Inspired by an offhand suggestion from ZW, I thought of and chose the course “Popper’s Philosophy of History.” This course falls under the category of Marxist philosophy, but however the class may be taught, this topic is in itself well worth choosing for me.
Popper is a very special philosopher. His primary identity is that of a philosopher of science, the founder of the so-called “falsificationism,” which is often paired with Kuhn’s historicism. He is also a liberal thinker of enormous influence, and moreover an important critic of Marx and Hegel. In philosophical circles, it would be more accurate to say that Popper is widely looked down upon than widely admired. Indeed, Popper’s philosophical “depth” is not especially great, and on many questions he seems rather superficial (after reading some of his works, I did indeed get this impression). But his “superficiality” is precisely one of his distinguishing features. Compared with great philosophers like Wittgenstein, their thinking may well be deeper and more rigorous, but how much influence have their claims in philosophy of science actually had on scientists? How many scientists have cared about, or paid any mind to, their philosophy? Popper’s philosophy of science, by contrast, has received far more attention and admiration among scientists than those analytic philosophers ever did. In other areas as well, such as his liberal thought, he also had a considerable influence outside philosophical circles. (Of course, this was not only because Popper wrote in a popular style, but also because he really did have extensive contact with scientists and genuinely had a substantial understanding of, and feeling for, their work.)
For me, if one is going to do philosophy of science, Popper is absolutely someone one cannot avoid. But there are not many teachers in our department who study Popper (the department chair, Professor Zhao Dunhua, has studied him, but he is not likely to offer us a course), so although this course starts from the perspective of Marxist philosophy, it is ultimately centered on Popper, which makes it extremely rare.
On the other hand, there also seem to be pitifully few teachers in the department who work on philosophy of history (one could almost say there are simply none at all!), and in this respect too, this course is extremely rare.
Philosophy of history is very interesting. In high school I was already very interested in history, but specialized works on “philosophy of history” (for example, The Idea of History, Introduction to the Philosophy of History, and so on) I only began to encounter recently (a somewhat earlier book I had read, Rickert’s Natural Sciences and Cultural Studies, can also count as one). My initial impression is: philosophy of history is very important and very interesting!
Let me briefly say something about my preliminary impressions of philosophy of history: what does philosophy of history do?
First of all, in general, the first question of any “×× philosophy” is precisely “What is ××?” One of the major questions philosophy of history must discuss first is also “What is history?” Roughly speaking, the word “history” has about two layers of meaning. One kind (History 1) is the so-called “objective,” “real,” “definite” history, or the “course” of human activity; the other kind (History 2) is the history of historians and history books, referring to people’s “records” of past events. So what is the relationship between these two kinds of “history”? Is there really such an “objective,” “real,” or “definite” history that exists independently of human narration? What is the “truth” of history? Does history itself have any “laws”? Can, or should, the narration of history confer some kind of order upon history? How is historical knowledge possible? What is the essence of history? How is history written? …
However, these questions are not the whole of philosophy of history, nor perhaps even the most important questions. A more traditional question in philosophy of history is: “What is the meaning of history?” — and here “history” likewise includes the two layers mentioned above: on the one hand, it asks, “What is the meaning of history itself?” Does history have meaning? Does it have a purpose? Does it have a direction? Is history unidirectional? Or cyclical? … To ask after the meaning of “history” is in fact to ask after the meaning of “humanity,” and this question is obviously important; on the other hand, it asks: What is the meaning of historical narration and compilation? What does history do? How is it done? What should be the object of study in history? What research methods should it adopt? What can we expect to obtain from it? What are the connections and differences between history and other sciences or disciplines? …
Philosophy of history itself is already interesting enough; what’s more fatal is that it is also extremely important for philosophy of science. The full name of the specialty I chose is “History of Science and Philosophy of Science.” The current state of this field is that history of science may do without philosophy of science, but philosophy of science absolutely cannot do without history of science; and the connection between the two has become increasingly close, especially after Popper and Kuhn. And the question of how to understand history is unavoidable in the history of science.
Popper’s philosophy of history was directly influenced by his claims in philosophy of science. So, if we take Popper’s view of history—deeply shaped by his view of science—and then turn it back around to examine science, what would that look like? What interesting features are there in Popper’s doctrine of falsificationism + anti-historicism + evolutionism, the so-called “epistemological evolutionism”? These are the questions I hope to explore in this course on Popper’s philosophy of history.
October 1, 2006
Latest Comments
- UNIC
2006-10-01 17:30:04
Mm~ good stuff.
Speaking of philosophy of history, it again reminds me of the tampering in 1984.
But philosophy of history really has great significance for humankind; the questions you mentioned above are all very interesting.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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