Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |
Editors | Ronald Hamowy |
Place of Publication | Los Angeles |
Publisher | Sage Publications Inc |
Pages | 380-381pp |
Volume | 1 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781412965804 |
Publication status | Published - 2008 |
Abstract
Karl Popper, an eminent philosopher and social theorist, was born in Vienna, but subsequently became a British subject. When young, Popper was intellectually precocious and had a keen interest in science, psychology, and, subsequently, philosophy. He became interested in socialism when in his mid-teens, and he briefly flirted with Marxism, working as a volunteer in the offices of the Austrian Communist Party. He soon abandoned his early socialist sympathies and became immersed in more purely philosophical questions, during which he developed a particular interest in what characterized scientific knowledge. Popper was influenced by the psychologists Karl Buehler and Otto Selz and by a distinctive kind of Kantianism favored by the German philosopher Leonard Nelson. His interest in science in part reflected the concerns of the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle.