Karl Popper

Sir **Karl Popper** CH FRS FBA (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian and British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics.

He is considered one of the most influential philosophers of science of the 20th century. He also wrote on social and political philosophy, especially the evils of totalitarian ideas and politics. Popper is known for the idea of empirical falsification.

## Life

Karl Popper was born in Vienna (then in Austria-Hungary) in 1902 to middle-class parents of Jewish origins, both of whom had converted to Christianity. Popper received a Lutheran upbringing and was educated at the University of Vienna. His father had 12,000–14,000 volumes in his personal library.

In 1919, he became attracted to Marxism. He joined the Association of Socialist School Students and also became a member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria, which was at that time a party that fully adopted the Marxist ideology.  He soon stopped believing in Marxism, and was a supporter of social liberalism for the rest of his life.

## Falsification

Popper, brought up in Vienna, was well aware of the Vienna Circle. That school of logical positivism, led by Moritz Schlick, defined knowledge (especially scientific knowledge) as being propositions which could be verified. Popper thought this was quite wrong. In his opinion, science grew indirectly, by wrong ideas being _falsified_. This he worked up in great detail in a series of books, of which _The logic of scientific discovery_ is the most famous. All philosophy of science since then has had to deal with this issue, the _criterion_. By 'criterion' is meant: what is it that makes a theory truly scientific, as opposed to simply common sense or opinion?

## The open society

Popper's work on political philosophy is also of great importance. Marx claimed knowledge of an historical process, where societies evolved from one state to another, until they reached a final state. This type of thought is known as 'historicism'. Popper argued that the growth of human knowledge partly causes the evolution of human history. Since "no society can predict its own future states of knowledge", it follows that no science can predict human history.

Popper's great works in defence of the liberal society were _The open society and its enemies_ and _The poverty of historicism_. His allies in this struggle were Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises and Milton Friedman.

### The paradox of tolerance

Although Popper was an advocate of toleration, he thought intolerance should not be tolerated. If tolerance allowed intolerance to succeed completely, tolerance itself would be threatened. In _The open society and its enemies: The spell of Plato_, he argued that:

- "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them".

## The Three worlds doctrine

The **Three Worlds Doctrine** was invented by Popper  and is used in philosophy to understand the condition in which we find ourselves as human beings.

It assumes the existence of three worlds. They are

- The outside world, which we know and understand with our senses.

- The world of consciousness, which we experience as our inner  thoughts and dreams

- The world of thought content that is passed between humans in culture and speech yet exists outside of any individual person.

This way of looking at reality is used by many philosophers to explain the relationship between the physical and spiritual worlds.

It was first described by the Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper in a lecture given in August 1967.

## Key works

- _The logic of scientific discovery_, 1934 (as _Logik der Forschung_, English translation 1959),
- _The poverty of historicism_, 1936 (private reading at a meeting in Brussels, 1944/45 as a series of journal articles in _Econometrica_, 1957 as a book),
- _The open society and its enemies_, 1945 Vol 1 The spell of Plato. , Vol 2 The high tide of prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the aftermath.
- _Conjectures and refutations: the growth of scientific knowledge_, 1963,
- _Objective knowledge: an evolutionary approach_, 1972, Rev. ed., 1979,
- _Unended quest; an intellectual autobiography_, 1976,
- _After the Open Society_, 2008. Edited by Jeremy Shearmur and Piers Norris Turner, this volume contains a large number of Popper's previously unpublished or uncollected writings on political and social themes.

## Related pages

- Liberalism

## Other websites

- Discussion of Popper's Life and Work  from Philosophy Talk Radio Program
- Karl Popper from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- The Karl Popper Web
- Karl Popper Institute  includes complete bibliography 1925-1999
- Sir Karl Popper Society  International Association for the Promotion of Science and Research, in German
- Influence on Friesian Philosophy
- Open Society Institute George Soros foundations network
- "A Skeptical Look at Karl Popper" by Martin Gardner
- "A Sceptical Look at 'A Skeptical Look at Karl Popper'" by J C Lester.
- Sir Karl Popper: Science: Conjectures and Refutations
- Information on Lakatos/Popper  Site maintained by John Kadvany, PhD.
- _Discovering Karl Popper_  by Peter Singer The New York Review of Books, vol. 21, no. 7 (May 2, 1974)
- _History of Twentieth-Century Philosophy of Science_, BOOK V: Karl Popper  Site offers free downloads by chapter available for public use.

## Infobox (philosopher)

- **region**: Western Philosophy
- **era**: 20th century philosophy
- **color**: #B0C4DE
- **image**: Karl Popper.jpg
- **caption**: Sir Karl Popper c. 1980s
- **name**: Karl Raimond Popper
- **birth date**: 28 July 1902
Vienna, Austria
- **death date**:
London, England
- **main interests**: Epistemology
Philosophy of science
Social philosophy, Social and political philosophy
- **notable ideas**: Falsifiability Hypothetico-deductive method
Open society
- **influences**: Socrates <small>(via Plato)</small> Aristotle
Immanuel Kant, Kant Arthur Schopenhauer, Schopenhauer Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel
Albert Einstein, Einstein Søren Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein
Vienna Circle, Vienna Circle Alfred Tarski, Tarski Otto Selz, Selz
Bertrand Russell, Russell Donald T. Campbell, Campbell Edmund Burke, Burke
- **influenced**: Virtually all philosophy of science since 1930s Friedrich Hayek, Hayek Milton Friedman, Friedman
Imre Lakatos, Lakatos Paul Feyerabend, Feyerabend George Soros, Soros
David Miller (philosopher), Miller Joseph Agassi, Agassi William Warren Bartley, Bartley Ernst Gombrich, Gombrich
Ian Jarvie, Jarvie Paul Levinson, Levinson Helmut Schmidt, Schmidt Peter Munz, Munz
Bryan Magee, Magee Konrad Lorenz, Lorenz Jeremy Shearmur, Shearmur
Peter Medawar, Medawar Dimitris Dimitrakos, Dimitrakos Hans Albert, Albert Ernest Gellner, Gellner Abdolkarim Soroush, Soroush