Black and white portrait of an elderly man with receding hairline, deep-set eyes, and thoughtful expression, wearing a light sweater over a collared shirt. His gaze is directed slightly to the side, capturing a contemplative mood. The image highlights the man's distinctive facial features and age lines, suggesting a person of wisdom and experience.
Black and white portrait of an elderly man with receding hairline, deep-set eyes, and thoughtful expression, wearing a light sweater over a collared shirt. His gaze is directed slightly to the side, capturing a contemplative mood. The image highlights the man's distinctive facial features and age lines, suggesting a person of wisdom and experience.

Karl Popper

Historical

Historical

Jul 28, 1902

-

Sep 17, 1994

Black and white portrait of an elderly man with receding hairline, deep-set eyes, and thoughtful expression, wearing a light sweater over a collared shirt. His gaze is directed slightly to the side, capturing a contemplative mood. The image highlights the man's distinctive facial features and age lines, suggesting a person of wisdom and experience.

Karl Popper

Historical

Historical

Jul 28, 1902

-

Sep 17, 1994

Biography

FAQ

Quotes

Biography

Karl Popper was an Anglo-Austrian philosopher whose work focused on the philosophy of science and political philosophy and who advocated for liberal democracy. Popper was born in Vienna in July 1902 into a middle-class Jewish family who later became Lutherans. His father was a lawyer with an extensive collection of books, thus developing a desire for knowledge in Popper. He experimented with Marxism when he was young, but he gave it up after seeing political violence, which influenced his lifelong stand against totalism.

These schools of thought formed Popper's educational background, leading him to the University of Vienna, where he pursued psychology, mathematics, and philosophy and was awarded a doctorate in psychology in 1928.

Popper's significant contribution to science was his theory of falsifiability, which he advanced in his 1934 work, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. He said that if a theory is not testable and refutable, it is not scientific; theories like psychoanalysis and Marxism are pseudo-scientific theories, according to him. Karl Popper's contribution to the method of philosophy of science was immense; he dismissed the traditional methodology of induction and provided the right approach to demarcate science from non-science.

Fleeing Nazi occupation in Europe in 1937, Popper settled in New Zealand and, in response to the totalitarian political philosophies of the time, penned his political masterpiece: The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of the Totalitarian Style.

Popper spent his entire working life as a professor at places such as the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he tutored a generation of scholars. He was knighted in 1965 for his service in the field of philosophy. Popper remained an active writer and speaker up to his death in 1994. He has influenced and continues to influence various disciplines, from epistemology to political philosophy, including present-day debates about the role of science, reason, and open societies.

Quotes

"Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite."

"Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths."

"True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it."

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance."

"Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell."

"The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress."

"No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude."

"We are not students of some subject matter, but students of problems."

"The history of science is the history of dead theories."

"I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth."

"In so far as scientific statements refer to the world, they must be falsifiable."

"Philosophy should not be a specialized discipline, but should concern everyone."

"All life is problem-solving."

"Optimism is a moral duty."

"Knowledge consists in the search for truth."

FAQ

Karl Popper is best known for what?

Karl Popper is one of the most famous philosophers of science whose central idea was a theory of falsifiability, according to which scientific theories must be placed in such a form that their falsity can be demonstrated.

What is falsifiability?

The falsifiability is the ability of a scientific theory to be framed in such a manner that it can be potentially proven wrong by facts.

What did Popper find wrong with Marxism?

Popper abandoned Marxism after having seen violent political events in Vienna in 1919 because of its deterministic point of view of history, which he claimed was as unfalsifiable as psychoanalysis.

That is your question for today's class: what is the main argument of Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies?

Popper elaborated on his views on democracy, totalitarianism, and historical progress in his book The Open Society and Its Enemies.

How did Popper modify the philosophy of science?

Popper made a formidable shift in the philosophy of science by discarding induction as the key to the scientific method and replacing it with falsifiability as the criterion of scientific significance.

What is critical rationalism?

Popper regarded psychoanalysis as a pseudoscience because it could be used to explain anything and, thus, was irrefutable; this was not scientific enough to be tested.

What did Popper think of psychoanalysis?

Popper regarded psychoanalysis as a pseudoscience because it could be used to explain anything and, thus, was irrefutable; this was not scientific enough to be tested.

why Popper was so skeptical of historicism.

Popper rejected historicism because he did not believe that history results from some laws and that people's knowledge and societies' evolution are not predetermined.

Was Karl Popper a Nobel Prize laureate?

Popper did not get a Nobel Prize; however, he was awarded the Kyoto Prize and the Lippincott Award and was knighted in 1965.

How did Popper's ideas shape the field of political thought?

Popper's contributions to the theory of democracy and the critique of Totalitarian ideologies inspired political theorists and defenders of liberal democracy.

Biography

FAQ

Quotes

Biography

Karl Popper was an Anglo-Austrian philosopher whose work focused on the philosophy of science and political philosophy and who advocated for liberal democracy. Popper was born in Vienna in July 1902 into a middle-class Jewish family who later became Lutherans. His father was a lawyer with an extensive collection of books, thus developing a desire for knowledge in Popper. He experimented with Marxism when he was young, but he gave it up after seeing political violence, which influenced his lifelong stand against totalism.

These schools of thought formed Popper's educational background, leading him to the University of Vienna, where he pursued psychology, mathematics, and philosophy and was awarded a doctorate in psychology in 1928.

Popper's significant contribution to science was his theory of falsifiability, which he advanced in his 1934 work, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. He said that if a theory is not testable and refutable, it is not scientific; theories like psychoanalysis and Marxism are pseudo-scientific theories, according to him. Karl Popper's contribution to the method of philosophy of science was immense; he dismissed the traditional methodology of induction and provided the right approach to demarcate science from non-science.

Fleeing Nazi occupation in Europe in 1937, Popper settled in New Zealand and, in response to the totalitarian political philosophies of the time, penned his political masterpiece: The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of the Totalitarian Style.

Popper spent his entire working life as a professor at places such as the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he tutored a generation of scholars. He was knighted in 1965 for his service in the field of philosophy. Popper remained an active writer and speaker up to his death in 1994. He has influenced and continues to influence various disciplines, from epistemology to political philosophy, including present-day debates about the role of science, reason, and open societies.

Quotes

"Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite."

"Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths."

"True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it."

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance."

"Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell."

"The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress."

"No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude."

"We are not students of some subject matter, but students of problems."

"The history of science is the history of dead theories."

"I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth."

"In so far as scientific statements refer to the world, they must be falsifiable."

"Philosophy should not be a specialized discipline, but should concern everyone."

"All life is problem-solving."

"Optimism is a moral duty."

"Knowledge consists in the search for truth."

FAQ

Karl Popper is best known for what?

Karl Popper is one of the most famous philosophers of science whose central idea was a theory of falsifiability, according to which scientific theories must be placed in such a form that their falsity can be demonstrated.

What is falsifiability?

The falsifiability is the ability of a scientific theory to be framed in such a manner that it can be potentially proven wrong by facts.

What did Popper find wrong with Marxism?

Popper abandoned Marxism after having seen violent political events in Vienna in 1919 because of its deterministic point of view of history, which he claimed was as unfalsifiable as psychoanalysis.

That is your question for today's class: what is the main argument of Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies?

Popper elaborated on his views on democracy, totalitarianism, and historical progress in his book The Open Society and Its Enemies.

How did Popper modify the philosophy of science?

Popper made a formidable shift in the philosophy of science by discarding induction as the key to the scientific method and replacing it with falsifiability as the criterion of scientific significance.

What is critical rationalism?

Popper regarded psychoanalysis as a pseudoscience because it could be used to explain anything and, thus, was irrefutable; this was not scientific enough to be tested.

What did Popper think of psychoanalysis?

Popper regarded psychoanalysis as a pseudoscience because it could be used to explain anything and, thus, was irrefutable; this was not scientific enough to be tested.

why Popper was so skeptical of historicism.

Popper rejected historicism because he did not believe that history results from some laws and that people's knowledge and societies' evolution are not predetermined.

Was Karl Popper a Nobel Prize laureate?

Popper did not get a Nobel Prize; however, he was awarded the Kyoto Prize and the Lippincott Award and was knighted in 1965.

How did Popper's ideas shape the field of political thought?

Popper's contributions to the theory of democracy and the critique of Totalitarian ideologies inspired political theorists and defenders of liberal democracy.

Biography

FAQ

Quotes

Biography

Karl Popper was an Anglo-Austrian philosopher whose work focused on the philosophy of science and political philosophy and who advocated for liberal democracy. Popper was born in Vienna in July 1902 into a middle-class Jewish family who later became Lutherans. His father was a lawyer with an extensive collection of books, thus developing a desire for knowledge in Popper. He experimented with Marxism when he was young, but he gave it up after seeing political violence, which influenced his lifelong stand against totalism.

These schools of thought formed Popper's educational background, leading him to the University of Vienna, where he pursued psychology, mathematics, and philosophy and was awarded a doctorate in psychology in 1928.

Popper's significant contribution to science was his theory of falsifiability, which he advanced in his 1934 work, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. He said that if a theory is not testable and refutable, it is not scientific; theories like psychoanalysis and Marxism are pseudo-scientific theories, according to him. Karl Popper's contribution to the method of philosophy of science was immense; he dismissed the traditional methodology of induction and provided the right approach to demarcate science from non-science.

Fleeing Nazi occupation in Europe in 1937, Popper settled in New Zealand and, in response to the totalitarian political philosophies of the time, penned his political masterpiece: The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of the Totalitarian Style.

Popper spent his entire working life as a professor at places such as the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he tutored a generation of scholars. He was knighted in 1965 for his service in the field of philosophy. Popper remained an active writer and speaker up to his death in 1994. He has influenced and continues to influence various disciplines, from epistemology to political philosophy, including present-day debates about the role of science, reason, and open societies.

Quotes

"Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite."

"Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths."

"True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it."

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance."

"Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell."

"The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress."

"No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude."

"We are not students of some subject matter, but students of problems."

"The history of science is the history of dead theories."

"I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth."

"In so far as scientific statements refer to the world, they must be falsifiable."

"Philosophy should not be a specialized discipline, but should concern everyone."

"All life is problem-solving."

"Optimism is a moral duty."

"Knowledge consists in the search for truth."

FAQ

Karl Popper is best known for what?

Karl Popper is one of the most famous philosophers of science whose central idea was a theory of falsifiability, according to which scientific theories must be placed in such a form that their falsity can be demonstrated.

What is falsifiability?

The falsifiability is the ability of a scientific theory to be framed in such a manner that it can be potentially proven wrong by facts.

What did Popper find wrong with Marxism?

Popper abandoned Marxism after having seen violent political events in Vienna in 1919 because of its deterministic point of view of history, which he claimed was as unfalsifiable as psychoanalysis.

That is your question for today's class: what is the main argument of Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies?

Popper elaborated on his views on democracy, totalitarianism, and historical progress in his book The Open Society and Its Enemies.

How did Popper modify the philosophy of science?

Popper made a formidable shift in the philosophy of science by discarding induction as the key to the scientific method and replacing it with falsifiability as the criterion of scientific significance.

What is critical rationalism?

Popper regarded psychoanalysis as a pseudoscience because it could be used to explain anything and, thus, was irrefutable; this was not scientific enough to be tested.

What did Popper think of psychoanalysis?

Popper regarded psychoanalysis as a pseudoscience because it could be used to explain anything and, thus, was irrefutable; this was not scientific enough to be tested.

why Popper was so skeptical of historicism.

Popper rejected historicism because he did not believe that history results from some laws and that people's knowledge and societies' evolution are not predetermined.

Was Karl Popper a Nobel Prize laureate?

Popper did not get a Nobel Prize; however, he was awarded the Kyoto Prize and the Lippincott Award and was knighted in 1965.

How did Popper's ideas shape the field of political thought?

Popper's contributions to the theory of democracy and the critique of Totalitarian ideologies inspired political theorists and defenders of liberal democracy.

Life and achievements

Early life

Karl Popper was born in Vienna, Austria, on July 28, 1902, to middle-class parents who were educators. His father was a lawyer and a keen book lover, and Popper grew up amid books on philosophy, science, and the humanities. His mother, Jenny Schiff, was a pianist and saw him through his early education years, bringing an artistic bent to his otherwise intellectual childhood.

From childhood, Popper was attracted to philosophy, encouraged by his father's collection of books and people he met in Vienna. He heard lectures in mathematics, philosophy, and psychology at the University of Vienna and was a part of the interwar Vienna intellectual movement along with Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein.

Interestingly, despite some of the themes in Popper's early teenage years, including Marxism, his interest was brief. He left the Marxist doctrine in 1919 when he saw police shooting dead several unarmed people during a conflict between police and leftist demonstrators. This experience made him turn away from the political extreme and paved the way for formulating his anti-historicism outlook on history.

Popper finished his doctoral thesis in psychology under the mentorship of Karl Bühler in 1928, and his early works focused on the philosophy of mind and education.

Legacy

Karl Popper's philosophy influenced not only the field of science but also political philosophy. His concept of falsifiability profoundly impacted the scientific method and how scientists and philosophers of the new era would approach the business of science. Popper's contribution to scientific research may be colossal, especially in abolishing induction to establish scientific laws.

That science advances through conjecture and refutations remains an unchallenged orthodoxy from him. In this way, through critical rationalism, Popper introduced new perspectives on how knowledge is generated, assessed, and developed.

In political philosophy, Popper's works are still significant, especially his advocacy of liberal democracy and his strong condemnation of totalitarianism. His best-known work, The Open Society and Its Enemies posited that societies are successful when they are receptive to feedback and evolution and that Marxist or fascist ideologies are based on erroneous historical materialism.

Popper's stress on the role of freedom, reason, and democracy and the rejection of totalitarianism has been appreciated by political scientists, politicians, and democrats.

A positive mark of Popper was also in other spheres, such as in popular science and education. Such personalities adopted his ideas, such as George Soros, who used Popper's point of view on open society in his charitable activities.

Consequently, Popper's works remain well worth discussing regarding science, politics, and society, especially in the modern world, where the differences between science and pseudoscience and democracy and authoritarianism are not always clearly defined. Popper died in 1994, but his ideas are still important for today's discussions on the objectivity of science, political liberty, and the search for truth.

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Your donation today shapes the future of how families and friends connect.
You will become a featured Ambassador.
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Milestone moments

Jun 4, 1934

Publication of The Logic of Scientific Discovery
In 1934, Popper published The Logic of Scientific Discovery, in which he first expounded the principle of falsifiability.
This work rejected the positivist idea of science, saying that scientific theories must be refutable rather than confirmable.
The book brought a radical change in the philosophy of science.
It positioned Popper as one of the most influential scientists of the twentieth century and the founder of the future methodology.

Mar 7, 1945

Publication of The Open Society and Its Enemies
In 1945, he published The Open Society and Its Enemies, a work critical of the philosophical basis of totalitarianism.
The book was a critique of the modern world and, more specifically, of liberal democracy against historicism.
It claimed that societies should remain open to change and discussion rather than be bound by the belief of an inevitable history.
In this work, Popper became recognized as a political philosopher and helped with the intellectual battle for democracy after the Second World War.

Oct 11, 1946

The story of joining the London School of Economics
In 1946, Popper joined the LSE as a Reader in Logic and Scientific Method, which enabled him to shape a generation of philosophers and economists.
While working at the LSE, Popper cooperated with such giants as Karl Mannheim, Michael Polanyi, Friedrich von Hayek, and others; his ideas on critical rationalism and the method of science were widely recognized.
At LSE, he established himself as one of the premier philosophers of science and political thought in the twentieth century.

Jan 17, 1959

The 'Logic of Scientific Discovery' English translation
Presumably, Popper's work The Logic of Scientific Discovery was translated into English in 1959.
The translation contributed to sharing his theory of falsifiability with scholars in other parts of the world, particularly in English-speaking countries.
This became a significant achievement, showing that Popper's philosophical works had gone international and establishing his standing in the history of philosophical thoughts of science.

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