Popper’s philosophy of science rejected every core premise of Critical Theory

Evidence

Popper’s philosophy of science denied that individual observations with any value could be made merely on the basis of a constant relation to what could never be more than a provisional concept of the social totality. It denied that any non-deductive theory could be an adequate way of understanding contradictory, antagonistic societies. It denied that the experience of individuals could be more correct than results established through the official system of organized science. It denied the insight that sociological evaluation could not be neutralized by introspective knowledge, but was on the contrary constitutive of knowledge in some way. `The experience of the contradictory character of societal reality is not an arbitrary starting point but rather the motive which first constitutes the possibility of sociology as such,’ Adorno argued at the conclusion of his second contribution, and continued: Sociology’s abandonment of a critical theory of society is resignatory: one no longer dares to conceive of the whole since one must despair of changing it. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2412

Categorization

• XREF: This four-point rejection list maps onto the positivism dispute of the 1960s; connects to later Habermas’s own critique of both Popper and Adorno’s positions. — connects to: Popper’s philosophy of science implicitly rejected Critical Theory as unscientific — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2411; Popper equated natural-science method with scientific rationality itself — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2410; Habermas radicalized Popper’s critical rationalism via American pragmatism — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2417

Broader Connections

• Popper equated natural-science method with scientific rationality itself #complicates (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2410
• Habermas radicalized Popper’s critical rationalism via American pragmatism #complicates (0.72) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2417