The influence (for good or ill) of Plato's work is immeasurable. Western thought, one might say, has been Platonic or anti-Platonic, but hardly ever non-Platonic.
Karl PopperScience is not a system of certain, or -established, statements; nor is it a system which steadily advances towards a state of finality... And our guesses are guided by the unscientific, the metaphysical (though biologically explicable) faith in laws, in regularities which we can uncover-discover. Like Bacon, we might describe our own contemporary science-'the method of reasoning which men now ordinarily apply to nature'-as consisting of 'anticipations, rash and premature' and as 'prejudices'.
Karl PopperScience is perhaps the only human activity in which errors are systematically criticized and, in time, corrected.
Karl PopperThe genuine rationalist does not think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth; nor does he think that mere criticism as such helps us achieve new ideas. But he does think that, in the sphere of ideas, only critical discussion can help us sort the wheat from the chaff.
Karl Popper