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Introduction
Karl Popper was an advocate of all knowledge being hypothetical despite acknowledging the existence of objective knowledge. However, whilst Popper maintains that we can only get nearer to absolute truth, attaining it is beyond the intellectual powers of the human brain.This does not imply that Popper was a pessimist - far from it. He was methodological in his approach to knowledge.
He used this concept to bring us closer to the truth whilst making it clear that we would never know if we had knowledge itself in our hands. In fact he proposed that the making of highly falsifiable statements was more relevant to the advancement of knowledge than seeking truth merely by empirical proof. Knowledge would only grow through the correction of our mistakes. Essentially, our team agrees with Popper’s point of view but is fully conscious that his theories are somewhat controversial. In this light this website attempts to cover both the credible and the controversial aspects of Popper’s philosophy. Popper’s epistemology has been met with strong critisism and endorsement, giving rise to even more complex explanations of the realm of knowledge.
Popper’s three worlds
Popper’s clinical approach to the genesis of knowledge was such that he modelled knowledge into three worlds :
World one knowledge: the natural world of knowledge forms the source of knowledge and it consists of things like books, sticks, stones and brain cells. (Oldroy 1986)
World two knowledge: the mental world of knowledge revolves around the learning process and the manner in which knowledge is intepreted.
World three knowledge: the stated or expressed world of knowledge which is based on what humankind has chosen to represent as knowledge and also through the artifacts will trigger further room for thought and reflections. It originates from the conclusions reached in the world two knowledge.(objective strutures according to Popper that are the product of mind and living things). World three knowledge constitutes objective knowledge. (Morrison 1994)
What is interesting in this concept of ‘worlds of knowledge’ is that our actual knowledge is reaped through world two and from world one. In this sense, the knowledge which is so dear to humankind is fact hypothetical since realising the world three knowledge(or a domain of objective knowledge) is basically an unachievable goal (Oldroy 1986)
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