Sociology and Utopia: some reflections on the social philosophy of Karl Popper.

This article reflects on the social philosophy of Karl Popper. Karl Popper is a widely influential writer on the methodology of the social sciences. To many sociologists, scientific method means Popper's account of scientific method. Yet Popper does not believe that sociology should be value-free. He believes that a commitment to scientific sociology, far from clearing us from making value-judgments about utopian thought, requires us to denounce it. Thus Poppers, supports the orthodox view that utopian thought is objectionable, but it is unusual in deriving this value-judgment from his conception of scientific method. Popper developed his views on the methodology of the social sciences and his social philosophy in the course of his critique of something he calls historicism. Popper defines historicism as an approach to the social sciences which assumes that historical prediction is their principal aim, and which assumes that this aim is attainable by discovering the rhythms or the patterns, the laws or the trends that underlie the evolution of history. With characteristic vigor, Popper denounces historicism as logically defective, false, sterile and murderous. Poppers critique of historicism is linked with his analysis of utopianism. The connection is mainly made by a third villain: holism. Holism is the doctrine that events must be understood in the context of the social whole of which they form a part.