Making Sense of Critical Dualism

Making Sense of Critical Dualism

Description

The theory called ‘critical dualism’ is one of the most important, but far from the clearest, parts of Karl Popper’s conception of the way history and the human sciences are related to morals and politics. It is a theory about the relation between the facts or factual laws which the human sciences might discover and the norms or decisions which we might adopt in the face of those facts. Norms and decisions, Popper asserts, cannot be derived from facts; no belief that a certain particular or law-like state of affairs prevails in the world can commit us logically to any decision regarding our conduct. It is for us to decide what to do with regard to any fact that we take to be the case, to alter it if it is alterable, or to oppose attempts by others to alter it.

Source Publication

Popper and the Human Sciences

Source Editors/Authors

Gregory Currie, Alan Musgrave

Publication Date

1985

Making Sense of Critical Dualism

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