The two main problems in the theory of knowledge

In a speech in 1932, Karl Popper described Die Beiden Grundrpobleme der Erkenntnistheorie — "the two fundamental problems of knowledge" — as "... the child of crises, ... above all ... the crisis of physics. And he emphasizes the persistence of the crisis; if that is true, then the crisis is the natural state of highly developed rational science." Finally available in English for the first time, it is a significant contribution to the philosophy of science and the philosophy of the twentieth century in general. Based on important research conducted by Popper between 1930 and 1933, Die Beiden Grundrpobleme der Erkenntnistheorie was not published in German until the early 1980s. The two fundamental problems of knowledge at the heart of the book are the problems of induction, the theory that although we can only observe a limited number of particular events, science nonetheless provides universal data; and the problem of demarcation. What separates empirical science from non-science? Popper seeks to solve these two fundamental problems through his famous falsification theory. He argues that science is separated from non-science not by verification but through the falsifiability of its theories. Popper also argues that science is not inductive but ultimately deductive; it does not start from observations and generalize from them, as many have assumed, but begins with problems that it attacks with bold guesses. As such, the two fundamental problems of knowledge contain many famous arguments that later found full expression in Popper’s most renowned work, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Therefore, it is a fundamental read for anyone interested in Karl Popper, the history and philosophy of science, and the methods and theories of science itself.