Overview
Karl Popper (1902–1994) was an Austrian-born philosopher of science and politics who spent his mature career in New Zealand and at the London School of Economics. Fleeing Nazism, he developed critical rationalism against verificationism and historicist prophecy. The Logic of Scientific Discovery (German 1934; English 1959) made falsifiability famous. The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) attacked Plato, Hegel, and Marx as enemies of liberal criticism. Handbook dates: 1902–1994. He became one of the twentieth century’s most cited philosophers of science.
Main ideas
Scientific theories advance by bold conjectures that risk refutation; confirmation never yields final proof. Demarcation from pseudo-science turns on falsifiability, not inductive verification. Knowledge is fallible and grows through criticism, including of our best theories. Historicism—predicting inevitable social laws—licenses tyranny and blocks piecemeal reform. The open society protects institutions of criticism, individual freedom, and reversible policy. Probability and corroboration measure past survival of tests, not inductive certainty.
Major works
- The Logic of Scientific Discovery
- The Open Society and Its Enemies
- Conjectures and Refutations
- The Poverty of Historicism
Legacy
Falsificationism remains a touchstone—and target—in philosophy of science and science education. Liberal democrats drew on his defense of criticism against totalizing ideologies. Debates on induction, probability, and political prophecy still engage his framework.
Themes in this archive
Fate (1) · Knowledge (1) · Freedom (1)