Ludwig Mises, the Australian connection

Ludwig Mises (1881-1973) is likely to be revealed as one of the sleeping giants of the 20th century. Unlike his Austrian colleague Karl Popper he never touched down on the sacred shores of Australia or any of the outlying islands in the vicinity, not even Tasmania, but there is a strange and fortuitous involvement of an Australian in the translation of his book On Socialism.

The Australian connection is Brian Penton, whose life gives some credence to the old saw that truth is stranger than fiction. Patrick Buckridge wrote a biography of Penton and this is a freestanding piece that gives a fine flavour of the man and his work.

Brian Penton (1904-1951) would surely have achieved the status of the most memorable journalist and commentator in postwar Australia but he died in his prime and left too many enemies to achieve the reputation that he deserved. He was born in Brisbane and left school at the age of fourteen to make an early start in journalism with the Brisbane Courier. At nineteen he travelled to England and worked as a freelance journalist for eighteen months before returning to Australia to join the Sydney Morning Herald.

In 1929 he returned to England, acting as business manager for Jack Lindsay’s Franfolico Press. That episode ended, typically, in prolonged litigation with one of the business partners.
Walking in a London park he met a Hungarian refugee, an economist named Jacques Kahane. They became friends and collaborators in the English translation of a book written in German (1922) on (against) socialism by Ludwig Mises. Kahane was recruited for the task by Professor Lionel Robbins after they became friends while they were students at the London School of Economics.

This brush with the cutting edge of anti-socialist thought served Penton well in later years when he challenged the pillars of the “Australian Settlement” (White Australia, tariffs and central wage fixing) long before they came under widespread attack.

Kahane became a close friend and occasional house guest of Olga and Brian Penton. Each of them dedicated their first books to Kahane, in the case of Brian this was his novel The Landtakers. For Olga it was A Rapid Latin Course with the inscription that she had “hoped that her first book would be a different one”. She was writing a novel while she worked as a Latin teacher to pay the rent.

Karl Popper in the Antipodes

Australia and New Zealand can claim to punch above our weight in many areas of human endeavour, including some sports and some contributions to the life of the mind as well. Often in the past our thinkers found it necessary to leave home to seek fame and fortune in distant lands, but in some cases things worked the other way and we became the site of great work by visitors. Such was the case when New Zealand provided refuge for Karl Popper from 1937 to 1945.

During that time he wrote The Open Society and its Enemies (1945) and The Poverty of Historicism which appeared as journal articles in 1944 and in book form in 1957. Also during that time 14 of his relatives perished in the Holocaust. I have often thought that The Open Soceity was a bit on the long side, running to some 800 pages, many consisting of notes in smaller print. So recently I realised a longtime ambition to produce a condensed version.

One of his colleagues was a young economist named Colin Simkin, 26 at the time he met Popper in 1937. He became a lifelong friend of Popper and a regular visitor to the Popper residence in Britain. He was also allowed to smoke while he walked with Popper in the garden, a privilege indeed in view of the way that Popper banned cigarette smoking in his vicinity at the London School of Economics.

Simkin came to the University of Sydney and in retirement he lived within a mile of our place in Cremorne. We became friends and this revived his interest in some aspects of Popper's philosophy that he felt were not adequatelyappreciated in the social sciences. He wrote a fine book to rectify the situation, unfortunately costing an arm and a leg.

"This book offers a straightforward account of Sir Karl Popper's views on scientific methodology ranging from Logik der Forschung in 1934 to A World of Propensities in 1990. Part I covers his treatment of the interrelations between metaphysics and science, the fallacies of induction, the method of conjectures and refutations, evolutionary epistemology, the propensity theory of probability, and the interpretation of quantum mechanics. Part II considers the problems of the social sciences, his critiques of historicism and holistic planning, his defence of piecemeal planning on both scientific and humanist grounds, his method of situational logic based on models that use a `rationality principle', and the roles of institutions, traditions and history. The book is addressed to those who are interested in general problems of scientific method but find it difficult to get a clear or connected view of Popper's important contributions because these have been published over long intervals and have been subject to misinterpretations."

He also wrote a touching memoire of the time while Popper was writing The Open Society.

"Early in the following year I came to Christchurch as the only lecturer in economics, and very soon was visited by Karl Popper who charmingly introduced himself and asked for help such as Larsen had given him. As he put it, his English was bad and he was ignorant of the social sciences, so that he needed help from someone like me. I felt confident about assisting him with the English language but less confident that a twenty-four-year-old lecturer of quite limited experience could render the same service with the social sciences.
As it quickly turned out, my confidence in regard to English was misplaced. Karl’s command of the language was, naturally, then imperfect so that my pencil made many rapid changes to what he put before me. But his first book had been most critically read by Robert Lammer who had insisted that everything be made crystal clear, a lesson which Karl took permanently to heart and which he applied to my corrections. I had to justify all of them and was often in difficulty when confronted by Fowler’s Modern English Usage, which was then Karl’s main recreational reading – along with stories about Dr Doolittle. Karl had a strong sympathy with children and liked good stories for them. I don’t think he missed, during his time in Christchurch, any talkie of Deanna Durbin, an appealing child star who appeared in singing roles."

During 1945 Professor Anderson offered Popper a position at Sydney but he delayed his decision in the hope of making a move to London. In the event he went to the London School of Economics.

A Note on the Orr Case

In my short post on Philosophy at Melbourne University I mentioned the Orr case.

By way of background, Sydney Sparkes Orr was appointed as professor of philosophy at the University of Tasmania in 1952. In 1956 he was summarily dismissed on the grounds of misconduct, including allegations of sexual misconduct. From then until near his death in 1966, Professor Orr campaigned for reinstatement.

The Orr case raised great passion because of its linkages to academic freedom. However, I was not aware of the complex institutional background, including Professor Orr's immediately preceding agitation for a Royal Commission into the governance and management of the University of Tasmania.

Those who are interested can find information about the history of the University here written from a perspective sympathetic to Professor Orr. W D Joske's ADB entry on Professor Orr provides a harsher perspective.

Philosophy at Melbourne University

When it come to philosophy in Australia, Sydney had often made a lot of noise (think of John Anderson, Professor of Philosophy at Sydney University for some thirty years, and, it's said, the inspiration behind the Sydney Push): Adelaide has been a site of innovation (birthplace of a view of the nature of the mind that came to be known internationally as Australian materialism) and Canberra has been a centre of solid, analytical professionalism. But what about Melbourne? Alan Saunders, The
Philosopher's Zone, ABC Radio National.

This quote comes from the introduction by Alan Saunders to a talk by Tony Coady from the University of Melbourne on the history of philosophy in Australia with a special focus on Melbourne. You will find the transcript plus audio here.

Tony's talk provides an interesting introduction to another thread in the evolution of Australian thought.

Postscript

In a comment, Rafe noted that Jim Franklin had published a remarkably researched history of philosophy in Australia. You will find Rafe's earlier review of the book here.

I have not read this book, but the reference made we wonder how all this compared with philosophy at New England. Here I did Philosophy 1 in 1963 and then, later, Ted Tapp's Philosophy of History course. Both had a major influence on my thinking.

Looking back, Philosophy 1 was quite rigorous. From the mists of the past, it also seems to have had a different flavour certainly from that holding at Sydney, UNE's previous parent, and perhaps from that holding elsewhere in Australia.

The course included an introduction to philosophy that started with the Greeks and worked forward. There were also distinct ethics and logic sections. In logic, we looked at both Aristotle and symbolic logic. I found the symbolic logic very useful later in understanding computers and computing.

I found the references in Tony and Rafe's material to Professor Orr interesting because of what it says about shifts in Australian attitudes. My perceptions of the Orr matter were formed growing up in an academic household at a time when the imbroglio was still current. The central issue as seen then was one of academic freedom.

I mention this because I found the comments on Professor Orr jarring.

I had not thought about this case for a long time, so my own core views on it are really as previously formed. There appears to be a clear gap between those views and current perceptions.

Now that the Orr case is vanishing in the mists of time, it might be interesting to look at it at some point simply because of the way in which it might highlight changing perceptions.