Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach

Overview
Karl Popper develops a bold account of knowledge as an objective, public phenomenon that exists independently of any single mind. Knowledge is treated as a realm of entities, problems, theories, arguments, and explanations, that can be criticized, tested, and improved. Popper situates epistemology within an evolutionary framework that emphasizes variation, selection, and the survival of the fittest ideas.

Objective Knowledge and World 3
Popper distinguishes three realms: the physical world of events and things, the mental world of subjective experiences, and a third world of objective knowledge made up of products of the human intellect. These third-world entities, scientific theories, mathematical proofs, stories, institutions, are real in that they have effects and can be subjected to critical assessment, even though they are not reducible to individual psychological states. The autonomy of this realm means that knowledge can outlive its creators and exert causal influence back upon minds and societies.

Evolutionary Epistemology
Knowledge grows through a process analogous to biological evolution: ideas vary, are exposed to tests and criticism, and are selectively retained or discarded. Variation comes from human conjecture and imagination; selection is enacted by empirical tests, logical scrutiny, and debate. Popper rejects the view that knowledge is the product of passive observation or inductive generalization; instead, growth of knowledge is an active, fallible, and non-accumulative process marked by creative problem solving and elimination of errors.

Falsification, Conjectures, and Refutations
Scientific advance is driven by bold conjectures followed by severe attempts to refute them. Rather than seeking to verify theories through induction, scientists propose hypotheses and design tests aimed at falsification. Surviving tests do not confer absolute justification but increase the theory's resilience and inform the next stage of conjecture. Critical discussion and the institutional mechanisms of science, peer review, replication, and open criticism, function as the selection environment that filters and refines theories.

Truth, Verisimilitude, and Fallibilism
Popper treats truth as an objective aim: theories aspire to describe a reality independent of our beliefs, even though certainty is unattainable. He introduces the notion of verisimilitude, or "truthlikeness," to capture how theories can approach truth without ever fully attaining it. Epistemic humility and fallibilism follow: knowledge claims remain provisional and always open to revision in light of better explanations or new anomalies.

Methodological and Social Implications
The evolutionary approach reshapes the philosophy of science and extends into social and political thought. It grounds a normative commitment to critical rationalism, valuing openness, debate, and institutionalized criticism, and opposes dogmatism and historicist determinism. The framework encourages rigorous testing in both natural and social sciences while recognizing the creative, conjectural origins of ideas. Its influence reaches philosophical debates about realism, objectivity, and the nature of scientific progress, and it offers a framework for understanding cultural and intellectual change as an adaptive, competitive process.