The Open Universe: An Argument for Indeterminism From the Postscript to The Logic of Scientific Discovery Review

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(More customer reviews)I started this book expecting to disagree with it. Although I am not a full-fledged determinist, if I was forced to choose between determinism and indeterminism or "free will," I would choose determinism, because the other side of the question is so often used to defend utopian social ideals. If human beings have free will, then (so it is argued), just about any social system, whether laissez-faire or communism, syndicalism or anarcho-capitalism, becomes possible. I regard this way of rationalizing political and social ideology as palpably dishonest. Whether human beings are "determined" or not, they do in fact exhibit certain very definite tendencies of behavior and reaction which make them, within certain parameters, predictable, so that, if you study human nature and society long enough, you will easily understand why all these systems will never happen, and that only hybrid systems are at all possible. The other problem I have with indeterminism is that it goes against the grain of scientific methodology. Scientific knowledge is based on the premise of determinism. In short, science practices a form of methodological determinism.
Popper addressed both my concerns, fully admitting their legitimacy but arguing that they don't necessarily contracdict his indeterminist thesis. The criticism of free will by Hobbes, Spinoza, and Hume, Popper admits, is "sound." But, he insists, that,in and of itself,doesn't establish scientific determinism, and it is scientific determinism that he alone is combatting. As for methodological determinism, Popper again admits its validity, but denies the "metaphysical" conclusions that are so frequently derived from it. Since science is always "incomplete," there is no validity in arguing from a useful method to a dogmatic theory about the universe.
Popper's arguments for indeterminism are very brilliant and convincing--certainly a lot better than that wretched argument cooked up Murray Rothbard and propagated by Ayn Rand's followers. Popper stresses the inability to grasp, in a deterministic sense, human creativity, and then goes on to argue that the problem of self-prediction leads determinism to absurdity.
It is always refreshing to come across a book that is actually rational enough to change one's mind. Most philosophy books generally are of the preaching-to-the-choir variety: if you agree with their conclusions, you will think them brilliant; if you don't, you will regard them as silly and inept. Popper is a cut above these mere rationalizing philosophers. His books are addressed to those who are sincerely interested in learning the truth about the universe. As for those who desire merely to have their own pet ideas reinforced, they should look elsewhere.

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The Open Universe is the centerpiece of the argument of the Postscript. Popper argues in simple language for the freedom, creativity, and rationality of mankind.

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