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True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.

Karl Popper

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Karl Popper
Age: 92 †
Born: 1902
Born: July 28
Died: 1994
Died: September 17
Philosopher
Philosopher Of Science
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
Vienna
Austria
Karl Raimund Popper Sir
Karl Raimund
Sir Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper
Refusal
Acquire
Absence
Ignorance
Knowledge
True

More quotes by Karl Popper

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Thus science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths neither with the collection of observations, nor with the invention of experiments, but with the critical discussion of myths, and of magical techniques and practices.
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A theory is just a mathematical model to describe the observations.
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[The aim of science is] to explain what so far has taken to be an explicans, such as a law of nature. The task of empirical science constantly renews itself. We may go on forever, proceeding to explanations of a higher and higher universality.
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The defence of democracy must consist in making anti-democratic experiences too costly for those who try them much more costly than a democratic compromise
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A system is empirical or scientific only if it is capable of being tested by experience. These considerations suggest that not the verifiability but the falsifiability of a system is to be taken as a criterion of demarcation... It must be possible for an empirical or scientific system to be refuted by experience.
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Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.
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The genuine rationalist does not think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth nor does he think that mere criticism as such helps us achieve new ideas. But he does think that, in the sphere of ideas, only critical discussion can help us sort the wheat from the chaff.
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In my view, aiming at simplicity and lucidity is a moral duty of all intellectuals: lack of clarity is a sin, and pretentiousness is a crime.
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We have become makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.
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A theory that explains everything, explains nothing
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Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
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To give a causal explanation of an event means to deduce a statement which describes it, using as premises of the deduction one or more universal laws, together with certain singular statements, the initial conditions ... We have thus two different kinds of statement, both of which are necessary ingredients of a complete causal explanation.
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Man, some modern philosophers tell us, is alienated from his world: he is a stranger and afraid in a world he never made. Perhaps he is yet so are animals, and even plants. They too were born, long ago, into a physico-chemical world, a world they never made.
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We never know what we are talking about.
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Now this principle of induction cannot be a purely logical truth like a tautology or an analytic statement. . . .
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What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas.
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There is no pure, disinterested, theory-free observation.
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Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification.
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But some of these theories are so bold that they can clash with reality: they are the testable theories of science. And when they clash, then we know that there is a reality something that can inform us that our ideas are mistaken.
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no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.
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