Karl Popper Quotes about Learning

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Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.

Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.

Karl Popper

Learning, Ignorance, Knowledge

Lecture to British Academy, 20 Jan. 1960, in Proceedings of the British Academy (1960) vol. 46, p. 69

The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error. But science is one of the very few human activities-perhaps the only one-in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected. This is why we can say that, in science, we often learn from our mistakes, and why we can speak clearly and sensibly about making progress there. In most other fields of human endeavour there is change, but rarely progress ... And in most fields we do not even know how to evaluate change.

Karl Popper

Dream, Mistake, Learning

1960 Conjectures and Refutations (published1963), ch.10.

It is often asserted that discussion is only possible between people who have a common language and accept common basic assumptions. I think that this is a mistake. All that is needed is a readiness to learn from one's partner in the discussion, which includes a genuine wish to understand what he intends to say. If this readiness is there, the discussion wrighteous stupidityill be the more fruitful the more the partner's backgrounds differ.

Karl Popper

Mistake, Learning, Knowledge

Karl Popper (2012). “In Search of a Better World: Lectures and Essays from Thirty Years”, p.158, Routledge