situational analysis

The reception of Popper in Japan has not been a glorious history up to the present day. There have been numerous misunderstandings and distortions. It is important to record and discuss them in order to learn from them and to make use of his ideas in the Japanese intellectual climate. This is the purpose of the present paper. From the perspective of the reception history, we searched the reasons why Popper has been misunderstood in Japan (especially in four areas: philosophy, economics, history, and political philosophy), and tried to identify some of the factors responsible for this misunderstanding. To this end, we applied the method of “situational analysis” to the Japanese peculiar intellectual situation after the so-called après guerres, rather than by using a chronological order. If the causes of misunderstandings and distortions in Japan can be clarified by means of a situational analysis, we can learn a great deal from this history and can use this knowledge to throw new light on the status of critical rationalism in Japan

Our analysis of Popper’s philosophy of science focuses on his concepts of tradition and situational analysis. These concepts represent innovative Popperian contributions to a historical and hermeneutical turn in philosophy of science that most of his critics, especially Kuhn, fail to recognize. According to his historical view, Popper conceives sciences as a complex of traditions in continuous transformation and progress by means of rational discussion of theories. In order to grasp the rational progress of scientific traditions, Popper proposes an original method that he calls “situational analysis”. This hermeneutical method seeks to understand the concepts, hypotheses, actions, practices, controversies and products that scientists made to solve problems in their specific historical contexts to improve the truth content of theories. In addition to his historical and hermeneutical turn, Popper also inquired about the social and political conditions for the progress of scientific traditions by means of intersubjective criticism of theories and conjectures. According to him, the rational discussion of ideas requires, as necessary conditions, plurality of ideas, intellectual humility, and freedom of thought and communication that can only exist in an open and democratic society. With these considerations, we may say that in addition to a historical and hermeneutical turn, Popper also contributed to a social and political turn in the philosophy of science