The Critical Rationalist Vol. 01 No. 03 ISSN: 1393-3809 30-Dec-1996
Part I
Contents
Der Aberglaub', in dem wir aufgewachsen,
Verliert, auch wenn wir ihn erkennen, darum
Doch seine Macht nicht über uns. - Es sind
Nicht alle frei, die ihrer Ketten spotten.
G.E. Lessing
(1) Karl Popper has found beautiful words for his
admiration of the period of enlightenment, which he
considered one of the most inspired in European
history[1]. In my
country this period is connected not only with the name
of the great philosopher and scientist Immanuel Kant,
but also with that of the poet Gotthold Ephraim
Lessing, one of the early outstanding figures in German
literature. Having acquired from Karl Popper a taste
for using mottoes I would like to put this paper under
a motto taken from Lessing's play "Nathan der
Weise"--"Nathan the Wise". This is a
beautiful play, staging a dramatic background from the
time of the crusades for a strong and very touching
plea for tolerance between the three great religions,
the Jewish religion, Christianity, and Islam, and
Lessing puts into the mouth of one of the main figures
of the play, the young templar, words which might, in a
clumsy attempt to preserve the metre, perhaps be
translated as follows:
The superstition in which we were brought up
will, though we have seen through it, thereby
not lose its power over us. - Not all
are free who mock at their own fetters.
(2)
Of this last passage, "Not all are free who mock at
their own fetters"--"Es sind nicht alle frei, die
ihrer Ketten spotten", I feel reminded time and again
when reading Karl Popper's books,
because I keep discovering new implications
of ideas of his which I have accepted as true many
years ago without, apparently, realising their full
importance. This used to worry me a lot, but I have
ceased to do so after reading, in Unended Quest,
that it took Popper himself years to discover the
bearing which his demarcation criterion of
falsifiability had on the problem of
induction (Popper 1976, p. 52).
(3) I now believe this deficiency must be a normal result of the fact that we are human beings, and not computers. But it does mean, I think, that we must retain a very critical attitude even towards those of our own views which seem to be the clearest because they may be remnants of old superstitions which we believe to have left behind.
Part I
Contents
The Critical Rationalist Vol. 01 No. 03 ISSN: 1393-3809 30-Dec-1996
Copyright © 1996 All Rights Reserved.
TCR Issue Timestamp: Mon Dec 30 17:41:04 GMT 1996