PHILOSOPHER

Karl Popper

1902 - 1994

Photo of Karl Popper

Icon of person Karl Popper

Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian–British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the classical inductivist views on the scientific method in favour of empirical falsification. According to Popper, a theory in the empirical sciences can never be proven, but it can be falsified, meaning that it can (and should) be scrutinised with decisive experiments. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Karl Popper has received more than 4,222,284 page views. His biography is available in 90 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 85 in 2019). Karl Popper is the 56th most popular philosopher (down from 52nd in 2019), the 17th most popular biography from Austria (down from 14th in 2019) and the 2nd most popular Austrian Philosopher.

Karl Popper is most famous for his idea of falsification. He argued that for a theory to be scientific, it must be falsifiable, or capable of being proven false.

Memorability Metrics

  • 4.2M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 78.26

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 90

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 13.22

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 3.36

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Among PHILOSOPHERS

Among philosophers, Karl Popper ranks 56 out of 1,267Before him are Hannah Arendt, Anaxagoras, Plotinus, Michel Foucault, Thomas More, and Henri Bergson. After him are Zeno of Elea, Mikhail Bakunin, Epictetus, Herbert Spencer, Michel de Montaigne, and Ibn Arabi.

Most Popular Philosophers in Wikipedia

Go to all Rankings

Contemporaries

Among people born in 1902, Karl Popper ranks 2Before him is Ruhollah Khomeini. After him are Charles Lindbergh, Georgy Malenkov, Paul Dirac, Leni Riefenstahl, Erik Erikson, Carl Rogers, John Steinbeck, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Halldór Laxness, and Talcott Parsons. Among people deceased in 1994, Karl Popper ranks 3Before him are Richard Nixon, and Kim Il-sung. After him are Charles Bukowski, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Erich Honecker, Eugène Ionesco, Elias Canetti, Erik Erikson, Ayrton Senna, Linus Pauling, and Giulietta Masina.

Others Born in 1902

Go to all Rankings

Others Deceased in 1994

Go to all Rankings

In Austria

Among people born in Austria, Karl Popper ranks 17 out of 1,424Before him are Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma (1791), Stefan Zweig (1881), Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889), Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria (1863), Erwin Schrödinger (1887), and Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (1741). After him are Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (1459), Alfred Adler (1870), Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor (1685), Klara Hitler (1860), Romy Schneider (1938), and Ferdinand I of Austria (1793).

Among PHILOSOPHERS In Austria

Among philosophers born in Austria, Karl Popper ranks 2Before him are Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889). After him are Martin Buber (1878), Josef Breuer (1842), Paul Feyerabend (1924), Ivan Illich (1926), Otto Weininger (1880), Alfred Schütz (1899), Otto Neurath (1882), Karl Leonhard Reinhold (1757), André Gorz (1923), and Jean Améry (1912).