The Open Society and Its Enemies (Princeton Classics)

by Karl Popper

What, then, are we to trust? What are we to accept? The answer is: whatever we accept we should trust only tentatively, always remembering that we are in possession, at best, of partial truth (or rightness), and that we are bound to make at least some mistake or misjudgement somewhere—not only with respect to facts but also with respect to the adopted standards; secondly, we should trust (even tentatively) our intuition only if it has been arrived at as the result of many attempts to use our imagination; of many mistakes, of many tests, of many doubts, and of searching criticism. It will be seen that this form of anti-intuitionism (or some may say, perhaps, of intuitionism) is radically different from the older forms of anti-intuitionism. And it will be seen that there is one essential ingredient in this theory: the idea that we may fall short—perhaps always—of some standard of absolute truth, or of absolute rightness, in our opinions as well as in our actions.