Popper as a pale reflection of Mill

An account and a truly humanitarian defence of this position [“The separation between the history of a science, its philo­sophy and the science itself dissolves into thin air and so does the separation between science and non-science”] can be found in J.S. Mill’s On Liberty. Popper’s philosophy, which some people would like to lay on us as the one and only hu­manitarian rationalism in existence today, is but a pale reflection of Mill. It is specialized, formalistic and elitist, and devoid of the concern for individual happiness that is such a characteristic feature of Mill. We can understand its peculi­arities when we consider (a) the background oflogical positivism, which plays an important role in the Logic of Scientific Dis­covery, (b) the unrelenting puritanism of its author (and of most of his followers), and when we remember the in­fluence of Harriet Taylor on Mill’s life and on his philosophy. There is no Harriet Taylor in Popper’s life. [34]

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