Harman has a post up on Popper and how he ultimately can’t figure out how his critique of Whitehead ended up so silly, but other than falsifiability, are there any texts less interesting? Put aside Whitehead for the moment, is there any reading of another philosopher—with the most scurrilous charges mind you—that isn’t dogmatic, anachronistic, or both? I remember quoting him somewhere about how Rousseau was the “greatest enemy of freedom” and thinking to myself, well there’s an empirical claim hard to justify. And I don’t want to even start on his writings on Plato. One would think Hitler was reading out The Republic at Nuremberg rallies, to read Popper.
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You’re right.
Kaufmann launches an absolutely awesome attack on Popper’s version of Hegel in The Hegel Myth and Its Method from ‘From Shakespeare to Existentialism: Studies in Poetry, Religion, and Philosophy’. It is my fave essay in philosophy ever so I cannot recommend it enough. It is reprinted in many places and probably one of the most reprinted essays I know of. I think it first appeared in The Philosophical Review in the 50s. Here is a link:
http://www.hegel.net/en/kaufmann1959.htm