Karl Popper (1902 - 1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher of science and political philosopher, one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century in both fields. [1] In The Logic of Scientific Discovery he argued that no number of confirming observations can establish a scientific theory and that what distinguishes science is falsifiability, the possibility of being refuted by evidence. [2] In The Open Society and Its Enemies he defended liberal democracy and piecemeal reform against what he identified as the authoritarian tendencies in Plato, Hegel and Marx.
Early life and Vienna
Popper was born in Vienna on 28 July 1902 into an assimilated Jewish family that had converted to Lutheranism; his father was a lawyer with a large library and strong interests in social questions. [1] As a young man he was briefly attracted to Marxism, but a violent incident in 1919 in which police shot unarmed socialist demonstrators, and the readiness of party theorists to explain it away, turned him permanently against the doctrine.
He trained as a cabinetmaker, worked with disadvantaged children, and took a doctorate in psychology at the University of Vienna in 1928 before qualifying to teach mathematics and physics in secondary schools. [3] He moved on the fringes of the Vienna Circle of logical positivists without joining it, and disagreed with their central claim that meaningful statements must be verifiable.
The logic of scientific discovery
Popper's Logik der Forschung (1934), later translated as The Logic of Scientific Discovery, set out his solution to the problem of induction. [2] Universal statements cannot be proved by any finite set of observations, but a single counter-instance can refute them; science therefore advances not by accumulating confirmations but by proposing bold conjectures and attempting to falsify them.
He contrasted Einstein's general relativity, which made risky predictions that could have failed, with theories such as psychoanalysis and historical materialism, which he considered capable of accommodating any observation and therefore unscientific in his sense. [1] The criterion drew sustained criticism, notably from Thomas Kuhn and Imre Lakatos, who argued that working scientists do not abandon theories on a single anomaly, but it remains a standard reference point in the philosophy of science.
Political philosophy
The rise of National Socialism drove Popper to New Zealand in 1937, where he lectured at Canterbury University College. [3] There he wrote The Poverty of Historicism and The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), which he described as his war work.
The Open Society attacked the belief that history follows discoverable laws leading to an inevitable destination, and traced an authoritarian strand from Plato through Hegel to Marx. [4] Against comprehensive social blueprints, Popper argued for piecemeal social engineering and for institutions allowing rulers to be removed without violence, a political analogue of the falsification of theories.
Later career and legacy
In 1946 he joined the London School of Economics, becoming professor of logic and scientific method in 1949, and remained in Britain for the rest of his life. [1] Later works included Conjectures and Refutations and Objective Knowledge, and he collaborated with the neuroscientist John Eccles on The Self and Its Brain.
He was knighted in 1965 and received the Kyoto Prize, the Sonning Prize and the Companion of Honour. [3] He died at Kenley in Surrey on 17 September 1994. His ideas influenced scientists, economists and politicians, among them Peter Medawar, Friedrich Hayek and George Soros, who named his philanthropic foundations after the open society. [4]
