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
plato political enemy
With regards to political enemies Plato had a kill-and-banish principle. ... In interpreting it , modern-day Platonists are clearly disturbed by it, even as they make elaborate attempts to defend Plato.
plato political program
Plato felt that a complete reconstruction of society's political program was needed.
political world kind
There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world.
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.
political important world
The belief in a political Utopia is especially dangerous. This is possibly connected with the fact that the search for a better world, like the investigation of our environment, is (if I am correct) one of the oldest and most important of all the instincts.
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.
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.
ideas grows new-ideas
What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas.