His mention isn't necessary to the argument in the essay. I mention him as someone laboring under similar limitations to Rawls.
The phrase "failed intellectual" comes from a letter written by Eric Voegelin. The failings Voegelin saw in Popper are present in Rawls. That, at least, is what I'm trying to imply.
"Popper is philosophically so uncultured, so fully a primitive ideological brawler that he is not able even approximately to reproduce correctly the contents of one page of Plato. Reading is of no use to him; he is too lacking in knowledge to understand what the authors say. Briefly and in sum: Popper’s book is a scandal without extenuating circumstances; in its intellectual attitude it is the typical product of a failed intellectual; spiritually one would have to use expressions like rascally, impertinent, loutish; in terms of technical competence, as a piece in the history of thought, it is dilettantish, and, as a result, is worthless." -- Eric Voegelin, 1950
More to my point: Popper's "open society" concept is spiritually unified with Rawls' "original position."
What does Karl Popper have to do with this argument ?
His mention isn't necessary to the argument in the essay. I mention him as someone laboring under similar limitations to Rawls.
The phrase "failed intellectual" comes from a letter written by Eric Voegelin. The failings Voegelin saw in Popper are present in Rawls. That, at least, is what I'm trying to imply.
"Popper is philosophically so uncultured, so fully a primitive ideological brawler that he is not able even approximately to reproduce correctly the contents of one page of Plato. Reading is of no use to him; he is too lacking in knowledge to understand what the authors say. Briefly and in sum: Popper’s book is a scandal without extenuating circumstances; in its intellectual attitude it is the typical product of a failed intellectual; spiritually one would have to use expressions like rascally, impertinent, loutish; in terms of technical competence, as a piece in the history of thought, it is dilettantish, and, as a result, is worthless." -- Eric Voegelin, 1950
More to my point: Popper's "open society" concept is spiritually unified with Rawls' "original position."