Our Knowledge of the Growth of Knowledge: Popper or Wittgenstein?

Peter Munz, a former student of both Popper and Wittgenstein, begins his comparison of the two great twentieth-century philosophers, by explaining that since the demise of positivism there have emerged, broadly speaking, two philosophical options: Wittgenstein, with the absolute relativism of his theory that meaning is a function of language games and that social configurations are determinants of knowledge; and Poppers evolutionary epistemology - conscious knowledge is a special case of the relationship which exists between all living beings and their environments.

Professor Munz examines and rejects the Wittgensteinian position. Instead, Our Knowledge of the Growth of Knowledge, first published in 1985, elaborates the potentially fruitful link between Poppers critical rationalism and Neo-Darwinism. Read in the light of the latter, Poppers philosophy leads to the transformation of Kants Transcendental Idealism into Hypothetical Realism, whilst the emphasis on the biological orientation of Poppers thought helps to illumine some difficulties in Poppers falsificationism.