 41n Marcom, John, Jr.. 114n, !20n
Kuzuya, Hum io, 41 n Marcuse, Herbert. 67-68, !30n
Marschner, J„ 90n
Lakatos, Imre. Chapter 18. 98n. 157, 169n. Marshall. Alfred, 138
I76n, 190 & n . 193, 204, 269-270 Marx. Karl, 45-18, 58, 62n, 64 & n, 67n,
Lande, Alfred, 184 67-68, 71, 102n. 179, 189, 288
Langlois, Richard N„ 49n, I47n Matthews, Gareth B., 1 12n
Larouche, Lyndon, 99n Maxwell, Grover. I78n
laulfer, M. A., 53n McGrath, Michael S„ 42n
laxness. Halldor, 187n McGuinness, Brian. 99n
Lazarsfeld, Paul F„ 130n McHugh, Paul R_. 179n
Lc Corbusier ((Charles-)douard Jeannerel- McKenzie, Richard B., 99 & n
Gris), 128 McLellan, David. 47n
Leary, Warren E., 1 18n Medawar, Peter, 120n, 186, 193, 210, 245n
Leggett, A. J.. I36n Meese, Edwin, U n
Lehrer, Keith, 196 Mcichsncr, Irene, I86n
Leibniz, G. W„ 230 Meiners. Roger E., 89n
Leibrecht, Walter, 297n Meissner, Toni. 186n
Lcjewski, C„ 208 Mendel, Gregor, 124
Lenel, Hans Otto. 109 Menger, Carl, IO8n, 128
Lepage, Henri. 81n, 108 & n, 186n Menninger, Karl, M.D., 51n
Ix-ube. Kurt, 33n Menon, Robert K.. 98 & n. 104n. 1 15.
Levinson, Sanford, 199 & n 118n, 130n, 147
Levinson. Paul, IO.3n, I78n, 257n, 267n Mclstre. P., I36n
Lewis, C. I., 132n Middelmann, Hans. 127n
Lewis, H. Gregg, 1 1 I n Milford, Karl. 28 In
Lifson, Jeffrey D., 42n Milgalc. Murray, 166n
I .ighlhill. Sir James. I36n Mill, John Stuart, 128, 134 & n. 167
Lilly, John C., 51n Miller, David. 178n, 19ln, 208, 257n
Lin den man n . Jean, 99n Miller, J . M„ 53n
Loasby, Brian J., 1 18n Milton. John, 25 & n. 28n, 287
Locke. John. 168, 230 Mirowski, Philip, 134n
Lockslcy, Gareth. IO7n, 107-108 Mises, Ludwig von, 73n, 73-74, 11 7 and n.
Lohle, Jurgen, 186n 187
Looney. David 41n Mitsuya, H„ 41n
Loos. Adolf, 128 Moltke, Count Helmuth von, 278n
NAME INDEX
Monod, Jacques, 43n, 186 Patrides, C. A„ 25n

Montesquieu. 80, 99 Pauli. Wolfgang, 173
Moore. G. E„ 192, 194n, 219n Paulsen, Friedrich, I23n
Morison. Samuel Eliot. 123 Pearson. Karl, 167
Moses. John A., 278n Peirce. Charles Sanders, 124, 156n
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 209 Peisistratos. 26
Muhlen, Norbert, 280n Perkinson. H.J., 258
Muller, Max, 276 Peters, R. S.. 222n, 243 & n
Munz. Peter, 95n. 131n. 140n. 161. 195, Pilot, FL, 186n
226n Pire, Dominique. 187n
Murphy, Gardner. 25n Piston. Walter, 128
Musgrave, A., )69n Pizarro, Francisco. 277
Musil, Robert. 128 Plato. 5n
Myers. D. G.. 148n Polanyi, Michael. 25n. 96 & n, 205
Myhill, John. I68n Popkin, Richard H., 169n, 2 l 9 n , 23 In
Popper, Karl, Part III and passim, xv. 3n,
Naess, Arne, 187n 23 & n, 26n, 28n, 33 & n , 34n, 35n. 38n,
Nagel. Ernest. 99n 44 & n, 48 & n, 55n, 58n, 60n, 6 l n ,
Nails, D„ 75n 63n, 64. 71 n, 73n. 74n. 84n, 89 & n,
Nakashima. H. 41 n 93n, 94n, 95n, 98 & n. lOOn, 104, 106 &
Nathan. N. M. 1... 197 & n n. 108-109. 113. 118n, 125, 126n. 131n,
Needham, Joseph, 123, 167 134n, I35n, I36n, 141 n. 143, 147n.
Negishi, Taskashi, 134n I53n, I65n, I68n, I 7 l n , 174n, 177n,
Neumann. Lily, 1 19n 2l4n, 215n. 222n, 230n, 234n, 237 & n .
Neumann. Yoram, 1 19n 245n, 257n. 258n
Neurath, Otto. 98n Popper. Lady, 261
Neusner. Jacob, 30 Poschl, Josef, 107-108
Newman. James R.. 39n Pound. Ezra. 128
Newman. Peter, 166n Pribram, Karl, 178n
Newton, Sir Isaac, 36-37, 49 & n, 61 , 24 1 Price. Derek J. de Solla, I I9n
Niebuhr, Reinhold, 291 Prichard. H. A., 249n
Nietzsche, Friedrich, xiii. 99, 124 Prigogine, Ilya, 135 & n
Nisbett, Alec. 187n Protagoras. 5n
Nisbett, Richard E„ I98n Proust. Marcel, 128
Niskanen, William A.. Jr., 80, 81n Psimopoulos, M„ 176 & n
Nixon, Richard. 8 Putnam. Hilary, 175-176, I76n, 219n.
Nolte, Ernst. 207n 220n, 233 & n, 248n
Nordhofen. Eckhard. 33n, 58n. 95n, 249n.
261 n Quayle, J . Danforth. 189
North, Douglass, 30 & n , 98 Quine, W. V„ I69n, 233 & n . 251n
Notturno, M. A„ 179n Quinton, lord. 34n
Nozick, Robert, 90. 233 & n
Radnitzky, Gerard, fin, 13n, 33n. 59n, 75n,
Oakeshott. Michael. 148n, 244n, 271 90n, 91n, 95n. 103n, 124n, 131n. 167n,
Ogilvie, Sheilagh, 122n Ifi9n, !80n. I82n. 184n, 195n, 21 In.
Olivier, Sir Laurence. I87n 212 & n . 216n. 226n. 240n, 249n. 265n.
Oresme, Nicholas, 27n 290n
Ostrowski. James, 9n Rae, John. 122n
Overman, E. Samuel. 75n, 199n Rahula, Walpola. 254n
Rakove. J., I In
Pagels, Heinz, 142n Rapoport, A.. 77n
Pahler, Klatts, 189n Rathbone, Christopher, l20n
Palermo, Dasid S., 126n, 237n Rawls. John. 63n. 90
Pangle, Thomas L., 199n Read, Sir Herbert. 192
Pappas, George S„ 196n. 226n, 230n Redfield, Robert, 52n
Pareto, Vilfredo, 91 Reichel-Dolmatolf. Alicia. 68 & n
Park. Robert E„ 209n Reichel-Dolmatolf. Gerardo, 68 & n
Parkin, Frank, xvi Reichenbach, Hans. 98n
NAME INDEX
Reid. Louis Arnaud. 244 n Schwarzschild. Leopold, 48n, IO2n

Reiman. Arnold. 118n, 198n Schweitzer, Albert. 123, 186
Renan, Ernest. I22n Scott, Peter, 190n
Reacher, Nicholas, 196n Scott, Patrick. 26n
Reskin. Barbara F., 1 I9n Scruton. Roger, 13ln
Rhees, Rush, 263n Segovia. Andres, 187n
Ricardo. David, 48 . 128. 137-138, I38n Self, Sidney, 117 Hen, 142n
Ricketts. Michael, 98n Sellars, Wilfrid, 196
Ricoeur, Paul. !30n Sessions, Roger, 128
Riedl. Rupert. 90n, 187n Seton-Watson. Hugh. 281n
Riesman. David. 130 & n, 209n Sextus Empiricus. 169 k n, 219. 231 & n
Riczler, Kurt, 278n Shackleton, J. R.. 107n
Robbins. Lionel (Lord), 13ln Shaffer. Peter, 209n, 2091
Robinson. Joan. 127 Shapin, Steven, 73n
Robinson, Richard, 50n Shaw. George Bernard, 55n
Roche, George, 14n, 203 & n Shearmur, Jeremy, 190 & n , 191n
Rohl, J . C. G., 278n Shite, Edward, 96. 100
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 8 Shimonv. A., 75n
Rorty, Richard, 73n, 95 k n , 132, 140 & n . Shockley, Wiliam B.. 125
195 & n, 199. 226, 233 & n Simpson. Amos E„ 280n
Rorty, Mary Varney, I3ln Siren. Oswald, 276
Rosen, C., 53n Skilbeck, Malcolm. 243 & n
Rosen, Winifred. 5 I n Skinner, A. S-, 92n
Rosovskv. Henry, 121n Smart, J . J . C., 50n
Ross.J . J „ 226n Smart, Ninian, 50n
Rosse, James N., 1 14n Smith, Adam, 25, 27n, 28n, 48. 89, 92 & n,
Rossi, Peter H., 130n 106, I l i n , 122n, 137
Rostropovitch, Mstislav. I87n Smith. K. M„ 53n
Roitenberg, Simon. 142n Snow, Lord, 129, 183
Ruderman, Florence, 198n Snowden, Ethel, 277n
Rushdie, Salman. 292n Socrates. 5n
Russell, Bertrand (laird), 34 & n . 51, 99n, Sodroska.J., 53n
125, 167, 186, 192, 212 & n, 215, 217 & Sommer. Jack, 134n, 142n
n, 257 Sowell. Thomas, 127n
Ryle, Gilbert, 194n, 223 Spinoza. B., 230
Spunvay, Helen. 25ln
Sabra. A. I., 157, 190 & n Spreer, Fridtjof. 186n
Said, Edward W., 277n Squires. Arthur. 142n
Salamun, K., 141 n Stacton, David, 128
Salieri, Antonio. 209-210. 2 1On Starr, Paul, I43n, 198n
Samuels, Warren ].. 49n Starr, Richard. 10 In
Santayana, George, 124 Steele, David Ramsay, 99n
Sarrazin, Thilo, 186n Stcgmuller, Wolfgang. 140n
Sartre, Jean-Paul, I98n Stein, Howard, 173 & n
Schacht, Hjalmar Horace Greeley. Part IV. Steiner, George, 1 14n, 185 & n, 209 & n
280n Stengers, Isabelle. 135n
Schwartz, Harry, 14n Stich, Stephen P.. 198n
Schilpp, P. A.. 169a, 172n, 182n. 203n, Stigler, George L.. l o i n . 104n. 112. 118 &
220n. 233n n, 122n, 143 & n
Schmidt. Helmut. 186n. 266f, 267n Strauss. David, 123n
Schoeck, Helmut. 68-69, 68n, 69n Strecker, Robert, 54n
Schonberg, Arnold, 162, 296 Strecker, Theodore A.. 54n
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 124, 185, 263 Sundberg, Jacob, 6n
Schrodinger, Erwin, 61 Suranyi-L'ngar, Theodore, Jr.. 148 He n
Schumpeter. J „ 131n Swain, Marshall, 230n
Schur, Edwin M„ 531n Sykes, Charles J„ 99 & n
Schuster, Jack IL, I U n . H 2 n Szasz, Thomas, 187
Schwarz, Pedm, 158
NAME INDEX
Tagore, Sir Rabindranath. 254 Waley. Arthur, 276n, 276-277

Tarski. Alfred. 35n, 98n Wallace. Robert W.. 26n
Tashiro, Yuki, 4 l n Warhol. Andy. 5
Tau, Max. 187n Wartofsky, M. W.. 164n
Taylor. A. J. P., 123 Watkins, J. W. N., 28n, 33n. 35n, 50 & n,
Temin. Howard, 43n 55n, 157. I79n. 190 & n, 258
Thatcher, Margaret, 145 Weber, Max, 128. 131 n
Theocharis, T.. 176 Wedgwood, Veronica. 123
Thera. Devamitta, 253n Wehowsky, Stephan, 186n
Thompson. D'Arcy. 251 n Weimer, Walter B.. 126n, 178n, 204n,
Thomsen. Esteban F., 49n. 66 & n 237n
Thomson. J. J., 11 I n Weinberg, Alvin M., 25n. 96n, 109 & n
Thoreau, Henry David, 14 Weingartner, Paul. 178n
Thornton. Henry. 128 Wheelis, Allen, 205 & n
Thornton, W. T., 134 & n Whewell, William, 167
Thorpe. W. IL, 251n White. Morton, 195 & n, 226, 233 & n
Thurber. James, 128 Whitehead, Alfred North. 125
Thurow, Lester, 145 & n Whitley, Richard. I36n
Tillich. Paul. 291 Whyte. 1- 1... 251n
Tietzel, Manfred, 186n Wiggins. Lynda, 204n
Todd. W. B.. 92n Wigner, Eugene P.. 173-174. 174n
Tollison, Robert D.. I l i n Wild, John, 286n
Touhnin, Stephen. 96n. 244n Wilhelm 1. Emperor of Germany. 279
Tocqueville. Alexis de. 128 Williams, Michael, I97n
Toynbee, Arnold. 123 Wilson, Angus. 191
Trenckner, V., 253n Wisdom. J. O„ l05n, 158, 190 & n
Trevelyan, Charles, 123 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Chapter 14, 15,
Trevor-Roper, Hugh. 123 58n, 99n, 101, 104 & n. 110 & n. l40n,
Tuchman, Barbara, 123 188, 194-195, 212n, 216n, 2l9n, 220n.
Tullock. Gordon, 80, 81 n. 99. 240n X226n, 234-235. 236n, 238-239. 253n,
Tuttleton, James W., 148n 261-263, 263n, 271
Woese. C. R., 124n
Ueno, Ryuji. 41n Wollheim, Richard. 193
Unwin, J. D„ 62n Wong-Slaal. Flossie, 4 l n , 53n
Updike. John. 128 Wood. Alan, 125n
Woolf, Virginia. 128
van der Matten, M.J., 53n Wright. J.. 52n
van der Rohe, Mies, 28 Wright. Frank Lloyd. 128
Vandercschercn, B., 53n Wukedls, F.. 90n, 187n
Veblen, Thorstein, 107
Visser' t Hooft, W. A., I87n Yamada, Kozo, 41 n
Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet), 3 Yeats, W. B„ 128
Young, S. David. 9n, 142n
Wachtershauser, Gunter. 44n. 124 & n
Wade, Nicholas, 97n, 99 & n Zlabinger, Albert. 33n
SUBJECT INDEX
Academic freedom. 103n Censorship, in distribution of ideas. 24
Access Clear thinking, instruction in. 112-11.3,

to distribution. 24 141. 192
to information. 2.3-24
to licensing, 24 Cognitive psychology. 66 & n
to shelf-space, 24
Communism
Accessed slice (of content of a theory), .38- in Marx. 64
39, 49n to compel to receive or supply, 6
Action at a distance Competition

and economics. 136 & n among universities, 120-121, 141
among ideas, in Popper. 105-106, 182
AIDS and growth of knowledge, 9.3
advancement in knowledge of, 39 & n attitude of intellectuals toward. 100-102
and unpredictability from earlier in Kuhn's philosophy, 104
knowledge. 39-44, 52. 61 limits on. within intellectual community,
possible creation of, 52-5.3, 52n, 53n 99-102, lOln. 109-110, 115, 148
treatments for. 40-44, 40n, 4 In. 42n to utilise and disperse knowledge, 65
Alienation, Chapter .3 (Complementarity, 174-175

and acknowledgement, 69-70
and determinism. 44 Complex phenomena. 82, 236n
and free individual, 208
and human maturation, 71 Compound Q, 41-42, 42n, 4.3 & n, 61
and knowledge-production, 6-1
Hayek and. 64 & n Conservatism, 10-11
Hegel on, 68 and use of stale power, 11-12
Marx on. 45. 47n, 58, 64 & n. 67-69. 71 in alliance with religion, 12-13
Popper on, 64
psychologists on, 67 (Conspiracy theory, Chapter I
Amadeus,as expression of emotional Constitution

aspect of creativity, 209-210 objectives in American. 80
for learning . 83. 106
Attachment
in Buddhism, 50-51 Constructivist rationalism
in Hayek. 286 & n
Austrian economics, 130n, 136
Content (of a theory). 34-38 passim
AZT. 40 & n, 43. 61 and testability in Popper, 179
informative. 35-37, 57
Behaviourism, 130, 132, 175 logical, 35-38, 35n. 57
neglect of
Bovine leukaemia virus, 532 by subjective researchers, 58
in sociology of knowledge, 147
Buddhism, 251-257 Popper on. 38 & n
Business Copenhagen Interpretation, see Quantum
behaviour in conduct of. 98-100 theory
SUBJECT INDEX
Corroboration of theory, 178, 239 economic barriers used in creation of

279-285
Costs of change not divided at end of 19th century, 273
information, transaction, and opportu- process of division. 277-285
nity costs, 91, 145. 147
Duties and Enutlements
Crisis of authority how they accumulate, 17
in academic life, 102
Ecology
Criticism of knowledge. 79 & n, 83, 89-90. 90n
according to positivist view. 218, 221 of rationality. 240-243
as an alternative to justificationism. in
pancritical rationality, 238-240 Ecology of rationality, 240
danger of suppressing, 266-267
diminished by justificationism. 132n, 257 Econometrics, 91
ways to enhance, 82. 240-242
impossible if knowledge is divided, 221 Economics
in science, 105n, 105-109 Adam Smith and beginning of, 92 & n,
Kuhn on, 84 & n 137-138
of Popper's views by his students, 208 and assumption of scarcity, 138-139
of theories, in Popperian philosophv, and concept of unmeasurable wealth,
159, 179-180, 182 137, 139
required as a means to advance and epistemology. Chapter 5, 25lf„ 73.
understanding. 264 149
suppressed by orthodoxy, 108 and general equilibrium theory, 91, 134-
140
Cultural clash. Benefits of, 19 anil Popperian philosophy, 166n
and Schacht's invention of modern
Demarcation, problem of, Chapter 10. controls and restrictions, 280-285, 280n,
chapter 11, 168-169, 169n, 179-180, 184, 281n
215 its enslavement to mathematics. 133-136
of knowledge, Chapter 4
Determinism. 44n, 130, 132 origin of, 25 & n
Ricardo’s influence on, 138 & n
Dextran sulphate, 40-41. 4 In, 61 two approaches within, 137
as an example of dispersed knowledge,
40-41 Education, passim
as transformation, 113
Differential calculus, development of, 107 Buchanan on, 113-114
Differential growth, 92 Elites, professional. Chapters 6. 7, 8. 12
Dispersed knowledge Empiricism, 27

examples of. 40-43, 40n, 61
Hayek on, 40n, 65. 275 Entitlement
as perceived by endangered traditional
Discovery process group, 20. 294
Hayek on. 28. 65n, 65-66 origination of claims to, 17
Distortion Envy, as cause of paralysis in society. 68 &

elimination of, 82-83 n, 69
in sociology of knowledge, 79-80, 108
interest-generated. 82 Epistemology (theory of knowledge)
and economics, 25. Chapter 5, 149
Divided world and Popper's solution to induction. 257-
and extended order. 287-288 259
conditions for reunifying, 287-290 and scientific theories, in Popper, 182
crises within. 218-120
SUBJECT INDEX
descriptive epistemology. 75n constitutional saleguards on. 80

Foucault on. 211 & n indispensable conditions for, 3
Hirst on. 211 & n limits to. Popper anecdote on, 3n
Marx on, 46
Evolution. 58 of association, 18
and growth of knowledge, in Popper. of attention. 5
182. 241 to reject, 4
and unpredictable change. 289 to supplv and receive. Chapter I. 3, 4n.
of institutions, 82 6n. I5n, 23ff.
in advancement of knowledge. 83-84 evident in the way they limit one
survival of Darwin's theory, Whcelis on, another, 4, 23-15
205 information, 5-6, 23, passim
three rhythms of. 203-209 not reducible to one another, 4
to keep secrets, 5
Evolutionary epistemology, Chapter 5. 58-
59. 83-84. 241-242. 258-259 Freudian approaches. Chapter 3
Evolutionary theory Freudianism. 175 & n, 205

and logic of knowledge, Dewey on. 241
Popper on, 182 & n General equilibrium theory, 49 & n. 134-
140
Exploitation
in Marxism, 45, 65 Geometries
as example of inseparable nature of
Extended order. 288 knowledge. 244-245, 245n
Fallibilism, 33-34. 34n Gestalt perception, 77

Konrad Lorenz on. 76-77. 77n
False philosophies. Chapter 8
Godel's proof. 39 & n
Fashion, intellectual
and conduct within universities, xiii Gold
in conduct of science, 104-105 restriction on supplying and receiving of.
8. 12
Free markets
for ideas. 25n, 25-29. 95. 103-105 Goodman's paradox. 169 & n
Freedom Government agencies, professional

differences in Anglo-Saxon and control of, 142
continental traditions. 6n
distribution. 24 Gresham’s Law. 27 & n
duty and claims to entidement, 16-17,
291 Guerilla with tenure, xiv
direct route. 16
indirect route. 17 Harvard
government restrictions on supplv, 6-7. loss of excellence, 30
13-14, passim
protection of life and property, 8-9, 14 Heideggerian philosophy, 132
regulation of morals, 9
to further state regulation, 9-10, 14 & Hermeneutics, 84n, 130 & n, 132, 226 Sc n
n
to permit state censorship, 10 Historical determinism, 73
in conflict with government restriedons
on receiving. 7-8 passim Historical scholarship, 122-123
for protection of life and propertv. 8-9,
20 Historicism. IO8n, I48n
and the draft, 1-1
Bertrand Russell on, 3 & n HIV virus, 39n. 41. 4 In. 52n. 53 & n
SUBJECT INDEX
lack of knowledge of. as example of Information explosion. 117-118

unfathomable knowledge, 39-44, 52, 61
Informative content (of a theory), sec-
Hoover Institution, Senior Common Content (of a theory), informative
Room, 3-5
Initiation rite, use of mathematics as. 140
Ichazo, Oscar
and liberation from vice, 51 & n Innovation
myth of. as team effort. 98n
Ideas not sole cause of growth. 143
economic value of, 15 & n, 25-28, 25n, agriculture as example of. 144
26n. 147, 223 outside the university. 120-129
content of, neglected in sociology- of within the university, and competition.
knowledge, 147 141-143
ownership of, 73, 74
structural characteristics of. 75n. 75ff. Innovators outside the university, 122-129
vehicular characteristics of, 75n, 75ff.
Intellectual freedom, 101
Ideologies
and control of professions through limits Intellectual cartel, 131, 140-141, 145
on licensing, 142-143
entrenched networks of. Chapter 8 Intellectuals
governing university conduct, xiii don’t like free markets for others.
supported by rituals. 132-141 Chapter 6
limiting nations in today's divided world, like free markets for themselves.
291-293 Chapter 6
within philosophy departments, 193-194 why they like and need Kuhnian ideas.
within the university, 129-130 Chapter 6
Immunological theory, 39-44, 53n, 61 Intentions, Chapter 3

retroviruses in. 39n, 42-44
Intervention
Independence to explain undesirable effects. 28
and ability to gather information, 23, 32
individual desire for, 46 Invisible hand, in Adam Smith, 27n
Individual Irreversibility. 134-135

and acknowledgement, 70
and creativity, 208-209, 263 Justification, Chapters 14, 15. 34n, 84n,
and ownership of ideas, 74 132. 196-198. 196n. 197n. 198n. 257
and traditional rules, 275 & n
Keynes
Individual rights and influence of ideas on society, lOOn
Constitutional protection of, 11 on effect of Franco-Cerman War, 279
as seen by Madison, 11 8c n
on effect of World War I, 280
Induction, Chapters 10, 11
and justificationism. 216-220, 257 Knowing subject, 48. 57
and Wittgensteinianism, 216-220
in Ayer. 247-248 Knowledge, Chapter I , passim
in Russell. 217 & n and distribution of ideas, 24
Popper's solution of, 257 and economic value, 49n, 223
applied beyond epistemology, 258 and free market. 95. Chapter 6
within philosophy of science, 168-171, and freedom, 23. 31-32
226-227, 257 and general right to. 5
and impossibility of knowing. 34, 85.
Inductive logic. 113. Part III passim
and innovation. 143-144
SUBJECT INDEX
as an exosomatic product, 59-66, 85 Ix-vamisole, I4n

as carried by scientific community, 78, 96
as essentially divided, in Hirst. 243-247 Liberalism
refutation of, 244-245. 245n contemporary, 10
as ever-increasing, 29 nineteenth-century, 10 & n
autonomy of. 45. 60 tyranny of. 12
demarcation in, 215 & n
differential growth in, 92 Liberty, Prologue, Chapter 1
doctrine of fragmentation within. and access to knowledge, 3 1
Chapter 14, 229 and knowledge, 23-24
division of, 221-1 11 as applied to information. 23-24
economics of. Chapter 4 limits on, 3n
as replacement for sociology of constitutional basis of, 80
knowledge, 146-149 indispensable conditions for, 23
growth of, 29 & n, 30 & n, 93. 227 marketplace of ideas and, 25
institutional contribution to. 97-98, 114-
115, 117 "Life-style” of a nation. 19, 294
inaccessibilities of. 34
limits on, xiv Localisation. 92-94
limits on access to, 24, 31, 93
localisation of growth in, 92 Ixtgical content (of a theory), 35-38, 35n,
marked. 83 57
objective, see Objective knowledge- and informative content, 36. 264
sociology of. Chapters 4. 6, 146-149 and Tarskian consequence class, 35 & n
distortion in. 79410, 82
must lx- replaced by economics of Ixrgical strength, 169 & n
knowledge, 146
underlying problematic in. 225-226 & n Logical positivism, 130, 168n, 169 & n. 170
theory of, see Epistemology & n, 194. 218, 224, passim
unfathomable nature of. Chapter 2, 85.
263-26 Madison, James. II
unity of, 240-243
vehicular characteristics of, 77-80, 85 Marked knowledge. 83
Knowledge products, 45. 59-60 Market order. 59 & n, 65-66

and sociology of knowledge, 74-75, 95-97 generating knowledge. 65
and sociology of science, 103-105 in intellectual community, Chapti 6
as self-expression. 62
combine vehicular characteristics and Marketplace of ideas, Chapter 1, 25n, 25-
referent attributes, 77-78 27, 28n, 46. 48. 83, 85. 93
differential growth of, 92 altitude of intellectuals towards, Chapter
exchange of, 47-48, 95-97 6. esp. 100-101
in Popper. 182 & n Coase on, 28n, 100
not fully known to producer, Chapter 2. demand for deregulation of, 100-101,
33n lOln
existence of more than one, 204
Kuhn, Thomas S.. philosophy of, Chapters extending beyond universities, 195
6 and 7 historical development of, 25n. 26
as sociologist, rather than economist, of Keynes on. lOOn
knowledge. Chpater 6 Kuhn on. 103-104
false account of research community in, not the guide to state policy, 287
103-109 unenforceable limits in conduct of, 97-
98. 100-101
Laughter, suppression of, 28 & n
Marx
Law of diminishing returns, 139 psychoanalytic view of, 67-68
self development through writing, 62n
Law, Patent, 47
310
SUBJECT INDEX
Marxism Optimal vehicles. 79

and eventual success in Russia. 189
and expressionist account of knowledge, The Pale, xiii
62 & n
and Popper, 163. 179 Paradigm. 104-105, IO5n. 108. 144, 166
and retentive control of products, 6-1-65, and views of Popper and Wittgenstein,
67-69 211-213
as intellectual ancestor of sociology of costs of revising, 148
knowledge, 73, 1-18
role in western academic philosophy, xvi Paradoxes of confirmation, 169 & n
&n
unlestable nature of, 179 Patent law
Wheelis on. 205 & n and unfathomed products of knowledge,
44 & n. 48
Mathematics, enslavement to. 133
■people", question of nature of life-style
Medical insurance. 16 of. 19
stale control of in California, 16
Phenomenology, 130
Metacon textual shift, 258
Philosophies,
Metaphysical determinism, 181 entrenchment of. Chapter 8
"problematics” in, Chapter 14
Metaphysical research program, Pop-
perian task of. Chapter 14
examples of, 180 tenets of, Chapter 14
uses of. Chapter 14
Moral relativism, xvi Philosophy as academic discipline.
Chapter 10, 185
Morality acceptance of Popper by, 185-188, 204-
and evolutionary epistemology, 258 205, 204n
and spontaneous order, 59, lOOn alliance with Wittgenstein, Chapter 14
and unfathomable knowledge, 50-56 conformist nature of. 198 & n
as business of the state, 1 In dependence on induction. 113
differences with Popper. Chapter 14
Name of the Ko\e. The, 28 for instruction in clear thinking . 1 12-113
ideologies in control of. 193-194, 194n
Natural selection mathematical logic in, 133
and knowledge, in Popper, 182 & n meaning analysts in, 133, 170, 180n, 246
Darwin’s theory of, as example of methods of, 153 & n
metaphysical research program. professionals within, 165-166
180 & n Schopenhauer on, 184
Negative utilitarianism, 50 & n, 54-56, 55n Philosophy of Karl Popper/Popperian

views, xv, 146, Part 111, passim
Objective knowledge. Part I. Chapter 3. acceptance of. Chapter 12
48, passim and economics, 166n
and Popper's refutation of induction in and detachment. 252-253
science. 177, 257 and “knowing subjects”. 48, 57-58
and subjectivist tradition, 57 and negative utilitarianism, 50, 55n
in third-world countries, 290 and philosophy professionals, 1 13. 166.
theory of. 79 Chapter 12
unfathomable character of. Part I, 135, and psychoanalytic theory. 179 & n
263-267 and scientific community. 103 & n , 166,
186 & n
Open society, 19. 23, 70-71. 16-1, 254. 258, and unity of knowledge. 226n. 226-227.
293 240-242
and Wiltgensteinianism. 195, Chapter 14
311
SUBJECT INDEX
conjectural nature of theory. 178, 253 Plagiarism, 99, 188

corroboration in. 1 78, 184 & n, 239
evaluation of. 258-259 Popper. Karl, Chapter 9
evolution and, 182 and attitude towards language, 263-267
falsifiability in, 179-180. 215 Lakatos's dispute with, 269
Itdeism in. 237 and The l-ogir of Scientific Discovery
metaphysical determinism in, 181 as theoretical basis of all other studies,
model of scientific explanation (Popper- 177-180
Hempel model). 223n circumstances at time of publication.
on analytic philosophy, 243-244 192
on competition of ideas. 105-106, 182 publication of, 158, 193
on ethics, 55 n reviews of. 193 & n
on growth of knowledge, xv, 89, 105-106, writing of, 16-1
182, 194 & n and The Open Society and its Enemies
and underlying unity of method. 251 difficulty of publishing. 192-193
on handling contradictions within a and The Poverty of Historicism
theory. 107 delay in publishing, 192
on induction. Chapters 14, 16 as a young teacher, 160-161
on induction in scientific proofs, 177- as difficult man. Chapters 9, 17
180, 226 at Alpbach, 261
on liberty, xv, 3n at Fallowfield, 161-162
on logical positivism at the LSE, 161, 265-266
on moral and intellectual relativism, xvi envy of, 209-210
on phenomenology and hermeneutics. in New Zealand, 161
xv lessons of, 159
on progress of science, 104-106. 165-166 misreading of, examples of, 98n, 165n,
on science. IO6n, 108, Chapters 10. 11 I76n, 196-197, 196n, 204 & n. 223n,
suppression of, xv 226n
pancritical rationality within. 236-240 philosophy of, sec Philosophy of Karl
potential for survival. Chapter 13 Popper
propensity interpretation of probability, practice of personal relationships.
181-182, 182n Chapter 17
refutation of probabilism, 169 public response to, 176, 186-190, 187n
theorv-laden character of observations, reception by professional philosophers,
176n, 177n, 177-178, 230 Chapter 12, I65n. 200
transformation of philosophy by. students of. 156-159, !90n. 190-191
Chapter 16
underlying assumptions of opponents. Popperian revolution. 165-166. 189
Chapters 14, 15 versus Wittgenstcinian revolution, 212
verisimilitude, 184 & n
World 2 and World 3 in, 195 & n, 200 Potentialities
as a part of knowledge, 43, 61
Philosophy of science. Chapters 10 and 11 discovery of. through exchange process,
collapse within. 175-176 46
crisis in. Chapter 10 real though unactualised, 61
early treatments of, 166417
effect of relativity theory on, 172-173 Pragmatism, 130
influence of Ernst Mach Verein on, 167
&n Predictability, laplacean, 135
Popper’s resolution of problems within.
177-180, 183 Prices as signals
problems of demarcation and induction in cognitive psychology, 66
within. Chapter 14, 168-172, 179-180. in Hayek, 66
184
profession of, Prinripia Mnthemalica.125
birth of, 166-168
reexamined from within science. 183 Probability calculus, see Quantum theory
status of theories within. 174-175
SUBJECT INDEX
Promiscuity. 50-51 Retroviruses, 39n, 42-43

Ichazo on, 51-52
Schrodinger equations. 61-62
Propensity interpretation of probability,
sec Philosophy of Karl Popper Science, sociology of, IO3n
Thomas S. Kuhn on, 103-110, 103n
Property rights, 20 & n
and difference of Anglo-Saxon and Scientific community
continental traditions on, 6n as carrier of knowledge, 78
exchange of. 47 influence of philosophy on, 165. 186
in marketplace of ideas, 97-98, 100-102 lack of regulation of, 96-98
growth of, 144
Scientific research
Psychoanalytic theory. Chapter 3 and social context, 73-74
unlestability of, 179 & n as a reference for other academic
disciplines, 171-172
Public bad (as opposed to public good), as socialist undertaking. 109
113 effect of central control of, 42
Public choice theory, 80n, 80-82. 99 Scientific theories

Public schools. 14 & n status of, 174-175
Publication explosion. 117-118 Scientism. 130, 132, 234n, 236. 251-257

to persuade f reely to receive or supply, 6
Scottish philosophers, 25 & n
Puzzle in Kuhn's account of science. 104
Secret intelligence, danger of, 287 & n
Quantum theory
and philosophy of science. 173-175 Self. 62-64. 62n
probability calculus in, Popper on. 180- as a World 3 creation, 200
181 effect of theories in holding together, 63
inability to know oneself fully. 63
Rationality, Chapter 15
comprehensive, 230 Separation of powers. 80
limited. 230
pancritical, 230-231 Sociology of knowledge, sec Knowledge,
sociology of
Relativism, 132
in Kuhn. 105, 148 Sociology of science, see Science,
in scientific theory, 105-110 sociology of
Relativity theory Spontaneous order, 59, 82

and philosophy of science, 172-172 and development of educational
idealistic implications of, 172 & n institutions, 82 & n
and 19th-century civilisation, 275
Research program between free action and general benefit,
metaphysical, 214 & n, 222n, 270 138
examples of, 180 Hayek on, 59n
scientific vs. metaphysical, Chapter 18, music as an example of, 297
2O4n, 214n
State, the
Research within educational institutions absence of, in classical economics, 81
economic structure of. Chapter 7 and freedom of association, 18
feudal character of, 11-1-115 and preservation of cultural identity, 26
U. S. dependence on, 117 Sc n & n, 294
as compellor to supply and receive, 6-15,
Retention, in evolution, 203-209 17
as competent and disinterested rcgula-
SUBJECT INDEX
tor. 14-15 Theory of objective knowledge, 79

as controller of behaviour. 12
as protector of traditional values, 12 Theory of public choice, see Public choice
its duties, 17. 18 theory
Gray on. 271
not informed by open marketplace of This book
ideas, 287 intention of. xiv
its parts, xiv-xv
Subjective knowledge, Chapter 3
and self-expression, 62 & n Thoreau. Henry David, nonconforming
in economic sense, 48 dwelling of, 14
in sociology of knowledge, 74. 91
Trade agreements
Systematic selection, in evolution. 203-209 exclusion of. at Bretton Woods. 285
in 19th century, 280
Tarskian consequence class, see Logical post World War I, 280-284
content post World War II, 284-285
Taxation Truth
income tax. 12 Milton on, 25-26, 25n
as a state power, 13
Twentieth century, as age of superstition,
Theory/Scicntilic theory xiii
acceptance of, von Mises on, 117 & n
and intent of its creator. 39, 57. 61-62 Unfathomable knowledge. Chapter 2, xiv-
as consensus of scientific community, 110 xv, 30-37, 263-267, passim
as subject of investigation, 60 and content of Einsteinian and
changing nature of meaning of, 38 Newtonian theory, 36-39
content of, 35-38, 57 and control of product. 67-69
contradictions within, how to treat. 107 and immunological theory, 39-44
conjectural nature of. 178 and nature of self. 62
corroboration of, 178 and sociology, Chapter 4
economic value of, 38, 43, 48-49 effect on arts and sciences, xiv
effect on observation, 177 effect on development and exchange of
falsifiability of. 179-180 knowledge. 48
potential falsifiers of, 36 effect on liberty, xiv. 31-32
requisites for understanding of, 34-38 effect on morality, 50-56
treatment of discrepancies with fact. effect on possible ownership or control
Coase on, 107 of ideas, xiv, 32, 45-46, 74
unfalhomed content of. 43, 264 in economics, 134-140
understanding of, 34
Unintended consequences
Theory of economic value examples of. 8n, 53 & n, 249 & n
as related to unfathomable knowledge, of tuting language, 263, 266
48-50, 139-140
in general equilibrium economics, 49 & Unity of the sciences. 218-219, 235, 240.
n. 134-140 251
in intrinsic value theory, 48
in labour theory of value. 48, 48n Universities, Part II, passim
and politicisation of studies, 105n
Theory of gravitation as marketplaces of ideas, xiii
Einstein’s. 36-37, 39 as non-conducive to growth of knowl-
Newton's, 36-39 edge. xiv
as producers of knowledge. Chapter 6, xv
Theory of knowledge, see Epistemology as source of innovative ideas, Chapter 8
as suppressive of new ideas, xiii-siv
Theory of knowledge vehicles, 79 Bok on, 29
Buchanan on. I l l
SUBJECT INDEX
demographics os, xvi Virus, see AIDS; bovine leukaemia virus;

do not create intellectual history, 200 Hepatitis B virus; HIV virus; visna virus
domination of by false philosophies.
Chapter 8 Visna virus, 53 & n
in midst of intellectual slump. 120-123
not the center of learning pursuits. 207 What is indlspensiblc to freedom.
&n Prologue
reform of, 143-145
role of interest groups within. 81 Wish for attention, 5
Unjustified variations, in evolution. 203- Wish for privacy. 5

209
in philosophy of Paul K. Feyerabcnd, 203 Wittgenstein
&n unrealistic views of life, 262-263
Unlearning, 85 Wittgetrsteinian philosophy. Chapter 14,

101
Unlimited right to know among false philosophies. 130
does not exist, 5 and consequence of abandoning
communication, 262-263
Utilitarianism, negative, see Negative arid logical positivism, 194
utilitarianism and philosophy of religion, 224
and philosophy professionals, 166, 194
Vaccination and scientific elite. 165
Hepatitis B study. 53 & n and Vienna Circle, 188
WHO program of, 53 & n and views of Thomas Kuhn, 104 & n
obscurantist nature, 132
Vienna Circle, 167, 188 "problematic" of, Chapters 14. 15
On Professor Bartley has written an
Universities original treatise on the theory o f
Knowledge, and i he Wealth

of Nations
knowledge which is at the same lime
a profound critique of Western
universities. It is a critique with a
Unmeasured difference: at once polemical,
William Warren impassioned, and magisterial in tone.
Wealth Banley. I l l Unlike other critics of higher
education such as Allan Bloom.
Bartley is not concerned primarily with the transmission of tradition. Rather, in 'Universities
and the Wealth of Nations’ (Part I I o f the book), he contends that the university i s gravely
hampered in its prime goal of contributing to the growth of knowledge. Claiming that
"epistemology (i.e. the study of the growth of knowledge) is a branch of economics (i.e. the
study of the growth of wealth)". Bartley charges that Western universities find themselves m
a grave intellectual depression induced by the economic principles around which they are
organized. The idea that there is a free market of ideas in the university is a fantasy. The
notion of a "knowledge explosion” is — except in a few areas such as medicine,
biotechnology, and the information sciences — an illusion. Even these productive areas.
Bartley argues, would be crippled i f they were confined to the universities: it is their
interaction with the world outside academe which enables these disciplines, in some
localities, to thrive.
While agreeing with the authors of ProfSeam and Betrayers of the Truth about the
corruption of the professoriate, Bartley isn’t interested in a merely anecdotal, moralizing
account of the behavior o f university researchers. Rather, he develops an in-depth case
study of ‘The Curious Case o f Karl Popper’ (Pan III of the book), showing how the
leachings of the most original philosopher of the twentieth century have been excluded from
departments of philosophy. Bartley describes how outdated assumptions and institutions
virtually force some of the most idealistic and high-minded o f men into protectionist
“intellectual cartels" which inhibit innovation and lead to immoral, uncritical, and untruthful
behavior on the part of their members. Rejecting the claims o f the Sociology o f Knowledge
to account for such behavior, Bartley indicates the outlines of a new discipline: the
Economics of Knowledge.
William Warren Bartley, I I I earned degrees at Harvard

before studying under Sir Karl Popper at the University of
London. While teaching at California State University al
Hayward i n 1979, he was named Outstanding Professor in the
statewide system. A thinker and writer of unsurpassed
lucidity and range, he wrote or edited 13 books, including the
twentieth-century classic Retreat to Commitment and the best
selling biography of Werner Erhard, founder o f est. B y
inspired detective work he tracked down missing fragments ot
Lewis Carroll's treatise on logic, and edited the substantially
new edition of this work which appeared in 1977. Professor
Bartley died at the age o f 55. shortly before Unfathomed
Knowledge. Unmeasured Wealth went to press.
Open Court
La Salle, Illinois 61301

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Unfathomed On Universities

and the Wealth

The Retreat to Commitment

Morality and Religion

Lewis Carroll's Symbolic Logic

Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man

S i r Karl Popper, Postscript to the Logic of Scientific

Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of

F. A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism,

F. A. Hayek, The Trend of Economic Thinking (with Stephen Kresge),

On Universities and the Wealth of Nations

First printing 1990.

All rights reserved. No part of this

Printed and bound in the United States of America

Library o f Congress Catalogtng-in-Publicalion Data

Bartley, William Warren. 1934-

The previous chapters may sometimes have given the im-

A MANIFESTO B Y WAY OF A PROLOGUE

Part I: UN FATHOMED KNOWLEDGE

Chapter 1 . Liberty, Knowledge, and the Marketplace of Ideas

Chapter 2. Unfathomed Knowledge

Chapter 3. Intentions and Expressions: The Objection Reconsidered

Chapter 4 . The Sociology and Economics of Knowledge

Part II: UNIVERSITIES AND THE WEALTH OF

Chapter 5. Epistemology and Economics

Chapter 6. A n End Run: Why Do Intellectuals Like Kuhn So Much?

4. Why Our Intellectuals Need

Chapter 7. What is the Economic Structure of Our Research

Chapter 8. The Entrenchment of False Philosophies

Part III: THE CURIOUS CASE OF KARL POPPER

Chapter 9. The Popperian Philosophy and the Difficult Man Who

Chapter 10. The Crisis in Philosophy

Chapter 1 1 . How the Crisis Was Resolved

Chapter 12. Popper’s Reception by the Profession: Con Lamento

Chapter 1 4 . The Underlying Assumptions of Popper's Opponents:

Chapter 1 5 . Justification and Rationality

Chapter 1 6 . The Popperian Harvest 257

Chapter 17. On Making a Difference:

Chapter 18. On Imre Lakatos 269

Part IV: FORGOTTEN PAST, UNKNOWN FUTURE

Chapter 19. Forgotten Past, Unknown Future: America and the

Name Index 299

Subject Index 306

When he finished writing this book, W. W. Bartley, III, had

W. W. Bartley, III, was Senior Research Fellow of the

Rerum cognoscere causas.

1 am grateful to the following persons for conversations and

1 What I Wat Taught, and What 1 Learnt

/ was taught as a student that the university is a marketplace of

one’s career as one of our eccentrics, as a beloved clown. This is of

2. What this Book Contains

This book of essays is intended for those interested in philoso-

' See Sidney Hook, "Intellectual Rot", Mrasurt. February 1989.

| firsl and second Parts are devoted to two fundamental and

cause these philosophies are particularly congenial to Marxism2 and

Let Me Count the Ways I Love You,

In these mutual limitations that the freedom to supply and the

On the other hand, provided I do not compel you to receive

many drugs, alcohol or pornography to those under age;

As an example of the last prohibition, it is at the moment 1 write

supply or disseminate, within the U.S., anything the Voice of Amer-

Among other things we may be forbidden to supply are:

fruit that falls below marketing-board standards; the skins of