Karl Popper
1902-1994 · Philosophy of Science · Prominent
Popper was an Austrian-British philosopher of science who made falsifiability the mark of the real thing. A theory earns the name science by sticking its neck out. It has to say what could not happen, so that a single observation can kill it. He insisted that no pile of confirmations can establish a theory and that one refutation ends it. His Open Society and Its Enemies named Plato, Hegel and Marx as enemies of a free society.
Signature
The position Popper is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Truth
- leans Objective
- Knowledge
- Pragmatic Test
Positions on the 13 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Mechanistic (25 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- leans Individualism (75 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (72 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- Universals
- mildly between Realism and Nominalism (41 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Meaning
- leans Constructed (28 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (75 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Ground of Being
- leans Immanence (25 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Nature
- mildly leans Mastery (31 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Polity
- leans Liberalism (75 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- mildly between Ends and Means (41 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- Ignorance
- strongly leans Bondage (5 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
- Conviction
- strongly leans Uncertain (6 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
7 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Popper refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Other
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Representative Democracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Knowledge
What is the highest good? - Perception
- Conceptual Mediation
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Pragmatic Test
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Social Contract
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will / Quantum Indeterminism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Time
- Linear Progressive
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Consent of the Governed / Rational Expertise
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Human Nature
- Evolved Animal
What is human nature?