The Open Society and Its Enemies

Karl Popper

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781138126800
• eBook ISBN: 9781136700323
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

'If in this book harsh words are spoken about some of the greatest among the intellectual leaders of mankind, my motive is not, I hope, to belittle them. It springs rather from my conviction that, if our civilization is to survive, we must break with the habit of deference to great men.'

- Karl Popper, from the Preface

Written in political exile during the Second World War and first published in two volumes in 1945, Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies is one of the most influential books of all time. Hailed by Bertrand Russell as a 'vigorous and profound defence of democracy', its now legendary attack on the philosophies of Plato, Hegel and Marx exposed the dangers inherent in centrally planned political systems and through underground editions become an inspiration to lovers of freedom living under communism in Eastern Europe.

Popper's highly accessible style, his erudite and lucid explanations of the thoughts of great philosophers and the recent resurgence of totalitarian regimes around the world are just three of the reasons for the enduring popularity of The Open Society and Its Enemies and why it demands to be read today and in years to come.

Volume I
The Spell of Plato

It will be seen … that the Erewhonians are a meek and long-suffering people, easily led by the nose, and quick to offer up common sense at the shrine of logic, when a philosopher arises among them who carries them away … by convincing them that their existing institutions are not based on the strictest principles of morality.

SAMUEL BUTLER.

In my course I have known and, according to my measure, have co-operated with great men; and I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

EDMUND BURKE.

The Spell of Plato

For the Open Society (about 430 B.C.):
Although only a few may originate a policy, we are all able to judge it.

PERICLES OF ATHENS.

Against the Open Society (about 80 years later):
The greatest principle of all is that nobody, whether male or female, should be without a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody be habituated to letting him do anything at all on his own initiative; neither out of zeal, nor even playfully. But in war and in the midst of peace—to his leader he shall direct his eye and follow him faithfully. And even in the smallest matter he should stand under leadership. For example, he should get up, or move, or wash, or take his meals … only if he has been told to do so. In a word, he should teach his soul, by long habit, never to dream of acting independently, and to become utterly incapable of it.

PLATO OF ATHENS.

The Myth of Origin and Destiny

1
Historicism and the Myth of Destiny

It is widely believed that a truly scientific or philosophical attitude towards politics, and a deeper understanding of social life in general, must be based upon a contemplation and interpretation of human history. While the ordinary man takes the setting of his life and the importance of his personal experiences and petty struggles for granted, it is said that the social scientist or philosopher has to survey things from a higher plane. He sees the individual as a pawn, as a somewhat insignificant instrument in the general development of mankind. And he finds that the really important actors on the Stage of History are either the Great Nations and their Great Leaders, or perhaps the Great Classes, or the Great Ideas. However this may be, he will try to understand the meaning of the play which is performed on the Historical Stage; he will try to understand the laws of historical development. If he succeeds in this, he will, of course, be able to predict future developments. He might then put politics upon a solid basis, and give us practical advice by telling us which political actions are likely to succeed or likely to fail.

This is a brief description of an attitude which I call historicism. It is an old idea, or rather, a loosely connected set of ideas which have become, unfortunately, so much a part of our spiritual atmosphere that they are usually taken for granted, and hardly ever questioned.

I have tried elsewhere to show that the historicist approach to the social sciences gives poor results. I have also tried to outline a method which, I believe, would yield better results.

But if historicism is a faulty method that produces worthless results, then it may be useful to see how it originated, and how it succeeded in entrenching itself so successfully. An historical sketch undertaken with this aim can, at the same time, serve to analyse the variety of ideas which have gradually accumulated around the central historicist doctrine—the doctrine that history is controlled by specific historical or evolutionary laws whose discovery would enable us to prophesy the destiny of man.

Historicism, which I have so far characterized only in a rather abstract way, can be well illustrated by one of the simplest and oldest of its forms, the doctrine of the chosen people. This doctrine is one of the attempts to make history understandable by a theistic interpretation, i.e. by recognizing God as the author of the play performed on the Historical Stage. The theory of the chosen people, more specifically, assumes that God has chosen one people to function as the selected instrument of His will, and that this people will inherit the earth.

In this doctrine, the law of historical development is laid down by the Will of God. This is the specific difference which distinguishes the theistic form from other forms of historicism. A naturalistic historicism, for instance, might treat the developmental law as a law of nature; a spiritual historicism would treat it as a law of spiritual development; an economic historicism, again, as a law of economic development. Theistic historicism shares with these other forms the doctrine that there are specific historical laws which can be discovered, and upon which predictions regarding the future of mankind can be based.

There is no doubt that the doctrine of the chosen people grew out of the tribal form of social life. Tribalism, i.e. the emphasis on the supreme importance of the tribe without which the individual is nothing at all, is an element which we shall find in many forms of historicist theories. Other forms which are no longer tribalist may still retain an element of collectivism¹; they may still emphasize the significance of some group or collective—for example, a class—without which the individual is nothing at all. Another aspect of the doctrine of the chosen people is the remoteness of what it proffers as the end of history. For although it may describe this end with some degree of definiteness, we have to go a long way before we reach it. And the way is not only long, but winding, leading up and down, right and left. Accordingly, it will be possible to bring every conceivable historical event well within the scheme of the interpretation. No conceivable experience can refute it.² But to those who believe in it, it gives certainty regarding the ultimate outcome of human history.

A criticism of the theistic interpretation of history will be attempted in the last chapter of this book, where it will also be shown that some of the greatest Christian thinkers have repudiated this theory as idolatry. An attack upon this form of historicism should therefore not be interpreted as an attack upon religion. In the present chapter, the doctrine of the chosen people serves only as an illustration. Its value as such can be seen from the fact that its chief characteristics³ are shared by the two most important modern versions of historicism, whose analysis will form the major part of this book—the historical philosophy of racialism or fascism on the one (the right) hand and the Marxian historical philosophy on the other (the left). For the chosen people racialism substitutes the chosen race (of Gobineau’s choice), selected as the instrument of destiny, ultimately to inherit the earth. Marx’s historical philosophy substitutes for it the chosen class, the instrument for the creation of the classless society, and at the same time, the class destined to inherit the earth. Both theories base their historical forecasts on an interpretation of history which leads to the discovery of a law of its development. In the case of racialism, this is thought of as a kind of natural law; the biological superiority of the blood of the chosen race explains the course of history, past, present, and future; it is nothing but the struggle of races for mastery. In the case of Marx’s philosophy of history, the law is economic; all history has to be interpreted as a struggle of classes for economic supremacy.

The historicist character of these two movements makes our investigation topical. We shall return to them in later parts of this book. Each of them goes back directly to the philosophy of Hegel. We must, therefore, deal with that philosophy as well. And since Hegel⁴ in the main follows certain ancient philosophers, it will be necessary to discuss the theories of Heraclitus, Plato and Aristotle, before returning to the more modern forms of historicism.

2
Heraclitus

It is not until Heraclitus that we find in Greece theories which could be compared in their historicist character with the doctrine of the chosen people. In Homer’s theistic or rather polytheistic interpretation, history is the product of divine will. But the Homeric gods do not lay down general laws for its development. What Homer tries to stress and to explain is not the unity of history, but rather its lack of unity. The author of the play on the Stage of History is not one God; a whole variety of gods dabble in it. What the Homeric interpretation shares with the Jewish is a certain vague feeling of destiny, and the idea of powers behind the scenes. But ultimate destiny, according to Homer, is not disclosed; unlike its Jewish counterpart, it remains mysterious.

The first Greek to introduce a more markedly historicist doctrine was Hesiod, who was probably influenced by oriental sources. He made use of the idea of a general trend or tendency in historical development. His interpretation of history is pessimistic. He believes that mankind, in their development down from the Golden Age, are destined to degenerate, both physically and morally. The culmination of the various historicist ideas proffered by the early Greek philosophers came with Plato, who, in an attempt to interpret the history and social life of the Greek tribes, and especially of the Athenians, painted a grandiose philosophical picture of the world. He was strongly influenced in his historicism by various forerunners, especially by Hesiod; but the most important influence came from Heraclitus.

Heraclitus was the philosopher who discovered the idea of change. Down to this time, the Greek philosophers, influenced by oriental ideas, had viewed the world as a huge edifice of which the material things were the building material.¹ It was the totality of things—the cosmos (which originally seems to have been an oriental tent or mantle). The questions which the philosophers asked themselves were, ‘What stuff is the world made of?’ or ‘How is it constructed, what is its true ground-plan?’. They considered philosophy, or physics (the two were indistinguishable for a long time), as the investigation of ‘nature’, i.e. of the original material out of which this edifice, the world, had been built. As far as any processes were considered, they were thought of either as going on within the edifice, or else as constructing or maintaining it, disturbing and restoring the stability or balance of a structure which was considered to be fundamentally static. They were cyclic processes (apart from the processes connected with the origin of the edifice; the question ‘Who has made it?’ was discussed by the orientals, by Hesiod, and by others). This very natural approach, natural even to many of us to-day, was superseded by the genius of Heraclitus. The view he introduced was that there was no such edifice, no stable structure, no cosmos. ‘The cosmos, at best, is like a rubbish heap scattered at random’, is one of his sayings.² He visualized the world not as an edifice, but rather as one colossal process; not as the sum-total of all things, but rather as the totality of all events, or changes, or facts. ‘Everything is in flux and nothing is at rest’, is the motto of his philosophy.

Heraclitus’ discovery influenced the development of Greek philosophy for a long time. The philosophies of Parmenides, Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle can all be appropriately described as attempts to solve the problems of that changing world which Heraclitus had discovered. The greatness of this discovery can hardly be overrated. It has been described as a terrifying one, and its effect has been compared with that of ‘an earthquake, in which everything … seems to sway’³. And I do not doubt that this discovery was impressed upon Heraclitus by terrifying personal experiences suffered as a result of the social and political disturbances of his day. Heraclitus, the first philosopher to deal not only with ‘nature’ but even more with ethico-political problems, lived in an age of social revolution. It was in his time that the Greek tribal aristocracies were beginning to yield to the new force of democracy.

In order to understand the effect of this revolution, we must remember the stability and rigidity of social life in a tribal aristocracy. Social life is determined by social and religious taboos; everybody has his assigned place within the whole of the social structure; everyone feels that his place is the proper, the ‘natural’ place, assigned to him by the forces which rule the world; everyone ‘knows his place’.

According to tradition, Heraclitus’ own place was that of heir to the royal family of priest kings of Ephesus, but he resigned his claims in favour of his brother. In spite of his proud refusal to take part in the political life of his city, he supported the cause of the aristocrats who tried in vain to stem the rising tide of the new revolutionary forces. These experiences, in the social or political field are reflected in the remaining fragments of his work.⁴ ‘The Ephesians ought to hang themselves man by man, all the adults, and leave the city to be ruled by infants …’ is one of his outbursts, occasioned by the people’s decision to banish Hermodorus, one of Heraclitus’s aristocratic friends. His interpretation of the people’s motives is most interesting, for it shows that the stock-in-trade of anti-democratic argument has not changed much since the earliest days of democracy. ‘They said: nobody shall be the best among us; and if someone is outstanding, then let him be so elsewhere, and among others.’ This hostility towards democracy breaks through everywhere in the fragments: ‘… the mob fill their bellies like the beasts … They take the bards and popular belief as their guides, unaware that the many are bad and that only the few are good … In Priene lived Bias, son of Teutames, whose word counts more than that of other men. (He said: “Most men are wicked.”) … The mob does not care, not even about the things they stumble upon; nor can they grasp a lesson—though they think they do.’ In the same vein he says: ‘The law can demand, too, that the will of One Man must be obeyed.’ Another expression of Heraclitus’ conservative and anti-democratic outlook is, incidentally, quite acceptable to democrats in its wording, though probably not in its intention: ‘A people ought to fight for the laws of the city as if they were its walls.’

But Heraclitus’ fight for the ancient laws of his city was in vain, and the transitoriness of all things impressed itself strongly upon him. His theory of change gives expression to this feeling⁵: ‘Everything is in flux’, he said; and ‘You cannot step twice into the same river.’ Disillusioned, he argued against the belief that the existing social order would remain for ever: ‘We must not act like children reared with the narrow outlook “As it has been handed down to us”.’

This emphasis on change, and especially on change in social life, is an important characteristic not only of Heraclitus’ philosophy but of historicism in general. That things, and even kings, change, is a truth which needs to be impressed especially upon those who take their social environment for granted. So much is to be admitted. But in the Heraclitean philosophy one of the less commendable characteristics of historicism manifests itself, namely, an over-emphasis upon change, combined with the complementary belief in an inexorable and immutable law of destiny.

In this belief we are confronted with an attitude which, although at first sight contradictory to the historicist’s over-emphasis upon change, is characteristic of most, if not all, historicists. We can explain this attitude, perhaps, if we interpret the historicist’s over-emphasis on change as a symptom of an effort needed to overcome his unconscious resistance to the idea of change. This would also explain the emotional tension which leads so many historicists (even in our day) to stress the novelty of the unheard-of revelation which they have to make. Such considerations suggest the possibility that these historicists are afraid of change, and that they cannot accept the idea of change without serious inward struggle. It often seems as if they were trying to comfort themselves for the loss of a stable world by clinging to the view that change is ruled by an unchanging law. (In Parmenides and in Plato, we shall even find the theory that the changing world in which we live is an illusion and that there exists a more real world which does not change.)

In the case of Heraclitus, the emphasis upon change leads him to the theory that all material things, whether solid, liquid, or gaseous, are like flames—that they are processes rather than things, and that they are all transformations of fire; the apparently solid earth (which consists of ashes) is only a fire in a state of transformation, and even liquids (water, the sea) are transformed fire (and may become fuel, perhaps in the form of oil). ‘The first transformation of fire is the sea; but of the sea, half is earth, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• FOREWORD
• PREFACE: ‘KARL POPPER’S THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES IN THE CONTEMPORARY GLOBAL WORLD’
• ‘PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PUBLICATION OF THE OPEN SOCIETY’
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
• PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
• INTRODUCTION
• VOLUME I: THE SPELL OF PLATO
• VOLUME II: THE HIGH TIDE OF PROPHECY
• NOTES
• NOTES TO VOLUME I
• NOTES TO VOLUME II
• INDEX