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Better our hypotheses die for our errors than ourselves.

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
Hypothesis
Errors
Dies
Better
Hypotheses
Rationality

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We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than only freedom can make security more secure.
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What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas.
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There is no history, only histories.
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Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
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The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, specific, and articulate will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance
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Whenever we propose a solution to a problem, we ought to try as hard as we can to overthrow our solution, rather than defend it.
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I remained a socialist for several years, even after my rejection of Marxism and if there could be such a thing as socialism combined with individual liberty, I would be a socialist still. For nothing could be better than living a modest, simple, and free life in an egalitarian society.
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It is not intuitive ease I am after, but rather a point of view which is sufficiently definite to clear up some difficulties, and to be criticized in rational terms. (Bohr's complementarity cannot be so criticized, I fear it can only be accepted or denounced - perhaps as being ad hoc, or as being irrational, or as being hopelessly vague.)
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Reason like science, grows by way of mutual criticism the only possible way of planning its growth is to develop those institutions that safeguard. the freedom of thought
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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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Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification.
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If you know that things are bound to happen whatever you do, then you may feel free to give up the fight against them.
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There can be no ultimate statements science: there can be no statements in science which can not be tested, and therefore none which cannot in principle be refuted, by falsifying some of the conclusions which can be deduced from them.
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[To] interpret Parmenides as a Kant before Kant ... this is exactly what we must do.
Karl Popper
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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.
Karl Popper
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It is a myth that the success of science in our time is mainly due to the huge amounts of money that have been spent on big machines. What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas.
Karl Popper
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The old scientific ideal of episteme - of absolutely certain, demonstrable knowledge - has proved to be an idol. The demand for scientific objectivity makes it inevitable that every scientific statement must remain tentative for ever.
Karl Popper
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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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The question is not how to get good people to rule THE QUESTION IS: HOW TO STOP THE POWERFUL from doing as much damage as they can to us.
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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.
Karl Popper