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Karl Popper
Karl Popper was born on the 28th of July 1902 in Vienna, Austria. He passed away from pneumonia, cancer, and kidney failure at a hospital in London, UK on the 17th of September 1994. He is laid to rest at the Lainz Cemetery, Vienna, Austria. -
Key Events
Popper joined the Association of Socialist School students due to his attraction to Marxism. But after a shooting of eight unarmed part comrades he turned away from Marxism and was more favored towards social liberalism. His political belief helped influence his studies and theories. -
Key Events Continued
On 1928 Popper earned his Doctorate in psychology from the Pädagogisches Institut. In 1934, he published a condensed version of his work called Logik der Forschung. A condensed version was published due to the rise of Nazism and his Jewish heritage. This publication is where he criticized psychologism, naturalism, and put forth his theory of falsifiability demarcating science from non-science. In 1946 he moved to England and became a professor at the London School of Economics. -
The Problem of Demarcation
Karl Popper early work is what he called the problem of demarcation. This is the problem from determining scientific theories to non-scientific theories. Popper discerned a cognitive statement is valid if and only if it is possible to verify. This helped shift the focus to claims of empirical science in a meaningful way apposed to traditional philosophical metaphysics. -
Falsification Principle
Popper argued that since inductive evidence is limited we can not make a general rule based off observation patterns. Theories should make predictions that can be tested. If these theories are later proved to be incorrect than new theories can become off those later findings. Popper believed science should be based off deductive reasoning rather inductive reasoning. Where a theory is first made than a hypothesis is formed than we observe and either confirm the theory or create a new theory. -
Karl Popper's Published Works
- The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge, 1930–1933
- The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1934
- Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography, 2002
- The Open Universe: An Argument for Indeterminism, 1956–57
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References
Thornton, Stephen. “Karl Popper.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 12 Sept. 2022,
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/#Life. “Philosopher Karl Popper Dies.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 19 Sept. 1994,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1994/09/19/philosopher-karl-popper-dies/552cb60c-3ff8-421a-b10e-f64d288509e1/.