The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato

Karl Raimund Popper

Princeton University Press, 1971 - Philosophy - 368 pages

Popper was born in 1902 to a Viennese family of Jewish origin. He taught in Austria until 1937, when he emigrated to New Zealand in anticipation of the Nazi annexation of Austria the following year, and he settled in England in 1949. Before the annexation, Popper had written mainly about the philosophy of science, but from 1938 until the end of the Second World War he focused his energies on political philosophy, seeking to diagnose the intellectual origins of German and Soviet totalitarianism. The Open Society and Its Enemies was the result.

In the book, Popper condemned Plato, Marx, and Hegel as "holists" and "historicists"--a holist, according to Popper, believes that individuals are formed entirely by their social groups; historicists believe that social groups evolve according to internal principles that it is the intellectual's task to uncover. Popper, by contrast, held that social affairs are unpredictable, and argued vehemently against social engineering. He also sought to shift the focus of political philosophy away from questions about who ought to rule toward questions about how to minimize the damage done by the powerful. The book was an immediate sensation, and--though it has long been criticized for its portrayals of Plato, Marx, and Hegel--it has remained a landmark on the left and right alike for its defense of freedom and the spirit of critical inquiry.

What people are saying

Review: The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume 1 : The Spell of Plato

User Review  - Randal Samstag - Goodreads

Popper's anti-Platonist tract is slander from start to finish; the book that inspired Ronald Levinson to write a 645 page rebuttal (In Defense of Plato). In much of Popper's writing he is a fitting ...

Review: The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume 1 : The Spell of Plato

User Review  - Lisa (Harmonybites) - Goodreads

This book about one of the fundamental thinkers of Western Civilization was written in the shadow of the fascist threat to that civilization, from Popper's first conception of the book in 1938 to its ...

Contents

• Introduct1on i: 7
• Platos Descr1pt1ve Soc1olooy: 35
• Platos Pol1t1cal Programme: 86
• The Background of Platos Attack: 169
• Notes: 302
• Addenda 1957 1961 1965: 319
• Index of Platon1c Passages: 345
• Index of Subjects: 353

About the author

Popper is deceased. He is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest philosophers and most influential thinkers of our time.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato; Princeton Paperbacks; Princeton paperbacks: Philosophy; Volume 1 of Spell of Plato; Volume 1 of The Open Society and Its Enemies, Sir Karl Raimund Popper
• Author: Karl Raimund Popper
• Edition: 5, reprint, revised
• Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1971
• ISBN: 0691019681, 9780691019680
• Length: 368 pages
• Subjects: Medical / General; Philosophy / History & Surveys / Ancient & Classical; Social Science / Sociology / General