In Search of a Better World

In the course of a life of ninety years Sir Karl can look back on positive changes in the world - the vast reductions in mass poverty, the liberalization of penal systems, the defeat of dictatorships. The search for a better world is never complete, but in spite of two world wars and a long and dangerous cold war, it was not in vain. The essays and lectures collected in this book chart many familiar as well as some less known aspects of Sir Karl's thinking - from his interest in the birth of scientific speculation in classical Greece to the destructive effects on the intellect of totalitarianism in twentieth-century states. His discussions range over problems of politics, the history of philosophy and great figures of the Enlightenment such as Voltaire and Kant, and the relation of science and art (in an address given at the 1979 Salzburg festival). The book offers important new insights into the thought of one of the greatest of living philosophers, and into the role of science in our civilization.

Part 1 On Knowledge; Chapter 1 Knowledge and the Shaping of Reality; Chapter 2 On Knowledge and Ignorance; Chapter 3 On the So-Called Sources of Knowledge; Chapter 4 Science and Criticism; Chapter 5 The Logic of the Social Sciences; Chapter 6 Against Big Words; Part 2 On History; Chapter 7 Books and Thoughts; Chapter 8 On Culture Clash; Chapter 9 Immanuel Kant: The Philosopher of the Enlightenment; Chapter 10 Emancipation through Knowledge; Chapter 11 Public Opinion and Liberal Principles; Chapter 12 An Objective Theory of Historical Understanding; Part 3 Von Den Neuesten ... Zusammengestohlen Aus Verschiedenem, Diesem Und Jenen*This title is stolen. It comes from a remark written by Beethoven on the manuscript of a string quartet: 'viertes Quartett, von den Neuesten, fur 2 Violinen, Bratsche und Violincell. Zusammengestohlen aus Verschiedenem, Diesem und Jenen.' An approximate translation of Beethoven's untranslatable playful remark would be: 'Fourth quartet, for 2 violins, viola and cello, pinched from the latest compositions - from the most various ones, from these and from those ....'; Chapter 13 How I see Philosophy; Chapter 14 Toleration and Intellectual Responsibility; Chapter 15 What Does the West Believe in?; Chapter 16 Creative Self-Criticism in Science and in Art;