Abstract
There are 41 essays in this collection of Professor Wettersten’s writings, 20 in book one and 21 in book two. Together the two volumes approach a thousand pages, and include over four hundred fifty footnotes that offer interesting expository, historical and critical insights. Most of the essays include extensive bibliographies that show the breadth and depth of Wettersten’s research. Twenty of the essays are recent, published between 2006 and 2021. Twelve are older, with six essays each from the 1980s and the 1990s. Three are essays from the 1970s and they show the exuberance of youth. But one of those, Wettersten’s challenge to the traditional historiography of psychology, “The Historiography of Scientific Psychology; A Critical Study” (1975), develops a critique of that historiography that has yet to be answered. Six are essays previously unpublished.
Each volume is composed of parts, three in book one and four in book two, with the essays assembled to support the thesis of each part. This creates a nice structure for reading the two volumes. One can read them piecemeal, selecting just essays of interest, or one can read all of the essays in any given part to get a deeper understanding of the thesis of that part, or one can read the two volumes as the development of an extended argument for the need for a fallibilist social methodology and its application to institutional problems.
The opening paragraph of the introduction to book one sets the stage: The rational thinking of individuals is a social activity. It follows rules. But these rules vary from context to context. Sometimes they are rather effective in furthering the pursuit of truth and/or the discovery of solutions to both practical and theoretical problems. But sometimes they are not. Central tasks of the social sciences are the identification of which rules are followed in which contexts, the appraisal of their good and poor qualities, and the development of new alternatives which do better. These problems go beyond the social sciences into political and moral problems on how to live well. The essays in these two volumes explain why these tasks are central to the social sciences and how attempts to solve them can improve to some degree both research in the social sciences in general and moral and political discussions in particular. They thereby offer specific suggestions for how important tasks may be more usefully pursued in various contexts.
The first essay of book one, “Quine’s Journey: Did He Find His New and Glittering Sights?”, the longest essay in both volumes at 64 pages, goes after the prevalent view of contemporary analytic philosophy of science, that of Carnap and his disciple Quine. Wettersten mounts a sustained and devastating critique of their views. Of particular note is that the essay is one of those previously unpublished. It is an extraordinary effort and, in my opinion, deserving of a dedicated conference with the author providing the keynote address.
Another essay of note in book one is the final essay, “A Modest but difficult project for critical rationalism and religion: The integration of religions in open societies,” (2010). It has an interesting autobiographical section discussing Wettersten’s religious upbringing and his difficult move away from the church. This will be of interest to historians of philosophy who appreciate the relationship between philosopher and philosophy, the importance of the relationship of biography and belief.
While all of the essays in the collection are deserving of recognition, I comment on only one in book two, “Achievement and Autonomy in Intellectual Society.” It is an older essay (1987) but also has autobiographical overtones, this time about Wettersten’s career up to that point. It portends the direction (and depth) of his research over the next 35 years and demonstrates his prescience. Professor Wettersten has more than 40 additional published essays outside these two volumes, and he has four books beyond that (the most recent before the two under review here being “How Do Institutions Steer Events? An Inquiry into the Limits and Possibilities of Rational Thought and Action,” published by Routledge in 2016.) These publications complement the two volume collection. Wettersten’s essays and books are not only a defense of Popper and Fallibilism but critical of both, extending the theories in significant ways, putting Wettersten deservedly in the ranks of the foremost Popperian scholars: William Warren Bartley III, Joseph Agassi, Ian Jarvie, and David Miller.
From a technical perspective there are some issues with the two volumes. Six of the essays are translated from the German, and there are parts of the translations that could be clearer. The editing at some points could also have been more careful, but these are minor points given the importance of the overall collection. The collection is recommended for purchase by university libraries and philosophy department libraries, particularly those with graduate programs. The essays show a lifetime of development of important Popperian and Fallibilist ideas, but going beyond them, introducing new problems, new solutions and displaying critical self-reflection. The essays represent a significant body of work. It would be impossible to write a review essay of the two volumes given the sheer number of essays. That would itself require a body of work. Suffice it to say the collection is penetrating, groundbreaking and philosophy at the highest level. The collection is surely to be referenced in the future by serious scholars of Popper and Fallibilism. I am honored to have been a colleague of Professor Wettersten early in his career and have continued to learn from him ever since. I congratulate him on the publication of this collection of his essays.