Karl Popper's "Critical Rationalism": The way to freedom and democracy

Abstract

In the history of science, there are known cases when people come into life whose vocation is to make a series of discoveries, which then change the scientific views of entire generations. The name of the philosopher Karl Popper became world-famous during his lifetime, because the achievements of this scientist impress with the originality and boldness of ideas, a high level of scientific knowledge and the scale of world perception. The article is devoted to the analysis of the life and activities of the outstanding philosopher and sociologist of the 20th century. Karl Raimund Popper, who was best known for his scientific works on the methodology and philosophy of science, as well as social and political philosophy. It is shown that his logical concept of the growth of scientific knowledge, which he began to develop in the 20s of the 20th century became the basis for the creation of the principle of falsification, which he proposed as a criterion for demarcation between science and pseudoscience. It is noted that in the following logical and methodological works of the scientist, a transition is observed in the field of scientific research of the scientist from logical and methodological problems of epistemology or the theory of scientific knowledge to the general theory of knowledge and evolutionary epistemology, as well as a transition from already obtained results to socio-political problems. The process of formation of the theory of critical rationalism was highlighted, which was that any theory, hypothesis, scientific knowledge should be as objective as possible and not depend on the opinion of individual people or communities. An analysis of the scientist's works in the field of social philosophy was carried out, which were based on the concepts of scientific knowledge and cognition developed by him. It has been studied that such a concept as "historicism" takes an important part in the formation of a totalitarian society, and the utopian ideas of Marxism, socialism and communism only lead to the inhibition of the development of any society. K. Popper's position on this issue is highlighted. The difference between an open and a closed society, which is traced in the scientist's scientific heritage, is reflected. And the impact of K. Popper's scientific heritage on the modern realities of Ukraine and the entire democratic world in the conditions of an international armed conflict is also determined.

Keywords

• karl popper
• history of philosophy
• philosophy of science
• principle of falsification
• critical rationalism