Karl Popper
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper CH FBA FRSwas an Austrian-British philosopher and professor. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century...
NationalityAustrian
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth28 July 1902
CountryAustria
birth critical free fully magical powers recovered sets shock submission transition tribal
Our civilization...has not yet fully recovered from the shock of its birth - the transition from the tribal or 'closed society', with its submission to magical forces, to the 'open society' which sets free the critical powers of man.
freedom government office
It is wrong to ask who will rule. The ability to vote a bad government out of office is enough. That is democracy.
freedom reason plans
We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than only freedom can make security more secure.
freedom government democracy
I personally call the type of government which can be removed without violence 'democracy,' and the other, 'tyranny.'.
free-opinion challenges intellectual
The true Enlightenment thinker, the true rationalist, never wants to talk anyone into anything. No, he does not even want to convince; all the time he is aware that he may be wrong. Above all, he values the intellectual independence of others too highly to want to convince them in important matters. He would much rather invite contradiction, preferably in the form of rational and disciplined criticism. He seeks not to convince but to arouse - to challenge others to form free opinions.
freedom thinking victory
It is wrong to think that belief in freedom always leads to victory; we must always be prepared for it to lead to defeat. If we choose freedom, then we must be prepared to perish along with it.
freedom political promise
We do not choose political freedom because it promises us this or that. We choose it because it makes possible the only dignified form of human coexistence, the only form in which we can be fully responsible for ourselves. Whether we realize its possibilities depends on all kinds of things — and above all on ourselves.
mean past doe
The metaphysical doctrine of determinism simply asserts that all events in this world are fixed, or unalterable, or predetermined. It does not assert that they are known to anybody, or predictable by scientific means. But it asserts that the future is as little changeable as is the past. Everybody knows what we mean when we say that the past cannot be changed. It is in precisely the same sense that the future cannot be changed, according to metaphysical determinism.
growth criticism way
Reason like science, grows by way of mutual criticism; the only possible way of planning its growth is to develop those institutions that safeguard. the freedom of thought
[To] interpret Parmenides as a Kant before Kant ... this is exactly what we must do.
plato hard-work might
The influence (for good or ill) of Plato's work is immeasurable. Western thought, one might say, has been Platonic or anti-Platonic, but hardly ever non-Platonic.
may theory certain
No particular theory may ever be regarded as absolutely certain.... No scientific theory is sacrosanct...
quests impossible precision
The quest for precision is analogous to the quest for certainty and both - precision and certainty are impossible to attain.
tests genuine theory
Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it.