POPPER, Sir Karl (1902-):
Austrian born British philosopher whose Jewish parents
converted to CHRISTIANITY. After a short period as a Marxist, he became disenchanted and
was associated with the VIENNA CIRCLE which he also found inadequate. His own philosophy
is set forth in The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934) and a series of other
books including the powerful The Open Society and its Enemies (1945) which is a
sustained attack on both MARXISM and FASCISM. He argued that what separates MODERN, or
OPEN SOCIETY, from TRIBAL, or CLOSED SOCIETY, is the scientific method which he sees as a
technique for testing theories through their FALSIFICATION. A controversial figure, his
arguments are often avoided by contemporary scholars who prefer to ignore rather than face
the full force of his arguments.
