popper-logic-scientific-discovery

PREFACE TO THE
FIRST ENGLISH EDITION, 1959
In my old preface of 1934 I tried to explain—too briefly, I am afraid—
my attitude towards the then prevailing situation in philosophy, and
especially towards linguistic philosophy and the school of language
analysts of those days. In this new preface I intend to explain my
attitude towards the present situation, and towards the two main
schools of language analysts of today. Now as then, language analysts
are important to me; not only as opponents, but also as allies, in so far
as they seem to be almost the only philosophers left who keep alive
some of the traditions of rational philosophy.
Language analysts believe that there are no genuine philosophical
problems, or that the problems of philosophy, if any, are problems of
linguistic usage, or of the meaning of words. I, however, believe that
there is at least one philosophical problem in which all thinking men
are interested. It is the problem of cosmology: the problem of understanding
the world—including ourselves, and our knowledge, as part of the world. All science is
cosmology, I believe, and for me the interest of philosophy, no less
than of science, lies solely in the contributions which it has made to it.
For me, at any rate, both philosophy and science would lose all their
attraction if they were to give up that pursuit. Admittedly, understanding
the functions of our language is an important part of it; but
explaining away our problems as merely linguistic ‘puzzles’ is not.