Karl Popper

Sir Karl Popper is certainly among the most influential philosophers of science in the twentieth century, as well as his important critique of Marxism and his extensive work on social and political philosophy. Though Poppers work is not without criticism and his reputation in the history of philosophy is still under much consideration.

Life
Popper was born in Vienna (then in Austria-Hungary) in 1902. Although he was a son of well to do Doctor of law, Popper witnessed poverty and political upheaval first hand. This lead him to pursue social work, seeing Popper work in a clinic for neglected children which was operated by the Freudian Alfred Adler, the time working at the clinic defiantly had a profound affect on the young Popper. It certainly had an effect on his views of what distinguished science from other activities such as psychoanalysis.

In 1919 the socially aware Popper became a socialist and then a communist becoming a member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria which at the time fully adopted Marxist ideology, but following the deaths of students and workers at the hands of the police during protests some of Popper's communist friends argued that the deaths were a help to the cause, Popper had radically different view's about the value of human life and the ends of political action. The experience helped lead to his rejection of communism and an eventual critique of Marxism in the second Volume of The Open Society and Its Enemies.

In 1925 Popper obtained a primary school teaching diploma. In 1928 Popper earned a PhD with a thesis on the nature of methods in Psychology and in 1929 also complicated qualifications which allowed him to teach both Maths and Physics in secondary school. Popper also attracted the eye of several members of the Vienna Circle becoming friends with some of the members of the Circle sharing the high esteem that they held science within. Though Popper became critical of the tenets of Logical Positivism, he was especially hostile toward the work of Wittgenstein which alienated Moritz Schlick and may have been one of the reasons why he was never invited into the circle. In 1934 Popper published he is first book The Logic of Scientific Discovery. The book was widely read and lead him to be invited to lecture at both universities in the United States and in the UK.

Though both of Poppers parents who where of Jewish origin had converted to Lutheranism in the hope of successfully blending into Viennese society, with Popper also being baptised in his parents new faith, he was still regarded Jewish by the Nazi's this lead Popper with much help form his British colleagues to leave Vienna for University College, Christchurch, New Zealand where obtained a post teaching Philosophy. After the end of World War 2 he took up a post at the London School of Economics retiring from academic life in 1969. Popper died in 1994 and after cremation his ashes where taken to Vienna where they are buried to this day.

Philosophy of Science
The not very original starting point of Popper's philosophy of science was the reminder a statement could have been verified by observations millions of times but one single observation contrary to the statement would be enough to call it all into question. A very basic statement such as 'All swans are white' based on large pools of sense observation would be falsified the first time we encountered a black swan. Another example would be the statement that water boils at 100 Celsius this statement though useful for most purposes, when water is observed in closed vessels or at higher altitudes the boiling point of water increases and the statement has to be modified to read 'water boils at 100 Celsius in open vessels at sea level'. We have to work out why the differences occur and reformulate the original formula for wider range of phenomena, in this case it would involve working out a formula which will link the boiling point of water with air pressure and other variables.

Both of the previous examples are non-theoretical examples. The theoretical example that had impressed Popper occurred during the 1919 eclipse where an observation was made which confirmed Einstein's theory on the curvature of light and contradicted Newton's theory which had been verified for 200 years. Popper challenged the traditional view of Scientific progress he contended that the majority of progress depended on scientists coming across things that contradicted theory's and then beginning the search to why it contradicted the theory which led scientists to either then modify or abandon the old theory. Instead of looking for examples that would verify the theory one should actively look for examples that would falsify the theory.

The Open Society and Its Enemies and The Poverty Of Historicism
The Open Society and it's Enemies was one of Popper's war works produced during the time period he spent in Christchurch, New Zealand and appeared in two volumes, first being Published by Routledge in 1945. In the two volume work Popper built on his critique of historicism which first appeared in his 1936 paper The Poverty of Historicism which wasn't published until 1957 after the The Open Society and it's Enemies had been in circulation for a significant period of time. In The Poverty of Historicism Popper defined historicism as "an approach to the social sciences which assumes that historical prediction is their principal aim.". The criticisms that Popper outlined in The Poverty of Historicism are then reiterated in The Open Society and play an important role in his criticism of Plato, Hegel and Marx who he describes an Enemies of the open society. One of the key criticisms brought to bear against Historicism is that human history is a singular unique and it is wrong to outline Social law from the study of historical trends "a statement asserting the existence of a trend at a certain time and place would be a singular historical statement and not a universal law." With Popper arguing in the second volume that Hegel and Marx are the parents of modern 20th Century totalitarianism.

The alternative that Popper outlines in The Open Society instead of historicism is what he calls "piecemeal social engineering" which consists of making small and reversible changes to made to the various institutions which are in place within the society allowing us to observe and see what can be learnt from these changes. Popper argues due to the unpredictability of the future an effect of larger changes may be random and untraceable. By making smaller changes we are able too make limited but falsifiable statements about the effect of Social actions.

The book received praise from several important figures such as Hayek the Austrian Economist and Political Philosopher who was partly responsible for bringing Popper to lecture at LSE after World War 2. Though this work was not without criticism with certain Philosophers feeling that Popper was misrepresenting the Philosophers that he critiqued as 'the enemies of the open society'.

Influence
Popper has had serious and significant influence on the Philosophy of Science with Popper's falsification being widely debated with a lengthy list of criticisms being levelled at it from various sources. The same can be said for Popper's social philosophy, it undoubtedly had influence but also received considerably criticism. It may too early to determine what lasting influence Popper will have on Philosophy, but one thing is certain that he produced a body of intellectual work which is worth serious study.