“THE STABLE POINT OF REASON”: PRESCRIPTION OR MALADY?

One of the consequences of being a philosopher who insists on removing philosophy from the realm of abstract speculation and installing it as a practical tool for the posing and solving of everyday problems is that you are liable to be taken at your word. Others take that philosophy and “apply” it to practical problems. When this happens the philosopher loses control over his or her ideas, whose coherence and utility are then dependent on the skill and understanding of the disciple. Given Karl Popper's project for just such a practical philosophy it is perhaps not surprising that sooner or later someone should write a book which attempts to use Popper's thought to clarify a whole range of questions about public life, from the “logic” of centralised social, physical or economic planning to the desirability of comprehensive schools and metrication. What must dismay Popperians is that in Dr. Roger James' hands what emerges is a theoretically incoherent book which avoids being petulant only when it is banal.