POPPER'S VIEW OF MODERN SCIENCE: IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF SCHELLING

It has been readily observed by many Popper scholars that there was something intensely moral about his thought, which I suggest is a moral metaphysics underpinned by a naturalism, which is in keeping with a German tradition exemplified by Schelling. The notion of freedom played a huge part in this. Any scientific or political argument which seems to challenge the existence of freedom is forcefully combated, whether the discussion concerned the discipline of logic, mathematics, physics, biology or politics. For Popper, freedom was everywhere seen at the structural level of differentiated modes of organization in the universe. It was via this discernment freedom's embeddedness in the universe that his philosophy most closely resembles Schelling's naturalism. Despite the advances in scientific knowledge that Popper had access to, key themes in Schelling's thought are recurrent in Popper's later philosophy. This suggests that we can look at Popper as someone whose thought trajectory projected his life's philosophy along a similar path away from Kantianism as Schelling's. It also adds to the rehabilitation of Schelling as a philosopher of science whose thought remains relevant to the current debates.