Popper (World Thinkers Translation Series)

Author: Mark Notturno, Shiying Zhang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-10-03
Features: Karl Popper is regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century, and also as one of the most influential critics of Marx and closed social systems. He is an outspoken advocate of rationalism and a consistent critic of subjectivism and authoritarianism in science and society. He is famous for his demarcation criterion between science and metaphysics—the falsifiability criterion—but more importantly, his fallibilism, his equating of reason with a critical attitude, his critique of induction, and his description of science as an endless activity of problem-solving through trial and error. Perhaps most importantly, he defended the open society and freedom of thought. Popper was a critic of determinism in the philosophy of science and society, and an advocate of free will. In his later years, he promoted the evolutionary epistemology, dualism of mind and body, and the view that our theories, problems, and works of art typically belong to an objective but non-physical "World III."