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Question Marx

Popper on Marx on History

Chris Christensen considers a clash of two colossal Karls.

Karl Popper (1902-1994) was an Austrian-born philosopher of science who became a British citizen. He is famous for his falsification principle – the idea that the method of science is to try to show a scientific theorem to be false, thereby allowing a better hypothesis to be generated. A proposition can be shown to be false by even a single contrary observation. The classic example: the proposition ‘All swans are white’ was proven false when black swans were observed in Australia. But Popper’s greatest contribution to philosophy, in my opinion, is his attack on historicism – the idea that history has a pattern, a purpose and an ending, and that it moves inexorably toward that end according to certain laws.

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