[E]ven serious students are misled by the myth of the subject.

[http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Biographies/Philosophy/Popper.htm Karl Popper] at Blupete.com

Socrates (and so Plato) makes it quite clear that the rule of wisdom is tyrannical, and that it cannot tolerate words or deeds, laws or traditional institutions, and certainly political theories that impinge upon its rule. In this sense, modern enemies of Plato's political thought, of whom the most prominent in our time is no doubt Karl Popper, are correct in their objections, although they are ingenuous or let us say insufficiently rigorous in their consideration of the political consequences of theoretical truth. In Popper's case, this is probably due to his conviction that we can establish the falsehood of a proposition but not its truth. This conviction may well be more compatible with democracy in the modern sense of the term than the conviction that genuine philosophers know the truth. The argument of the Republic on the other hand is that, if we did know the truth, we would be led to support a city very much like the one constructed in the Republic under the leadership of Socrates.

Popper was kind of an egocentric jerk.

The leading critic of the positivists in their heyday was of course Popper. There has been a tendency for philosophers of science to regard Popper as something of an embarrassment. However, naturalistic philosophers should take it as an interesting fact about science that Popper has long been the favourite philosopher of science among scientists; and it would be condescending to attribute this entirely to the fact that Popper's philosophy is relatively non-complex, self-contained, and flattering to scientists.

[T]he paradox lurking at the heart of Karl Popper's career... Everyone says this opponent of dogmatism is almost pathologically dogmatic. ...Popper scoffs at scientists’ hope that they can achieve a final theory of nature. "...I think we have gone very far, but we are much further away." He... returns with his book Conjectures and Refutations... [and] reads his own words with reverence: "In our infinite ignorance we are all equal." ...Can a skeptic avoid self-contradiction... the Popper paradox? And if he doesn’t, if he preaches but fails to practice intellectual doubt and humility, does that negate his work? Not at all. Such paradoxes corroborate the skeptic’s point... the quest for truth is endless, twisty and riddled with pitfalls, into which even sharp-eyed seekers tumble. In our infinite ignorance we are all equal.

Through my association with Popper I experienced a great liberation in escaping from the rigid conventions that are generally held with respect to scientific research. ... When one is liberated from these restrictive dogmas, scientific investigation becomes an exciting adventure opening up new visions; and this attitude has, I think, been reflected in my own scientific life since that time.

I learned from Popper what for me is the essence of scientific investigation—how to be speculative and imaginative in the creation of hypotheses, and then to challenge them with the utmost rigor, both by utilizing all existing knowledge and by mounting the most searching experimental attacks. In fact, I learned from him even to rejoice in the refutation of a cherished hypothesis, because that, too, is a scientific achievement and because much has been learned by the refutation.

The first article republished in Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, "Degrees of Explanation," originally published in 1955, was largely consistent with Popper's methodology. Hayek embraced Popper's "hypothetico-deductive" approach to science: "The conception of science as a hypothetico-deductive system has been expounded by Karl Popper in a manner which brings out clearly some very important points." Here, as elsewhere in his work, Hayek distinguished between the facts of the natural and social sciences primarily on the basis of their complexity.

I referred above to the Popperian school as a school, and yet it was not until I came to Sydney from London that I fully realised the extent to which I had been in a school. I found, to my surprise, that there were philosophers influenced by Wittgenstein or Quine or Marx who thought that Popper was quite wrong on many issues, and some who even thought that his views were positively dangerous. I think I have learnt much from that experience. One of the things that I have learnt is that on a number of major issues Popper is indeed wrong, as is argued in the latter portions of this book. However, this does not alter the fact that the Popperian approach is infinitely better than the approach adopted in most philosophy departments that I have encountered.

A theory that explains everything, explains nothing.

When we enter a new situation in life and are confronted by a new person, we bring with us the prejudices of the past and our previous experiences of people. These prejudices we project upon the new person. Indeed, getting to know a person is largely a matter of withdrawing projections; of dispelling the smoke screen of what we imagine he is like and replacing it with the reality of what he is actually like.

I do have a great respect for Popper. I mean, I think... he's nearer to... I mean, Popper's ambition, in relation to science, at least, was to discriminate between, sort of, science and what he called pseudo-science.

Popper believed that any idea of Utopia is necessarily closed owing to the fact that it chokes its own refutations. The simple notion of a good society that cannot be left open for falsification is totalitarian. I learned from Popper, in addition to the difference between an open and a closed society, that between an open and a closed mind.

I read Karl Popper's The Open Society and its Enemies. Popper, whose analysis in many ways complemented that of Hayek, approached Marxism from the point of view of the philosopher of the natural sciences. This meant that he was ideally equipped to expose the fraudulent claim of Marxists to have discovered immutable laws of history, social development or "progress" – laws which were comparable to the laws of natural science. It was not just that the "inevitable" course of events which Marx had prophesied had not occurred and showed no signs of occurring. Marx and Marxists had not even understood the scientific method, let alone practised it in their analysis. Unlike the Marxists – whether historians, economists or social scientists – who tried to "prove" their theories by accumulating more and more facts to sustain them, "the method of science is rather to look out for facts which may refute the theory... and the fact that all tests of the theory are attempted falsifications of predictions derived with its help furnishes the clue to scientific method". The political consequences of this basic error – perhaps more properly described as basic fraud – were summed up by Popper in the dedication of his later book The Poverty of Historicism: "In memory of the countless men, women and children of all creeds or nations or races who fell victims to the fascist and communist belief in Inexorable Laws of Historical Destiny."

[http://cla.calpoly.edu/~fotoole/321.1/popper.html Sir Karl Popper: "Science: Conjectures and Refutations"]

[http://web.archive.org/web/20040212023313/http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/gardner_popper.html A Skeptical Look at Karl Popper] by Martin Gardner

[http://www.soros.org/ Open Society Institute] George Soros foundations network

[http://www.friesian.com/popper.htm Influence on Friesian Philosophy]

[http://www.phil.canterbury.ac.nz/haps/kiwihps.shtml#popper University of Canterbury (NZ)] brief biography of Popper

[http://www.univie.ac.at/science-archives/popper/index.html Karl Popper Institute] includes complete bibliography 1925-1999

[http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/%7Etkpw/ The Karl Popper Web]

[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/ Karl Popper] from [http://plato.stanford.edu/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

Alan Ebenstein, Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003), Ch. 15. Karl Popper

I got to know Bertrand Russell in the last years of his life. I knew Karl Popper quite well, and they were a whole class above me in intelligence. It wasn’t that I was jealous, it was that I was trying to grapple with these problems with inadequate weaponry… Popper had this originality, Russell had it, and Einstein had it in spades.

Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.

To be ignorant of the past is to remain a child.

The doctrine that there is as much science in a subject as... mathematics in it, or as much... measurement or 'precision' in it, rests upon... misunderstanding.

I... believe in the rationalist tradition of a commonwealth of learning, and in the urgent need to preserve this tradition.

[T]he history of mankind could... be described as a history of outbreaks of fashionable philosophical and religious maladies. These... have... one serious function... evoking criticism.

Scientific theories are distinguished from myths... in being criticizable, and... open to modifications... They can be neither verified nor probabilified.

Diversity makes critical argument fruitful. ...[P]artners in an argument must share ...the wish to know, and the readiness to learn from the other ...by severely criticizing his views... and hearing... [the] reply. ...the so-called method of science consists in this kind of criticism.

[[Argument|[A]rgument]] is a... form of the art of fighting—with words... inspired by... getting nearer to... truth...

By 'arguing...' I mean... criticizing... inviting... criticism; and trying to learn from it.

I am a rationalist. ...I mean ...[I] wish... to understand the world, and to learn by arguing with others. (...I do not say a rationalist holds the mistaken theory that men are... rational.)

I assert(1) There is no method of discovering a scientific theory.(2) There is no method of ascertaining the truth [i.e., verification] of a scientific hypothesis...(3) There is no method of ascertaining whether a hypothesis is 'probable', in the sense of the probability calculus.

Plato, Aristotle, Bacon and Descartes, as well... successors... [e.g.,] John Stuart Mill, believed that there existed a method of finding scientific truth. ...[L]ater ...slightly more sceptical ...methodologists ...believed that there existed a method, if not of finding a true theory, then ...of ascertaining whether ...some ...hypothesis was true; or (even more sceptical) whether some ... hypothesis was ...'probable' ...

Never aim at more precision than... required by the problem...

I have no faith in precision: ...simplicity and clarity are values in themselves, but not... [of] precision or exactness...

I do not believe in what is often called... 'exact '... [or] in definitions... [they] do not... add to exactness... I especially dislike pretentious terminology and... pseudo-exactness concerned with it.

Ignorance is not a simple lack of knowledge but an active aversion to knowledge, the refusal to know, issuing from cowardice, pride or laziness of mind.

Why do I think that we, the intellectuals, are able to help? Simply because we, the intellectuals, have done the most terrible harm for thousands of years. Mass murder in the name of an idea, a doctrine, a theory, a religion — that is all our doing, our invention: the invention of the intellectuals. If only we would stop setting man against man — often with the best intentions — much would be gained. Nobody can say that it is impossible for us to stop doing this.

There are uncertain truths — even true statements that we may take to be false — but there are no uncertain certainties. Since we can never know anything for sure, it is simply not worth searching for certainty; but it is well worth searching for truth; and we do this chiefly by searching for mistakes, so that we have to correct them.

Our aim as scientists is objective truth; more truth, more interesting truth, more intelligible truth. We cannot reasonably aim at certainty. Once we realize that human knowledge is fallible, we realize also that we can never be completely certain that we have not made a mistake.

The belief in a political Utopia is especially dangerous. This is possibly connected with the fact that the search for a better world, like the investigation of our environment, is (if I am correct) one of the oldest and most important of all the instincts.

All things living are in search of a better world.

'[S]cientific knowledge' always remained sheer guesswork... controlled by criticism and experiment. ...[T]his assumption is sufficient for solving the problem of induction—called by Kant 'the problem of Hume'— without sacrificing empiricism...[i.e.,] without adopting a principle of induction and ascribing to it a priori validity. For guesses are not 'induced from observations' (although they may ...be suggested ...by observations). This ... allows us to accept ...(...without Russell's limits of empiricism) Hume's logical criticism of induction and to give up ...an inductive logic, for certainty, and even for probability, while continuing ...scientific search for truth.

[T]here is only one way to science—or to philosophy... to meet a problem, to see its beauty and fall in love with it; to get married to it, and to live with it happily, till death do ye part—unless you should meet another... more fascinating problem, or... obtain a solution. But even if you do... you may... discover, to your delight, the... a whole family of enchanting... perhaps difficult problem children for whose welfare you may work, with a purpose, to the end of your days.

I disbelieve in specialization and... experts. ...[P]aying too much respect to the specialist ...[is] destroying the commonwealth of learning, the rationalist tradition, and science ...

What can be said can and should always be said more and more simply and clearly.