Sir Karl Popper

Anya Plutynski (Washington University St. Louis)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kerry Myler (Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

Born 28 Jul 1902
Died 17 Sep 1994
Activity 1934-1990

Places

Born in Austria
Active in England

Activities

Primary

Philosopher
Social scientist

Resources

Karl Popper, or Sir Karl Popper (he was knighted in 1965), was one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. He is best known for promoting the view that scientific theories ought to be falsifiable, and can not be confirmed via induction. However, this was only one of several influential theories he advanced about the nature of science, and about the nature of knowledge in general. His larger aim was to challenge both the “language philosophy” and the positivist philosophy of science dominant in Vienna in the 1920s and 1930s which he encountered as a student. Popper regarded inquiries into the formal or logical structure of the language of science as a fruitless enterprise, and he intended to replace it with …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2754 words

Citation: Plutynski, Anya. "Sir Karl Popper". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 January 2009 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3600, accessed 21 November 2024.]

View recommended reading for this article

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here