In this chapter I attempt to accomplish three tasks: first, to reconnect the Popperian interest in science with the interest in social and political matters, so as to highlight the moral dimension of all his works; secondly, to highlight some parallels and overlaps between Popper's ideas and the ideas that come under the rubric of postmodernism; and thirdly, to re-examine critically the extent to which the (social) reliance on individual rationality and personal responsibility is untenable regardless of whether one relies on self-policing initiatives or legislates them within institutional confines. Pockets of success in limited communities (communes or the kibbutz movement in Palestine and then Israel) belie a structural weakness that undermines individual initiatives except under rare conditions.

The moral sense of Popperianism

Throughout this book I have repeatedly emphasized the personal historical context of Popper's work, not so much so as to highlight his biographical journey, as Jeremy Shearmur does so well (1996), but more in terms of the political environment that helped shape or influence his ideas. In doing so, I don't mean to psychologize his works or to find causal connections with, say, the conversion of his parents from Judaism but, rather, I am concerned with the role of the intellectual before and after World War II, a war that displaced thousands of intellectuals from around Europe. It seems to me that being a refugee does have an effect on one's perspective and on the point of view from which one looks at the world and the behaviour of its inhabitants.