Karl Popper quotes

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Karl Raimund Popper. (1902 - 1994). Austrian-born British philosopher, psychologist, and social commentator.

We Do Not Know

“We do not know: we can only guess.”
  • Source: Popper, K. R. (2005). The Logic of Scientific Discovery | 1935 (1935/Epub). New York, NY: Routledge. Page 278.
Keywords: Knowledge_quotes Guess_quotes

Scientific Game

“Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game.”
  • Source: Popper, K. R. (2005). The Logic of Scientific Discovery | 1935 (1935/Epub). New York, NY: Routledge. Page 280.
Keywords: Unwilling_quotes Expose_quotes Idea_quotes Hazard_quotes Refutation_quotes Falsification_quotes Part_quotes Science_quotes Game_quotes

Confirmation Easy

“It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory — if we look for confirmations. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions... A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or refute it.”
  • Source: Karl Raimund Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963), 36.
Keywords: Easy_quotes Obtain_quotes Confirmation_quotes Verification_quotes Theory_quotes Count_quotes Result_quotes Risk_quotes Prediction_quotes Refutation_quotes Conceivable_quotes Event_quotes Science_quotes Falsification_quotes Irrefutability_quotes Virtue_quotes People_quotes Thinking_quotes Vice_quotes Genuine_quotes Testing_quotes Attempt_quotes

Theory Personality

“Understanding a theory has, indeed, much in common with understanding a human personality. We may know or understand a man's system of dispositions pretty well; that is to say, we may be able to predict how he would act in a number of different situations. But since there are infinitely many possible situations, of infinite variety, a full understanding of a man's dispositions does not seem to be possible.”
  • Source: Karl Raimund Popper, Objective Knowledge: an Evolutionary Approach (1972), 299.
Keywords: Understanding_quotes Theory_quotes Common_quotes Humanity_quotes Personality_quotes Knowledge_quotes System_quotes Disposition_quotes Prediction_quotes Differences_quotes Situation_quotes Infinity_quotes Possibility_quotes Variety_quotes Full_quotes Possible_quotes

Rule of Rules

“It is the rule which says that the other rules of scientific procedure must be designed in such a way that they do not protect any statement in science against falsification.”
  • Source: Karl Raimund Popper (1959), The Logic of Scientific Discovery: Logik Der Forschung (2002), 33.
Keywords: Rule_quotes Law_quotes Science_quotes Procedure_quotes Design_quotes Protection_quotes Statement_quotes Falsification_quotes

Method of Science

“The method of science depends on our attempts to describe the world with simple theories: theories that are complex may become untestable, even if they happen to be true. Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification — the art of discerning what we may with advantage omit.”
  • Source: Karl Raimund Popper, Karl Raimund Popper and William Warren Bartley (ed.), The Open Universe: an Argument for Indeterminism (1991), 44. by Karl Raimund Popper, William Warren Bartley - Science - 1991
Keywords: Methodology_quotes Science_quotes Dependence_quotes Attempt_quotes Description_quotes World_quotes Simplicity_quotes Theory_quotes Complexity_quotes Testing_quotes True_quotes Truth_quotes Art_quotes System_quotes Discern_quotes Advantage_quotes Omit_quotes Untestable_quotes

Science Not Certain

“Science is not a system of certain, or established, statements; nor is it a system which steadily advances towards a state of finality... And our guesses are guided by the unscientific, the metaphysical (though biologically explicable) faith in laws, in regularities which we can uncover — discover. Like Bacon, we might describe our own contemporary science — 'the method of reasoning which men now ordinarily apply to nature' — as consisting of 'anticipations, rash and premature' and as 'prejudices'.”
  • Source: Karl Raimund Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959), 278.
Keywords: Science_quotes System_quotes Certainty_quotes Establish_quotes Statement_quotes Steady_quotes Advance_quotes State_quotes Final_quotes Guess_quotes Guide_quotes Unscientific_quotes Metaphysics_quotes Biology_quotes Explanation_quotes Faith_quotes Law_quotes Regular_quotes Uncover_quotes Discovery_quotes Description_quotes Contemporary_quotes Methodology_quotes Reason_quotes Humanity_quotes Ordinary_quotes Apply_quotes Nature_quotes Consist_quotes Anticipation_quotes Rash_quotes Premature_quotes Prejudice_quotes Bacon(topic)_quotes

Irresponsible Dreams

“The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error. But science is one of the very few human activities — perhaps the only one — in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected. This is why we can say that, in science, we often learn from our mistakes, and why we can speak clearly and sensibly about making progress there. In most other fields of human endeavour there is change, but rarely progress ... And in most fields we do not even know how to evaluate change.”
  • Source: Karl Raimund Popper, From Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963), 216. Reproduced in Karl Popper, Truth, Rationality and the Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1979), 9.
Keywords: History_quotes Science_quotes Humanity_quotes Idea_quotes Irresponsible_quotes Dreaming_quotes Obstinate_quotes Error_quotes Activity_quotes System_quotes Criticism_quotes Often_quotes Time_quotes Correction_quotes Learning_quotes Mistake_quotes Speak_quotes Clear_quotes Sensibility_quotes Progress_quotes Field_quotes Endeavour_quotes Change_quotes Evaluation_quotes

Considerations

“These considerations led me in the winter of 1919-20 to conclusions which I may now reformulate as follows.
1. Confirmation is easy.
2. Only risky predictions should count.
3. A good theory is a prohibition.
4. A theory which is not refutable is not scientific.
5. A genuine test is an attempt to falsify a theory.
6. Confirming evidence should not count unless it attempted to falsify.
7. Some genuine testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers.”
Keywords: Consideration_quotes Conclusion_quotes Reformulate_quotes Confirmation_quotes Easy_quotes Risk_quotes Prediction_quotes Count_quotes Good_quotes Theory_quotes Prohibition_quotes Refutation_quotes Science_quotes Genuine_quotes Testing_quotes Attempt_quotes Falsification_quotes Evidence_quotes False_quotes Uphold_quotes Admire_quotes

Explain Away

“Whenever the ‘classical’ system of the day is threatened by the results of new experiments which might be interpreted as falsifications according to my point of view, the system will appear unshaken to the conventionalist. He will explain away the inconsistencies which may have arisen; perhaps by blaming our inadequate mastery of the system.”
  • Source: Popper, K. R. (2005). The Logic of Scientific Discovery | 1935 (1935/Epub ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Keywords: Classical_quotes System_quotes Day_quotes Threat_quotes Result_quotes New_quotes Experiment_quotes Interpretation_quotes Falsification_quotes According_quotes Point_of_View_quotes Appearance_quotes Unshaken_quotes Convention_quotes Explanation_quotes Inconsistent_quotes Arise_quotes Blame_quotes Inadequate_quotes Mastery_quotes

No Conclusive Disproof

“No conclusive disproof of a theory can ever be produced; for it is always possible to say that the experimental results are not reliable.”
  • Source: Popper, K. R. (2005). The Logic of Scientific Discovery | 1935 (1935/Epub ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Chap. 2
Keywords: Conclusive_quotes Disproof_quotes Proof_quotes Theory_quotes Production_quotes Possibility_quotes Experiment_quotes Result_quotes Reliability_quotes

Soothsayer Trick

“It is a typical soothsayer's trick to predict things so vaguely that the predictions can hardly fail: that they become irrefutable.”
Keywords: Typical_quotes Soothsayer_quotes Trick_quotes Prediction_quotes Vagueness_quotes Failure_quotes Irrefutability_quotes Falsification_quotes

Strict Proof

“If you insist on strict proof (or strict disproof) in the empirical sciences, you will never benefit from experience, and never learn from it how wrong you are.”
  • Source: Popper, K. R. (2005). The Logic of Scientific Discovery | 1935 (1935/Epub ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Keywords: Insist_quotes Strict_quotes Proof_quotes Disproof_quotes Empirical_quotes Science_quotes Benefit_quotes Experience_quotes Learning_quotes Wrong_quotes

Scientific Knowledge

“If the picture of the world which modern science draws comes anywhere near the truth — in other words, if we have anything like ‘scientific knowledge’ — then the conditions obtaining almost everywhere in the universe make the discovery of structural laws of the kind we are seeking — and thus the attainment of ‘scientific knowledge’ — almost impossible. For almost all regions of the universe are filled by chaotic radiation, and almost all the rest by matter in a likewise chaotic state. In spite of this, science has been miraculously successful in proceeding toward what I think should be regarded as its aim. This strange fact cannot, I think, be explained without proving too much. But it can encourage us to pursue that aim, even though we may not get any further encouragement to believe that we can actually attain it; neither from metaphysical realism nor from any other source.”
  • Source: Realism and the Aim of Science: From the Postscript to The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1983, p. 146, ISBN 0415084008
Keywords: Picture_quotes World_quotes Modern_quotes Science_quotes Truth_quotes Knowledge_quotes Condition_quotes Obtain_quotes Universe_quotes Discovery_quotes Structure_quotes Kind_quotes Seek_quotes Attain_quotes Impossibility_quotes Region_quotes Chaos_quotes Radiation_quotes Matter_quotes Miracle_quotes Success_quotes Progress_quotes Aim_quotes Strange_quotes Fact_quotes Explanation_quotes Proof_quotes Encouragement_quotes Pursuit_quotes Belief_quotes Metaphysics_quotes Realism_quotes Source_quotes Law_quotes

Epistemology

“In accordance with my proposal made above, epistemology, or the logic of scientific discovery, should be identified with the theory of scientific method. The theory of method, in so far as it goes beyond the purely logical analysis of the relations between scientific statements, is concerned with the choice of methods — with decisions about the way in which scientific statements are to be dealt with. These decisions will of course depend in their turn upon the aim which we choose from among a number of possible aims. The decision here proposed for laying down suitable rules for what I call the ‘empirical method’ is closely connected with my criterion of demarcation: I propose to adopt such rules as will ensure the testability of scientific statements; which is to say, their falsifiability.”
  • Source: Chapter 2. Popper, K. R. (2005). The Logic of Scientific Discovery | 1935 (1935/Epub ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Keywords: According_quotes Proposal_quotes Epistemology_quotes Logic_quotes Science_quotes Discovery_quotes Identity_quotes Theory_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Methodology_quotes Beyond_quotes Analysis_quotes Relationship_quotes Statement_quotes Concern_quotes Choice_quotes Decision_quotes Way_quotes Deal_quotes Dependence_quotes Aim_quotes Number_quotes Possibility_quotes Rule_quotes Law_quotes Empirical_quotes Connection_quotes Criteria_quotes Demarcation_quotes Adopt_quotes Ensure_quotes Testing_quotes Testability_quotes Falsification_quotes Pure_quotes

Pseudo-Science

“Science is distinguished from pseudo-science - or from 'metaphysics' - by its empirical method, which is essentially inductive.”
Keywords: Science_quotes Distinguish_quotes Pseudo-Science_quotes Metaphysics_quotes Empirical_quotes Essential_quotes Induction_quotes Method_quotes

Myths

“Science must begin with myths, and the criticism of myths.”
  • Source: Karl Popper (1957) The Philosophy of Science.
Keywords: Science_quotes Myth_quotes Criticism_quotes Begin_quotes
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