Poverty of Conventionalism

Poverty of Conventionalism as an allusion to Karl Popper's poverty of Historicism which he prefaced "In memory of countless men, women and children of all creeds or nations or races who became a victim to the fascist and communist belief in Inexorable Laws of Historical Destiny", is of the same foundational mindset as this one masterpiece of Popper. His concept of historicism describes how people tend to place the theorems of political science on the same shelf as the laws of physics. Hence, some would say, since astronomy can predict eclipses, why can't sociology predict a political revolution? This type of reasoning, is what caused fanatics such as Hitler, to believe with absolute certainty that the world is theirs for the taking, a reasoning based on the grounds of some esoteric cosmic law.

In a similar guise, our intent is to provide a solution to the problem of conventionalism. What is conventionalism? In Popper's case, there is a clear-cut doctrine in political philosophy that he is militating against; ironically enough, history was that which showed us the true poverty of historicism, much to Popper's satisfaction. The answer to our question is quite simple: it is what modern psychology calls 'groupthink', or in more colloquial terms 'mindless conformity', an uncritical acceptance of whatever beliefs that are sanctioned by the prevalent prejudices of the community that we are environed in. We hereby solemnly stand by Hume's exhortation that philosophy, and not superstition is that which will give man meaning in life. Philosophy can be acquired only through one's independent thought. However the popular prejudice in our society tends to be that, philosophy without religion is not capable of endowing us with meaning in life as it tends to be dearth of spiritual substance. We regard this claim as manifestly untenable and shall argue the thesis that true spirituality is only possible to be attained through philosophical inquiry. Religion without philosophy is therefore barren. No particular philosophy will be propounded in this book, but only an exhortation to philosophize.