Karl Raimund Popper (* July 28th, 1902 in Vienna) is a famous professor of Philosophy, who developed critical Rationalism. His Philosophy is centered on empirical Falsifiability, the methodic refutation of claims.
His father owned a personal library with more than 12,000 Books. At the age of 16, he left school and started hearing lectures at the University of Vienna. He studied Mathematics, history, Psychology, Theoretical Physics, and Philosophy.
Around 1918, he had some sympathies for marxism, but broke with this ideology when he witnessed in the street battle of Hörlgasse on June 15th, 1919 (during which eight unarmed people, among which were some of his friends, were shot dead by the police) how irresponsible the cadres gambled with the lives of their trusting followers.
1920 through 1922, Popper was a Student at the Wiener Konservatorium, department of church music, but soon quit his Plan to become a Musician. In 1924, he finished a carpenter's apprenticeship. 1925 through 1927, he studied Pedagogics.
In 1930, he married his fellow teacher Josefine Anna "Hennie" Henninger (* 1906). Because of the circumstances they decided not to have children.
His Philosophy[]
One of his most important influences is the Enlightenment philosopher David Hume.
Karl Popper started writing down his philosophical thoughts thanks to his contacts with the Wiener Kreis (Vienna Circle). Herbert Feigl encouraged him to write, which he started after some hesitation. For three years, he wrote down a Manuscript of more than 1000 pages. In 1934, a heavily abbreviated version was published by the Wiener Kreis under the Title Logik der Forschung (The Logic of Scientific Discovery), which is his magnum opus. During this time, he met Werner Heisenberg and Alfred Tarski.
In 1934, he spoke out with "Popper's experiment" against the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum mechanics, which was getting more and more popular, but considered too subjectivistic by him.
He received an important mental influence in 1935, when he discovered Tarski's semantic theory of truth (keyword "T-schema"). In 1936, he wrote The Poverty of Historicism, in which he criticized philosophers of history like Hegel and Oswald Spengler. He hasn't published this Text yet, but only shared it during a private meeting in Brussels.
1935 through 1936, Popper travelled for some Months to England, where he met Erwin Schrödinger, Bertrand Russell and Friedrich August von Hayek.
Popper expected and worried about the „Anschluss“ of Austria to Nazi Germany. In 1937, he and his wife quit their jobs as teachers and went into Exile to Christchurch in New Zealand.
During World War 2, he worked on another important philosophical Work, in which he researched the totalitarian approaches by various famous Philosophers - this time not just Hegel, but also Heraclit and especially Platon. The Title he conceived for this Work is A Social Philosophy for Everyman.
