Big ideas: Knowledge

Resources > Background knowledge

1. Karl Popper’s Falsification
Science is based on fact. Isn’t it? Karl Popper believed that human knowledge progresses through ‘falsification’. A theory or idea shouldn’t be described as scientific unless it could, in principle, be proven false.

Big Ideas: Knowledge, Karl Popper's Falsification

Source: BBC (2015); Open University (2015). History of Ideas. Duration: 01:50

2. Wittgenstein’s Beetle in the Box Analogy
You cannot know exactly what it is like to be another person or experience things from their perspective. Wittgenstein had an analogy for this.

Big Ideas: Knowledge, Wittgenstein's Beetle in the Box Analogy

Source: BBC (2015); Open University (2015). History of Ideas. Duration: 01:40

3. If a tree falls…
If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? That’s the kind of head-scratching question that’s popularly believed to occupy the time and brains of philosophers. It relates to the ideas of immaterialism proposed by Bishop George Berkeley who asserted that the only things that exist are ideas and perceiving minds.

Big Ideas: Knowledge, If a tree falls..