Synopses & Reviews
This intellectual biography recovers the legacy of Karl Popper (1902-1994), the progressive, cosmopolitan, Viennese socialist who combated fascism, revolutionized the philosophy of science, and envisioned the Open Society. Malachi Hacohen draws a compelling portrait of the philosopher, the assimilated Jewish intelligentsia, and the vanished culture of Red Vienna, which was decimated by Nazism. Seeking to rescue Popper from his postwar conservative and anticommunist reputation, Hacohen restores his works to their original Central European contexts and, at the same time, shows that they have urgent messages for contemporary politics and philosophy.
Review
"Popper's early years are comprehensively covered in Malachi Haim Hacohen's The Formative Years...attest[s] to the vitality of the ideas [Popper] introduced." New York Review of Books"While much of Hacohen's book is accessible to analysts of language and philosophers of science, its rich evocation of the turbulent yet vital interwar Vienna should win this formidable book a wider readership" Publishers Weekly"Hacohen convincingly argues that Popper imposed the telos of his mature philosophy on his intellectual development...this fine biography adds enormously to the understanding of an influential thinker." Choice"While much of Hacohen's book is accessible to analysts of language and philosophers of science, its rich evocation of the turbulent yet vital interwar Vienna should win this formidable book a wider readership" Publishers Weekly"...he [Hacohen] presents intellectual history at the highest level by coordinating internal (theoretical) and external (contextual) explanations, and provides us with new findings on a highly original thinker and an expressive characterization of the cultural and political climate in interwar Austria." Austrian History Yearbook"His story is exciting and his scholarship meticulous... ." Library Journal"Hacohen (history, Duke Univ.) convincingly argues that Popper imposed the telos of his mature philosophy on his intellectual development...this fine biography adds enormously to the understanding of an influential thinker." Choice"...admirably written and informative..." German Studies Review
Synopsis
This 2001 biography reassesses philosopher Karl Popper's life and works within the context of interwar Vienna.
Table of Contents
Introduction; 1. Progressive philosophy and the politics of Jewish assimilation in Late Imperial Vienna; 2. The Great War, the Austrian Revolution, and communism; 3. The early 1920s: school reform, socialism, and cosmopolitanism; 4. The pedagogic institute and the psychology of knowledge, 1925-28; 5. The philosophical breakthrough, 1929-32; 6. The Logic of Scientific Discovery and the philosophical revolution; 7. Red Vienna, the 'Jewish Question', and emigration, 1936-37; 8. Social science in exile, 1938-39; 9. The Open Society, 1940-42; 10. The rebirth of liberalism in science and politics, 1943-45.