Popper, Hayek, and the Poverty of Historicism Part I: A Largely Bibliographical Essay

Philosophy of the Social Sciences

Volumn 28, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 434-450

  Shearmur, Jeremy ^a  

^a AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84997994555     PISSN: 00483931     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/004839319802800307     Document Type: Article

References (25)

1. Simply looking at the published texts―as I did when I discussed this matter in passing in my Political Thought of Karl Popper (London: Routledge, 1996)―is insufficient, as Popper revised the latter parts of “The Poverty of Historicism” in the light of Hayek's work, and in addition made a number of small changes and additions to the second volume of the first edition of The Open Society and Its Enemies between the time when it was accepted for publication and when it was actually published. It would, I think, be possible to work out from their correspondence just what Popper had access to, and when, and when various changes were made.
2. It is important, in understanding what follows, to note that what appeared in Economica as “The Poverty of Historicism Part I” in fact comprises both Part I and Part II of the book version of The Poverty of Historicism.
3. Popper to Hayek, 26 April 1943 (Hoover Institution Archives, Popper Archive 305.13).
4. Hayek to Popper, 12 July 1943 (Popper Archive 305.13).
5. Popper to Hayek, 17 October 1943 (Popper Archive 305.13).
6. Popper to Hayek, 2 November 1943 (Popper Archive 305.13).
7. Popper to Hayek, 15 November 1943 (Popper Archive 305.13).
8. See also my Political Thought of Karl Popper for an account of other correspondence about the history of the manuscript. I am, on this occasion, limiting my account to information set out in the exchanges between Popper and Hayek.
9. Popper to Hayek, 22 November 1943. He subsequently indicated in a postscript to a letter to Hayek on 16 December that he had sent to Hayek the only up-to-date version of the manuscript. (Both Popper Archive 305.13.)
10. Hayek to Popper, 12 November 1943 (Hoover Institution, Hayek Archive 044). He mentions, further, in letters of 4 and 27 December (Popper Archive 305.13) that he is looking forward to receiving the article.
11. For his misgivings about the title The Open Society, see Hayek to Popper, 4 December 1943 (Popper Archive 305.13); for his work on the London School of Economics (LSE) position, see his letters to the Director of the LSE of 7 August 1943 and to Harold Laski of 28 September 1943 (Hayek Archive 044). I would like to thank Professor J.W.N. Watkins for additional information about Abraham Wolf: he held a full-time Chair in Logic and Scientific Method at University College and a part-time one at the LSE. In 1943, Hayek developed the idea that this part-time chair might be converted into a full-time readership, to be occupied by Popper.
12. Popper to Hayek, 9 December 1943 (Popper Archive 305.13).
13. Hayek to Popper, 29 January 1944 and cable (Popper Archive 305.13).
14. Popper to Hayek, 4 February 1994 and 14 March 1944 (Popper Archive 305.13).
15. Popper to Hayek, 14 March 1944, second continuation (Popper Archive 305.13).
16. Popper to Hayek, 10 April 1994 (Popper Archive 305.13).
17. Hayek to Popper, 2 March 1944 (Popper Archive 305.13).
18. Hayek to Popper, 28 April 1944 (Popper Archive 305.13).
19. The (page) proofs consist of 21 sheets, set up for Economica, numbered 32-52, and are held in Popper Archive 47.4.
20. Popper to Hayek, 1 June 1944 (Popper Archive 305.13).
21. Popper to Hayek, 24 September 1944 (Popper Archive 305.13).
22. See Watkins to Popper 1 August 1956 (Popper Archive 359-33).
23. A version of the Economica manuscript with corrections in Popper's hand is in the Hoover Archive (Popper Archive 47-6), and so is Popper's copy (marked M. C.) of the proofs of the book version (Popper Archive 47-8), which are stamped “Revised 10 APR 1957.” However, the proofs contain material that is not in the corrected Economica copy, and some of this material (the original version of which I was not able to locate a manuscript or typescript) is itself corrected in the proofs.
24. Popper Archive 47.8; proof of p. 36 of first book edition of The Poverty of Historicism.
25. K. R. Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957), 36.