| William Warren Bartley, III | |
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William Warren Bartley, III |
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| Born | October 2, 1934 Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, United States |
| Died | February 5, 1990 Oakland, California, United States |
| Occupation | Philosopher Author Member, Advisory Board, Est, an educational corporation |
William Warren Bartley, III, (2 October 1934 – 5 February 1990) was an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University.
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Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 2 October 1934, Bartley was brought up in a Protestant Christian home. He completed his secondary education in Pittsburgh. He studied at Harvard University between 1952 and 1956 and graduated with a BA degree in philosophy.[1]:18 He spent the winter semester of 1956 and the summer semester of 1957 at the Harvard Divinity School and the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1958, he completed his MA degree in philosophy at Harvard. Bartley was training to become a Protestant minister, but rejected Christianity at that point.[1]:44f He went on to study at the London School of Economics under Sir Karl Popper, where he completed his PhD in 1962. Parts of his disseration, Limits of Rationality: A Critical Study of Some Logical Problems of Contemporary Pragmatism and Related Movements, were subsequently published as The Retreat to Commitment in the same year.
Bartley and Popper had a great admiration for each other, driven by their common stand against justificationism, a view which Popper fought at the British Academy's Annual Philosophical Lecture in 1960 for the first time.[2] However, at the International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science at Bedford College, University of London, 11–17 July 1965, they came into a conflict with each other. Bartley had presented a paper 'Theories of demarcation between science and metaphysics' and had attacked Popper in it sharply. He accused Popper of a positivist attitude in his early works and proposed that Popper's demarcation criterion was not as important as Popper thought. Popper took this as a personal attack, and Bartley took his reply as ignorant towards his criticism.[1]:81f Their friendship was not restored until 1974, after the publication of The Philosophy of Karl Popper.[1]:87 Bartley toned down his views on Popper's demarcation, however, as regards content of these views, the differences remained.[1]:First Part[3]
After his doctoral graduation, Bartley worked as a lecturer in logic in London. Later, he held positions at the Warburg Institute and the University of California, San Diego.[4] He was appointed to his first full professorship in 1969, at the University of Pittsburgh, where he was teaching since 1963. In 1973 he joined the California State University, Hayward faculty as a Professor of Philosophy, where he received the distinction of “Outstanding Professor” of the entire California State University System in 1979. His last position was that of a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution.[5] Bartley died of bladder cancer on 5 February 1990 at his home in Oakland, California, after having been diagnosed with the disease in the middle of the preceding year.[5][6][7]
Bartley published a biography of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, titled simply Wittgenstein, in 1973.[8] The book contained a relatively brief, 4–5 page treatment of Wittgenstein's homosexuality, relying mainly on reportage from the philosopher's friends and acquaintances. This matter caused enormous controversy in intellectual and philosophical circles; many perceived it as a posthumous "attack" on Wittgenstein. Some foreign editions of the book, like the Spanish, were printed with the "offending" material excised.[9] In a second edition of the biography, Bartley answered the objections of critics, pointing out that Wittgenstein's period of active homosexuality is verified by the philosopher's own private writings, included his coded diaries; extensive confirmation was also available from people who knew Wittgenstein in the period between the two World Wars in Vienna, including ex-lovers. Bartley also considers, and rejects, the idea of a connection between the private life and the philosophy.
Bartley wrote a biography of Werner Erhard, the founder of est. Bartley was graduate of Erhard Seminars Training, from 1972. Werner Erhard refers to Bartley in the book as "My friend Bill". William Bartley served on the advisory board of Est, an educational company.
Bartley edited Lewis Carroll's book Symbolic Logic (see symbolic logic), including the second volume, which Carroll had never published.
Bartley is perhaps best known today for his work in extending Popperian epistemology, discussed in his book The Retreat to Commitment. In it, he describes Pancritical rationalism (PCR), a development of critical rationalism and panrationalism. PCR attempts to work around the problem of ultimate commitment or infinite regress by decoupling criticism and justification. A pancritical rationalist holds all positions open to criticism, including PCR, and never resorts to authority for justification.
Parts of Popper's Realism and the Aim of Science, a book which Bartley edited, and the Addendum to the fourth edition to The Open Society and its Enemies contain passages that are commonly interpreted as Popper's acceptance of Bartley's views. Mariano Artigas held that these were in fact written by Bartley himself.[1]:23–25, 96 Alan Ebenstein, a biographer of F. A. von Hayek, criticized Bartley for the extent of the changes he made as the editor of The Fatal Conceit.[10]
At the time of his death, Bartley had just finished his last book, Unfathomed Knowledge, Unmeasured Wealth: On Universities and the Wealth of Nations. Other works he was preparing at that time included writing a biography, and editing the collected works, of Friedrich Hayek. The latter is still being completed after Bartley's death by his colleagues. Also unfinished is a biography of Karl R. Popper. Both biographies were already in an advanced stage at the time of Bartley's death.[5]