Karl Popper

Abstract

Karl Popper was one of the most important and controversial thinkers of the twentieth century. Today he is best known for his contributions to the philosophy of science and the history of ideas. In the former Popper argued that only scientifi c theories that could be subject to falsification could make a contribution to knowledge, propositions that could not be falsified could not advance human understanding of the world. In the latter Popper traced the origins of twentieth-century totalitarianism to the ideas of Plato and Hegel whom he believed had provided the intellectual foundations for communist, fascist and Nazi regimes that subjugated the rights of individuals to the pursuit of collective ends.