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Karl Popper
open-in-new
<p>Sir Karl Raimund Popper <a href="/facts/Companion_of_Honour/kFxw1bn3">CH</a> <a href="/facts/Fellow_of_the_Royal_Society/cWs8TdC5">FRS</a> <a href="/facts/Fellow_of_the_British_Academy/4gTMDxbs">FBA</a> (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian–British philosopher, academic and <a href="/facts/Social_commentator/WEuzGSAP">social commentator</a>. One of the 20th century's most influential <a href="/facts/Philosophers_of_science/aonsfhTY">philosophers of science</a>, Popper is known for his rejection of the classical <a href="/facts/Inductivist/1y00bJS7">inductivist</a> views on the <a href="/facts/Scientific_method/182j8RWE">scientific method</a> in favour of <a href="/facts/Falsifiability/IlxN7cYB">empirical falsification</a>, and for founding the <a href="/facts/London_School_of_Economics/L8SkGefj">LSE's</a> Department of Philosophy. According to Popper, a theory in the <a href="/facts/Empirical_science/f68IpCeE">empirical sciences</a> 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 <a href="/facts/Justification_(epistemology)/CxWaj0pY">justificationist</a> account of knowledge, which he replaced with "the first non-justificational philosophy of criticism in the history of philosophy", namely <a href="/facts/Critical_rationalism/7L45WKCt">critical rationalism</a>. </p><p>In political discourse, he is known for his vigorous defence of <a href="/facts/Liberal_democracy/5blgnbkS">liberal democracy</a> and the principles of <a href="/facts/Social_criticism/k5CxJjE4">social criticism</a> that he believed made a flourishing <a href="/facts/Open_society/RHUdkTBp">open society</a> 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 <a href="/facts/Liberal_democracy/5blgnbkS">liberal democracies</a> as the best-to-date embodiment of an <a href="/facts/Open_society/RHUdkTBp">open society</a>. </p>