Book Review: The Poverty of Historicism by Karl Popper

The Poverty of Historicism by Karl Popper

Predicting the future used to be the job of prophets and charlatans. In the 1800s, philosophers like John Stuart Mill and Auguste Comte looked at history and society with an eye to crafting laws of history, social development, and progress. Given enough information, the future of history and society could be plotted scientifically. These ideas were and are very popular in academia, politics, and general culture. People naturally hope that society is constantly improving and is on its way to perfection.

Karl Popper analyzes this philosophy which he calls historicism. He puts historicists in two groups. Many historicists pattern their method after physics, assuming that science can only be done in one way. Other historicists are reluctant to have a strictly mathematical theory since the phenomena being observed is much more diverse and variable, so general principles need to be developed. Popper calls the first group Pro-Naturalistic, the second group Anti-Naturalistic. He gives a thorough overview of both viewpoints, showing their strengths.

In the second half of the book, he refutes both groups while suggesting a more realistic and fruitful form of social science. Popper gets fairly deep and technical in his presentation of the issues. The arguments are precise, detailed, and convincing. Predicting the future (with the obvious end of changing or shaping it) is not possible since sociology is not a science in the same way as physics. The isolated lab experiment is not viable for social phenomena. Too much detail is lost and the very act of conducting the experiment influences the subjects, thereby altering the outcome in a way that never happens with physical matter. The principles governing that are so vague as to be impractical at predicting the future of society or history.

The book is fairly short (about 150 pages) but packed full of information and insight. I enjoyed what I learned and the need to be very focused as I read. I want to read more of Popper, but not a 500 page tome.

Highly recommended.

Sample quote:

We all have an unscientific weakness for being always in the right, and this weakness seems to be particularly common among professional and amateur politicians. But the only way to apply something like scientific method in politics is to proceed on the assumption that there can be no political move which has no drawbacks, no undesirable consequences. To look out for these mistakes, to find them, to bring them into the open, to analyse them, and to learn from them, this is what a scientific politician as well as a political scientist must do. Scientific method in politics means that the great art of convincing ourselves that we have not made any mistakes, of ignoring them, of hiding them, and of blaming others for them, is replaced by the greater art of accepting the responsibility for them, of trying to learn from them, and of applying this knowledge so that we may avoid them in the future. [p. 88]