Karl Popper and the Reconstution of the Rationalist Left

Abstract

Notwithstanding the great ‘positivist dispute’ of the 1960s, Karl Popper and Theodor Adorno upheld many of the same general philosophical sensibilities, which together distinguish them from the ‘postmodern’ social theory that has flourished in the wake of their dispute. In particular, both Popper and Adorno upheld a universalist conception of knowledge underwritten by a critical mode of inquiry. These basic tenets constitute what I call the ‘rationalist left’, in contrast to the post-rationalist, postleftist epistemic politics of today. Implicit in the common ground shared by Popper and Adorno was an institutional basis for universal criticism, namely, the university. A sign of the distance we have moved from their shared sensibility is the status of the university today as either a pale transcendental idea (Habermas) or a mere physical site for the play of social forces (Lyotard). I attempt to pick up the pieces of the Popper-Adorno dispute in an attempt to ‘reconstitute’ the rationalist left.