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KNOWLEDGE BETWEEN SCIENCE, HISTORICISM AND IDEOLOGY: THE

PROBLEM OF THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

By Hanns-Peter Neumann

In his introductory essay to Conjectures and Refutations, Sources of Knowledge and Ignorance,

Popper uses his own historical approach to Renaissance philosophy as a peculiar argument for his

theory of fallibility, which at the same time he thinks to be essentially connected with the modern

doctrine of tolerance. Regarding Poppers attitude towards the history of philosophy as it appears in

his early workThe Poverty of Historicism, the above mentioned historical approach to Renaissance

philosophy of Poppers is most surprising. While The Poverty of Historicism implies an exact analysis

and radical criticism of what Popper calls historicism in order to reveal the ideological dangers of

certain intellectual ideas in the context of social politics, in Sources of Knowledge and Ignorance

Popper himself seems to justify his own theories by referring them to philosophical traditions from the

Renaissance to Modern Times. In drawing such historical lines, however, the risk of dogmatism and

ideology is strongly inherent. In consequence, it must be asked whether Popper really intended a

historical justification of his philosophy or not, and, if so, why should he have done this. Poppers

interpretation of specific philosophical traditions must therefore be tested thoroughly. In doing so, we

will meet a basic problem of the historiography of the history of philosophy. This consists in applying

our modern view on philosophical traditions of the past thus commonly tending to see only thosepositions that sound familiar to us. From this standpoint we are inclined to construe a historical line

which leads directly to our modern philosophical thinking. This is exactly what Popper does by

interpreting certain philosophies and philosophers as forerunners of his theory of fallibility and

tolerance. Popper reflects and mirrors himself in the past considering himself the necessary modern

result of a long process of intellectual history. This might, but must not, lead to a self-image based on

historically sometimes arbitrary interpretations of intellectual ideas that are likely to become an

obstacle of proper scientific investigation of the historical past and, moreover, a stratagem of self-

establishment.

However, if there is one principle Popper refers to to deal with historical facts and sources, then it is

obviously an anti-positivistic principle including only interpretation of the facts in order to first

critically create a conjectural theory of coherence and sense in history through thought-experiment.

This is what Popper claims in The Poverty of Historicism and which also seems to be fundamental for

his critical rationalism consisting in the examination of the facts and of our historical sources whether

our historical sources are mutually and internally consistent.1

Provided that there is a correspondence

between facts, sources and objective truth, this means that every construction of a historical line within

1 Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, London and New York

2002, p. 36.


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empiricism as well as traditional rationalism or, if I may say so, Bacon and Descartes under

epistemological optimism, Popper outlines the latter as follows: 1. Truth is manifest. 2. It may be

veiled, 3. but It may also reveal itself, 4. or be revealed by us. 5. So man can know. 6. Therefore he

can be free.6

The doctrine of manifest truth, so Popper, even though it proves wrong in its empiricist and in its

rationalistic tendencies, inspired the birth of modern science and technology. Above all, it was closely

connected to the movement of liberation, which, as Popper presumes, started in the Renaissance and

led to the modern free societies. The link he opens between optimistic epistemology and the

movement of liberation was made possible by the formers critical attitude towards traditional

concepts of philosophy, theology, and science. Thus, the core of epistemological optimism appears to

be rather anti-authoritarian than authoritarian.

Yet epistemological optimism still implies dangerous ideological traps. Popper maintains that the

doctrine of manifest truth necessarily requires an explanation of the possibility of falsehood and error.

From the need for explanation originates, so Popper, a conspiracy theory of ignorance.7

A

consequence Popper concludes from the conspiracy theory is expressed in the following passage:

One can see that an attitude of tolerance which is based upon an optimistic faith in the victory of truth

may easily be shaken. For it is liable to turn into a conspiracy theory which would be hard to reconcile

with an attitude of tolerance.8

The risk of epistemological optimism rests on the belief in an absolute truth manifesting itself within

the historical process. Popper aims at the danger of an utopian historicist attitude towards history, a

sort of optimistic historicism, which can lead to fanaticism, to the upbuilding of authoritarian

structures, and even to epistemological resignation and pessimism for truth does not reveal itself as a

rule and therefore becomes somehow suspicious and disappointing.

Nevertheless these two myths, as Popper calls them, the doctrine of manifest truth and the conspiracy

theory, actually contributed to and were the basis of the nonconformist conscience, of individualism,

and of a new sense of mans dignity, of a demand for universal education, and of a new dream of a

free society.9

All these items Popper considers as closely related to the Renaissance era, which also

stands for, as mentioned above, the origin of the movement of liberation and a in history unparalleledepistemological optimism.

As opposed to epistemological optimism Popper describes epistemological pessimism as follows: 1.

Man is depraved by sin and thus wicked; 2. Therefore he has no certain access to knowledge and

5 Popper, Poverty of Historicism, p. 139.6 Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, p. 6-7.7 Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, p. 9.8 Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, p. 10.9

Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, p. 10.


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truth; 3. To gain knowledge he needs support from an undoubted authority that is able to save man

from folly and wickedness.10

Being dependent on authority or authoritarian traditions this sort of epistemology can be called

traditionalism. For it focuses on the belief that it is impossible to discern an objective truth, and so

depends on the acceptance of authoritarian traditions which serve as a substitute for truth in order to

guarantee at least moral and political orientation.

As a result, we finally have two epistemological worldviews, one of them anti-authoritarian, but with

the risk to turn itself into an authoritarian movement, the other merely authoritarian.

Popper now suggests a synthesis of epistemological optimism and epistemological pessimism in order

to avoid the risks inherent in both of them. First he formulates what he believes is the great problem

not only of epistemology but of scientific research in general. He expresses this great problem by

simply asking: How can we admit that our knowledge is a human an all too human affair, without

at the same time implying that it is all individual whim and arbitrariness?11

After posing this question, Popper turns to the well-known principles of his own methodological

solution, which he defines as rational criticism, and self criticism12

. He maintains, that the doctrine

of fallibility the very core of critical rationalism must nevertheless be closely connected to the

regulative idea of an objective but indisposable truth, because otherwise it would imply

epistemological pessimism, relativism and scepticism.

Above all, Popper does not hesitate to emphasize the social, political and ethical implications of

epistemological problems, thus making clear the direction of his critical approach. By differentiating

between authoritarian and non-authoritarian epistemology he mainly intends to uncover the

ideological traps we might fall into if we take our epistemological starting point for granted. In

consequence, according to Popper, we have to criticise or at least be aware of our most cherished

beliefs for preparing ourselves for scientific research. Concerning the inquiry of history, this means, as

Popper says in The Poverty of Historicism, that we should consciously choose a preconceived

selective point of view which helps us to write that history which interests us.13

The integrity of the

scientist therefore consists in the revelation of the specific problems he finds himself interested in aswell as the hopes and dreams he associates with them. This implies an open-minded attitude toward

ones own theses and predilections including awareness of their conjectural state and, moreover,

including the ability to dismiss them if they should be proven wrong.

Last but not least Popper considers himself obviously a representing follower of this very demanding

scientific ideal by showing that even the movement of political liberation, which led to the modern

free societies, originated in a mistaken epistemological starting point. In consequence, even liberal

10 Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, p. 9.11 Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, p. 21.12 Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, p. 21.13

Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, p. 139.


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attitudes need to be corrected by substituting epistemological optimism and epistemological

pessimism with critical rationalism.

Admittedly, Popper provides a very constructive and creative but highly demanding doctrine of

fallibility. However, one might wonder why Popper within the context of his brilliant essay draws a

historical line from the Renaissance to Modern Times, which does not include any deeper

differentiating view on its heroes and their connection to each other. In the last section of paragraph

ten he explicitly refers to the humanist doctrine of an essential human fallibility14

which he ascribes

to Nicolas of Cusa, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Montaigne, Locke, Voltaire, John Stuart Mill, and Bertrand

Russell at the same time. Moreover, he states that the concession of human fallibility itself implies an

attitude of tolerance, which implicates that all above mentioned thinkers must be more or less

representatives of the modern doctrine of tolerance. Undoubtedly, Popper considers himself a follower

of this tradition, even claiming that his critical rationalism gives the finishing touch to Kants []

critical philosophy15

, because both of them advocate human autonomy instead of reference to

authorities.

I found Poppers judgement especially of Cusa and Erasmus as forerunners of the modern doctrine of

fallibility and tolerance most surprising, irritating, and, moreover, very problematic. Its discussion,

particularly that of Poppers mention of Cusa and Erasmus, may help to shed a light on the difficulties

and risks of the historiography of philosophy.

Dealing with two of the most famous philosophers of the Renaissance era, with Erasmus and mainly

with Cusa, we should not forget that Popper interpreted the Renaissance as origin of the movement of

liberation, of individualism, of a new sense of mans dignity, and of a in history unparalleled

optimistic epistemology.

It is because of this interpretation of Popper's and his affinity with Kant, that I suppose, that in his

judgement of the Renaissance and especially of Cusa Popper referred quite uncritically to Ernst

Cassirer, one of the most important historians of Renaissance philosophy in the 20th

century, and

Cassirers Kantian interpretation of Cusas thinking.

Let us turn now to Erasmus before we concentrate on Nicolas of Cusa.

We might admit that Erasmus in fact can stand for criticism and tolerance in Poppers sense. For

Erasmus not only criticised the holy roman church in order to reform the church from within. He also

endeavoured to revise the traditional translation of the bible to dispose the holy scriptures to new

interpretations. Thus, Erasmus fought against the dogmatic belief system of the catholic church by

discovering new territory in terms of philology. Nevertheless, apart from his philological criticism

Erasmus believed in the absolute truth of the Christian God. According to Erasmus, man is only able

to approach the absolute truth without completing his knowledge of the divine wisdom. Man's inability

14 Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, p. 22.


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to finally approach the absolute truth is due to the Adamic original sin which man can only overcome

by a repentant and at the same time contemplative way of life, which means to concentrate on the

inner core of the Christian faith, the Christ within us. Concerning epistemology, this means to take the

truth that is written in the New Testament for granted. We here have a religious framework of

epistemology, that, I suppose, is very much akin to epistemological pessimism as Popper defines it in

his essay:Man is depraved by sin and thus wicked. Therefore he has no certain access to knowledge

and truth. If there was not the belief in the absolute truth of the Christian faith, which is of course not

the belief in a regulative idea of an objective truth, one could say, that Erasmus has a tendency towards

tolerance. I am sceptical though, whether the attitude of tolerance, especially if tolerance is defined as

a positive ideal, which, I think, we almost never find in the Renaissance anyway, can really be

maintained if one is convinced by the absolute truth of his own faith. On condition that a belief system

is held to be absolutely true, one must conclude that all other belief systems must necessarily be wrong

at least in some aspects. In so far as also scientific investigation is based upon such a belief system, it

can not be consistent with the doctrine of fallibility.

However, the case of Nicolas of Cusa appears to be quite different.

Of course, the title of one of Nicolas of Cusas most important and famous works De docta

ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance) suggests that it actually deals with fallibility and conjectural

knowledge. Also the figure of the layman, whom Cusa describes as someone who is able to think on

his own without referring uncritically to religious and philosophical authorities, seems to prove Cusa's

critical rationalism. Moreover, through works like "De pace fidei" (On Peaceful Unity of Faith) we

might think of Cusa as a representative of religious tolerance.

In fact, Cusa is probably the most important philosopher of the Renaissance era whose impact on the

philosophy of the 16th

and 17th

century cannot be overestimated. His fascinating speculative thinking is

based on a conjectural mathematical methodology. In addition to this, Cusa teaches a universal

religion which rests on his epistemological insights tolerating a multiplicity of rites in order to achieve

a universal peaceful unity of faith. All this sounds very attractive, and it seems to prove the right to let

Cusa participate in the company of those thinkers who like Voltaire represent the doctrine of fallibility

and the doctrine of modern tolerance. But by letting Cusa participate in this tolerant company, Popper,so it appears to me, owes his judgement of Cusa, as I have already mentioned, to Ernst Cassirer's

famous and highly effective history of Renaissance philosophy, The Individual and the Cosmos in

Renaissance Philosophy, first published in 1927, and his far earlier workThe Problem of Cognition in

Modern Philosophy and Science, first published in 1906. In both we can read of Cusa as the first

modern thinker, upon whose epistemology rests true religious tolerance.

Cassirer ascribes to Cusa the recognition of the conditions and limits of the human mind. He therefore

believes that he has discovered in Cusa traces of Kant's philosophical project.

15Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, p. 35.


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In fact, Cusa considers knowledge of the finite nothing but comparison and measurement. Man is

never capable of knowing the infinite, which is God, the absolute unity. Nevertheless, we experience

in our own thinking, so Cusa, that any comparison and any measurement is only made possible by an

absolute measure or unit, to which all things can be related. Cosmologically spoken, this unit, so Cusa,

is the absolute unity and truth, which is again God. In consequence, God can never be entirely known,

but only be approached by the experience of participating in the divine mind through our own

thinking. This may finally lead to a rather mystical experience of God than a rational cognition of him.

But it also means the acceptance of an absolute truth which manifests itself in anything that exists. It

also underlies the human mind, thus making truth at all discernible. In this regard, we might call Cusa

an optimistic epistemologist. There still remains the danger, though, that truth is believed to be entirely

Christian and to constitute the cosmos through trinitarian structures. Truth in this sense might not be

disposable to the human mind, but it is disposable to man through faith. And faith, in this case, is

thought to be the basis of scientific research which itself is expected to confirm the truth of the

Christian doctrine.

Cassirer now simply overestimates Cusa's theory of conjectural knowledge and, on this ground,

construes him as a modern philosopher, tracing the roots of the Kantian project from the

mathematical Cusanus to Descartes and Leibniz. As a result, Cassirer assumes that Nicolas of Cusa

judged space and time to be rather conditions of the human mind than really existent.

It would lead me too far now to show that Cassirer's interpretation is entirely mistaken. But scholars

like Jasper Hopkins and Kurt Flasch have already proven in detail, that Nicolas did not adopt the view

that time and space are not but forms of the human mind.16

What Cusa meant is not that by the absence

of the rational soul there would be no time. What he meant is that there would be no observer-

measurer of succession, which of course would continue on, as would also change and plurality.

Another very problematic interpretation of Cassirer's refers to the judgement of Cusa as a forerunner

of modern religious tolerance. Let me therefore quote the following sentence from Cassirer's The

Individual and the Cosmos: From this point of view [meaning the theory of conjectural knowledge]

Cusanus infers a truly grand 'tolerance' which is anything but indifference. The multiplicity of forms

of faith is not tolerated as a mere empirical juxtaposition, but rather is speculatively required andepistemologically founded.

17

However, Cassirer oversees different aspects emphasizing Cusa's seeming attitude of "grand"

tolerance even though we can say that Cusa practices Christian tolerance as far as Christian faith

allows it in the middle of the 15th

century. I now come to the different aspects Cassirer excluded from

his interpretation of Cusa's De pace fidei: 1.De pace fidei / On Peaceful Unity of Faith'was written

shortly after the fall of Constantinople to the Turcs in 1453, and appears to be deeply influenced by the

16 See Jasper Hopkins, Nicholas of Cusa: First Modern Philosopher?, in:Midwest Studiesin Philosophy, VolumeXXVI (2002), p. 13-29; Kurt Flasch, Nikolaus Cusanus, Munich 2001.17 Ernst Cassirer, The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy, Translated by Mario Domandi,

Mineola, New York 2000, p. 30.


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permanent political and religious threat that Christianity suffered from Islam. As a result, Cusa's

strategy consists in the attempt to rationally convince non-Christian religions, especially that of the

Muslims, of only one universal and orthodox faith, which allows diversity of rites. In Cusa's words:

"Since truth is one and since it cannot fail to be grasped by every free intellect, all the diverse religions

will be led unto one orthodox faith."18 And furthermore: "Therefore, for all those who are of sound

understanding there is one religion and worship, which is presupposed in all the diversity of the

rites."19

However, Cassirer does not mention that this one universal and orthodox faith is simply the

Christian faith including the Christian doctrine of the trinity and of the incarnated Word of God, Jesus

Christ. 2. Cusa's tolerance goes not so far to allow idolatry should it lead away from the true

worshipping of the one God. No matter what religion it is, it must consciously refer to the one God

and must be convinced, even if it adores many Gods, that these many Gods are but different aspects of

the one God. 3. Cusa does not try to convince the Jews with the same effort that he proves toward the

Muslims. Moreover, he shares the typical Christian prejudices of his time against the Jews. This

becomes apparently clear in the following passage:

In their Scriptures they [the Jews] have all these teachings regarding Christ; but they follow the literal

meaning and refuse to understand. However, this resistance of the Jews will not impede harmony, for

they are few in number and will not be able to trouble the whole world by force of arms.20

We should add "like the Muslim", if we want to understand, what Cusa aims at. Cusa intends to save

the unity of the Christian faith and, what is the same for him, of the Catholic Church by all disposable

means, even those of tolerance. From this point of view infers that for Cusa tolerance is by no means a

positive ideal, but rather regarded as a necessary evil while facing the Islamic threat. This becomes

clear in a later work of Cusas titled Cribratio Alkorani / A Scrutiny of the Koran written 1460-1,

where Cusa intends to prove the errors of the Koran and to uncover the Christian core of the Islamic

faith, which is only accepted, as one must conclude, in terms of its Christian interpretation and not, as

we would expect, as an autonomous religion, simply accepted as it is.

It is obvious now that Cassirer's as well as Popper's judgement of Cusa's doctrine of fallibility and

tolerance is at least problematic, if not wrong.Cassirer's Kantian assumptions made him blind for those parts in Cusa's writings which resist his

preconceived interpretation. He, and many others with him, like for instance the Romantic historian of

philosophy Heinrich Ritter, are over-eager to detect in Nicolas and in the Renaissance signs of

modernity. For avoiding misunderstandings, it is not the case that we will not find familiar looking

philosophical concepts in the Renaissance which have a somehow modern touch. But over-eagerness

to detect something one expects to detect is eventually a bad adviser for scientific research and might

lead to a rather paranoic form of investigation.

18 Nicolas of Cusa, De Pace Fidei (III), Translated by Jasper Hopkins, Minneapolis 1990, p. 6.19 Nicolas of Cusa, De Pace Fidei (VI), p. 10.20

Nicolas of Cusa, De Pace Fidei (XII), p. 24.


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However, did Cassirer and long before him Ritter not simply follow Popper's methodological

proposition to start with "a preconceived selective point of view which helps us to write that history

which interests us"?

I would like to answer: Yes, they did, but they failed to falsify their theses because they only grasped

from the sources that which fitted their assumptions. Nevertheless, these theses were necessary to

provide progress within the understanding of the history of Renaissance philosophy.

If the historiography of the history of philosophy wants to be more than only a describing listing of the

works of philosophers, we of course need theses about trends or tendencies within the development

and progress of ideas and traditions. As it is valid for every other trend in history, so it is also valid for

trends within the history of philosophy that Popper says in the following passage of The Poverty of

Historicism: We have the difficult task of explaining them [the trends] as well as we can, of

determining as precisely as possible the conditions under which they persist.21

(129)

But we must be careful not to identify our preselective view with a whole historical era like Cassirer

does in his studies of Renaissance philosophy and even Popper in his essay Sources of Knowledge and

Ignorance. For Cusas learned ignorance cannot be identified with or even connected to Poppers

theory of fallibility or the modern doctrine of tolerance. To avoid these ideological traps, Popper

himself provides methods which are very helpful for the historiography of the history of philosophy.

In his argumentation against the holistic view Popper finally states: For history, like any other kind of

inquiry, can only deal with selected aspects of the object in which it is interested. [...] Every written

history is a history of a certain narrow aspect of this total development, and is anyhow a very

incomplete history even of the particular incomplete aspect chosen.22

(74)

This is what Popper defines as methodological individualism23

. Whoever intends to work on the

history of philosophy should therefore zoom in a certain narrow aspect of an specific era or, to make

the range even smaller, of some decades as for example a study of the problem of the immortality of

the soul in the discourses of the late Quattrocento would do. It need not be said that this is a very

demanding enterprise due to the otherness of the worldview, which seems so far away from ours. And

even reading, not to speak of understanding the sources can be very complicated. As a result, without

the force of imagination, without consulting the sources over and over again, without making small,but precise steps, there will be no progress in the understanding of different historical periods. Popper

brings it to the point saying: In fact, if we know anything about different attitudes in different

historical periods then it is from experiments, carried out in our imagination.24

The latter should be

applied to singular works as well as to intertextual relations between the disposable sources. We

should also be able to imagine what driving forces could be hidden behind certain historical

discourses. But what we imagine is always at stake and must be tested rather by falsification than by

21 Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, p. 129.22 Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, p. 74.23 Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, p. 138.24

Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, p. 87.


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verification in order to go on with constructing and modelling history. This is what also makes

Cassirers work so valuable: It provokes rereading of the sources, it provokes contradiction and thus,

new interpretations. It is because of this that Popper described the work of historians as the field-work

of the mind: And what in the case of historical interpretation we achieve by thought-experiment has

been achieved by anthropologists in practical field work.25

Thus, history is a never-ending experiment in progress.

25Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, p. 88.

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