Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach

’We are workers who are adding to the growth of objective knowledge as masons work on a cathedral’

- Karl Popper, Objective Knowledge

The extent and scope of human knowledge is arguably one of humankind’s greatest achievements. Since Descartes, however, the theory of human knowledge has been mainly what philosophers call subjectivist: even scientific knowledge was regarded as a special kind of human belief, but human nonetheless. In Objective Knowledge, which contains some of his most important writings on epistemology, Karl Popper breaks decisively and controversially with this view of human knowledge.

A realist and a fallibilist, he argues that human knowledge, stated in human language, is no longer part of ourselves but open to objective criticism. Above all, Popper argues that human knowledge grows through a process of conjecture, testing and criticism. Such objective knowledge has significance also for us as individuals, as critical interaction with problem-situations and the constant process of trial and error playing a role in all walks of life, from philosophy and science to music and art.

A brilliant exposition of Popper’s theory of knowledge, this Routledge Classics edition includes a new Introduction by Jeremy Shearmur, which provides some helpful context to Objective Knowledge and Popper’s philosophy in general.

Karl Popper (1902 - 1994) was one of the most provocative philosophers of the twentieth century. His relationship with the philosophers and scientists of the Vienna Circle led to his first book, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, which appeared in German in 1934 and presented his theory of the growth of scientific knowledge. On its publication in English in 1959, the book was described by the New Scientist as ’one of the most important documents of the twentieth century.’ Popper emigrated to New Zealand in 1939 on the eve of World War Two. Reflecting on the tyranny sweeping through Europe, he wrote The Open Society and Its Enemies. Published in 1945, it remains his most compelling and widely read book. In 1946 Popper moved to the London School of Economics, where he taught until his retirement in 1969. This period saw the publication of The Poverty of Historicism, described by the Sunday Times as ’probably the only book which will outlive this century’ and Conjectures and Refutations, a collection of many of Popper’s classic essays. Karl Popper was knighted in 1965 and appointed Companion of Honour in 1982. He continued to write until his death in 1994.