Karl Popper

 

Just been reading "Karl Popper: A Memoir", an article by John Watkins (American Scholar, Vol. 66, 1997); what I like about it is the way it brings Popper vividly to life by way of anecotes. Popper's works are well-known, even if falling into obscurity nowadays (although in part that is because many of his ideas on science have become part of the general background that is simply taken for granted).

 

But here is Popper the man, quicky, and fascinating.

 

On a lecture tour of America, Watkins was looking after Popper:

 

After lunch I was to take care of Popper until his lecture at four o'clock. He was bursting with ideas and talking non-stop. Then he said that he wanted to bathe his feet for the beneficial effect this would have on his brain. I wasn't convinced that his brain needed additional stimulation, but I took him to the bathroom near my room in Silliman College. He emerged in due course, his trouser legs rolled up, to put on his socks and shoes. As he talked, one trouser leg came down. I made a mental note to point out, as soon as there was a pause, that the other was still up. The matter assumed a certain urgency when we emerged into the street; but there he was immediately grabbed by Blanshard, who bore him off to be given his check. I walked on to the lecture hall trying to persuade myself that surely someone would tell him. But when he appeared my forebodings were fulfilled. It would not have been so bad if he had stood quietly behind the lectern, but he strode excitedly about the platform. I took in little of what he said; try as I would to avert it, my gaze kept reverting to that expanse of bare leg. And there was the dreadful possibility that he would use a standard ploy of his, which was to ask the audience to take pencil and paper, observe, and write down what they observed. They usually asked what they were to observe, thereby bringing out the priority of theories over observations; but this time they wouldn't need to ask. After supper Hempel and I went with him to the station. When he climbed aboard the train that trouser leg was still rolled up.

 

The next day I started asking around whether anything wrong had been found with the lecture. Lots had. Popper had been unfair to Locke, was one verdict. Adolf Grunbaum said that he had got Godel wrong. "Yes, yes," I would interrupt, "but did you notice anything wrong apart from things he said?" I gradually came to realize, to my amazement and relief, that no one had noticed - a striking testimony to the attention-arresting quality of Popper's lecturing.

 

At Princeton he gave a seminar talk that both Einstein and Bohr attended. In the discussion Bohr rather took over; he went on and on until in the end the room contained just him at the blackboard and Einstein and Popper as his entire audience. Popper told me that Einstein whispered, "He's mad."

 

And here is Watkins on Popper at home:

 

He had a soft spot for animals. Around this time the Popper home was adopted by a marmalade-colored cat whom they called Chunky. The cat had made a shrewd choice: she was fed on calves' liver and Popper's attitude toward her was infinitely indulgent. When she jumped up on his desk and walked on his manuscript, she was greeted with not even the gentlest push but only a loving "O Chunky, why do you persecute us so?" Once he found her playing with a mouse. This caused him a painful dilemma: she would be deeply hurt and offended if he deprived her of her plaything, but the mouse would be even more distressed if he did not. As a negative utilitarian he felt obliged to put the mouse out of its misery; doing so caused him much distress.