“Popper was born in Vienna in 1902 and died in England in 1994. The third child of a prominent liberal lawyer with scholarly interests, he dropped out of school in 1918 and attended university lectures in topics that interested him, especially maths and physics. The University was an easy walk from the family apartment which shared the floor with the rooms of his fathers legal practice in the heart of the old city. Also in walking distance were the main Catholic Cathedral, the City Synagogue, the House of Parliament, the Opera House, several major museums and art galleries and Cafe Central. Young Popper engaged in radical politics and voluntary social work including a spell with Alfred Adlers welfare project in the slums. Inspired by Tolstoys views on the dignity of manual work he became a qualified cabinet maker in 1924. He contemplated a career in music but instead joined the teacher-training course established in the University to support the Austrian school reforms that were under way at the time (having matriculated in 1922). He qualified as a primary school teacher in 1925 and then studied for a doctorate in psychology which he obtained in 1928 followed by a diploma in 1929 to teach maths and science in high school. He wrote two theses, one on habit formation in children and the other on the axioms of the various schools of geometry. On the way he studied philosophy, maths and science independently, with some informal assistance from various academics, including some philosophers who were attached to the Vienna Circle of logical positivists. In the late 1920s he seriously engaged with the twin problems of induction and demarcation and commenced his long argument with the positivists and logical empiricists.” Rafe Champion, A Guide to the Logic of Scientific Discovery.
Posted on: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 08:40:37 +0000
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