Karl Popper

Sir Karl Popper CH FRS FBA
Popper in the 1980s
Born	Karl Raimund Popper (1902-07-28)28 July 1902 Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Died	17 September 1994(1994-09-17) (aged 92) London, England
Resting place	Lainzer Friedhof [de], Vienna, Republic of Austria
Citizenship	Austria United Kingdom (from 1945)
Alma mater	University of Vienna (PhD, 1928)
Relatives	Josef Popper-Lynkeus (uncle)
Awards	Knight Bachelor (1965)
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Analytic philosophy Critical rationalism Würzburg School[1] Metaphysical realism[2] Correspondence theory of truth[2] Interactionism Liberalism[3]
Institutions	Canterbury University College London School of Economics King's College London Darwin College, Cambridge
Thesis	Zur Methodenfrage der Denkpsychologie (On Questions of Method in the Psychology of Thinking) (1928)
Doctoral advisor	Karl Ludwig Bühler Moritz Schlick
Doctoral students	Joseph Agassi Charles Leonard Hamblin A. I. Sabra
Other notable students	Donald A. Gillies John W. N. Watkins
Main interests	Epistemology Rationality Philosophy of science Logic Social and political philosophy Metaphysics Philosophy of mind Origin of life Interpretations of quantum mechanics
Notable ideas	See list Bold hypothesis Critical rationalism Falsifiability Criticism of dogmatic/naive falsificationism Demarcation problem Evolutionary trial and error view of the growth of knowledge Propensity interpretation Open society Popper's three worlds Modified essentialism Criticism of justificationism Axiomatization of probability Popper's experiment Active Darwinism Spearhead model of evolution Criticism of psychoanalysis Situational logic Objective hermeneutics The paradox of tolerance Critical dualism (of facts and standards) Logic of scientific discovery Experimental corroboration as an indicator of verisimilitude/truthlikeness Basissatz (basic statement) The historicism–historism distinction Negative utilitarianism Popper's two senses of number statements The "Myth of the Framework"
Signature

Sir Karl Raimund Popper CH FRS FBA^[4] (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian–British^[5] philosopher, academic and social commentator.^[6][7][8] One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science,^[9][10][11] Popper is known for his rejection of the classical inductivist views on the scientific method in favour of empirical falsification. According to Popper, a theory in the empirical sciences can never be proven, but it can be falsified, meaning that it can (and should) be scrutinised with decisive experiments. Popper was opposed to the classical justificationist account of knowledge, which he replaced with critical rationalism, namely "the first non-justificational philosophy of criticism in the history of philosophy".^[12]

In political discourse, he is known for his vigorous defence of liberal democracy and the principles of social criticism that he believed made a flourishing open society possible. His political thought resides within the camp of Enlightenment rationalism and humanism. He was a dogged opponent of totalitarianism, nationalism, fascism, romanticism, collectivism, and other kinds of (in Popper’s view) reactionary and irrational ideas, and identified modern liberal democracies as the best-to-date embodiment of an open society.^[3]