Copyrighted Material-Taylor & Francis Copyrighted Material-Taylor & Francis The Open Society and Its Enemies ‘ . a work of fi rst-class importance which ought to be widely read for its masterly criticism of the enemies of democracy, ancient and modern.. The book is a vigorous and profound defence of democracy, timely, very interesting, and very well written.’ Bertrand Russell ‘One of the great books of the century’ The Times ‘ . a modern classic’ The Independent ‘Few philosophers. have combined such a vast width of knowledge with the capacity to produce important original ideas as he did.’ The Guardian ‘. a powerful and important book. Dr Popper writes with extreme clarity and vigour. His studies in Greek history and Greek thought have obviously been profound and original. Platonic exegesis will never be the same again. Nor, I think, will Marxist exegesis.’ Gilbert Ryle ‘. a brilliant polemic. It remains the best intellectual defence of liberal democracy against know-it-all totalitarianism.’ The Economist Copyrighted Material-Taylor & Francis Routledge Classics contains the very best of Routledge publishing over the past century or so, books that have, by popular consent, become established as classics in their field. Drawing on a fantastic heritage of innovative writing published by Routledge and its associated imprints, this series makes available in attractive, affordable form some of the most important works of modern times. For a complete list of titles visit www.routledge.com/classics Copyrighted Material-Taylor & Francis Karl Popper The Open Society and Its Enemies With a preface by Václav Havel Copyrighted Material-Taylor & Francis First published in two volumes in 1945 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd Second edition 1952 Third edition 1957 Fourth edition 1962 Both volumes published in paperback 1962 by Routledge Fifth edition 1966 One-volume hardback edition published 2002 First published in Routledge Classics 2011 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1994 The Estate of Karl Popper Preface © 2002 Václav Havel ‘Personal Recollections’ © 2002 E. H. Gombrich All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-0-415-61021-6 (pbk) Typeset in Joanna by Refi neCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Copyrighted Material-Taylor & Francis CONTENTS FOREWORD ix PREFACE: ‘KARL POPPER’S THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES IN THE CONTEMPORARY GLOBAL WORLD’ BY VÁCLAV HAVEL xi ‘ PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PUBLICATION OF THE OPEN SOCIETY’ BY E. H. GOMBRICH xvii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xxix PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION xxxi PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xxxiii INTRODUCTION xxxv VOLUME I: THE SPELL OF PLATO 1 The Myth of Origin and Destiny 5 1 Historicism and the Myth of Destiny 7 2 Heraclitus 10 3 Plato’s Theory of Forms or Ideas 17 Plato’s Descriptive Sociology 33 4 Change and Rest 35 5 Nature and Convention 55 Copyrighted Material-Taylor & Francis vi CONTENTS Plato’s Political Programme 81 6 Totalitarian Justice 83 7 The Principle of Leadership 114 8 The Philosopher King 130 9 Aestheticism, Perfectionism, Utopianism 147 The Background of Plato’s Attack 159 10 The Open Society and Its Enemies 161 Addenda (1957, 1961, 1965) 190 VOLUME II: THE HIGH TIDE OF PROPHECY 213 The Rise of Oracular Philosophy 217 11 The Aristotelian Roots of Hegelianism 219 12 Hegel and the New Tribalism 242 Marx’s Method 291 13 Marx’s Sociological Determinism 293 14 The Autonomy of Sociology 301 15 Economic Historicism 311 16 The Classes 321 17 The Legal and the Social System 327 Marx’s Prophecy 343 18 The Coming of Socialism 345 19 The Social Revolution 355 20 Capitalism and its Fate 373 21 An Evaluation of the Prophecy 397 Marx’s Ethics 403 22 The Moral Theory of Historicism 405 Copyrighted Material-Taylor & Francis CONTENTS vii The Aftermath 417 23 The Sociology of Knowledge 419 24 Oracular Philosophy and the Revolt against Reason 430 Conclusion 463 25 Has History any Meaning? 465 Addenda (1961, 1965) 485 NOTES 512 NOTES TO VOLUME I 514 NOTES TO VOLUME II 640 INDEX 735 Copyrighted Material-Taylor & Francis Copyrighted Material-Taylor & Francis FOREWORD Karl Raimund Popper (1902–1994) was born in Vienna, and was a student at the University there throughout the 1920s. His early thinking was influenced by the activities of the communists and the Social Democratic party, by his work with the psychoanalyst Alfred Adler, by Eddington’s eclipse experiment to test Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and later by his acquaintance with members of the Vienna Circle. Though never a member of the Circle, and usually in sharp disagreement with their main doctrines, he shared their enthusiasm for science and for logic. Replacing their verifi ability criterion of meaning with the falsifiability criterion of demarcation of empirical science, he put forward a solution to Hume’s problem of induction. More generally, he proposed an anti-authoritarian approach to human knowledge, in which criticism is stressed and justifi ca­ tion abandoned. The application of these ideas from the theory of knowledge to political thought resulted in the two volumes of The Open Society and Its Enemies. The book was completed while Popper was a Senior Lecturer at Canterbury University College in Christchurch, New Zealand, where he had taken up a post in 1937 in order to escape National Socialism, soon to overpower not only Austria but most of Europe. The Open Society and Its Enemies champions the cause of democracy, which it shows to be the only form of government in which human reason can prevail and non-violent reform can take place. Popper launched a merciless attack on those he saw as the greatest enemies of democracy: Plato, Marx and Hegel. Volume I is concerned with The Spell of Plato. Popper vigorously argued that Plato was guilty of the ‘dangerous habit of historical prophecy’ and that his political thought was totalitarian in nature. Volume II critiques Marx and Hegel. By analysing their work, Popper was able to expand his theory of the Copyrighted Material-Taylor & Francis x FOREWORD connection between historicism and totalitarianism which he found equally repugnant as obstacles both to the rule of democracy and of reason. Popper later called this book his ‘war work’. It was published in 1945 just as the Marxist regimes of Eastern Europe were being installed. Its author became something of a hero to dissidents in the communist countries, and despite his forceful rejection of the idea that the course of human history can be foretold, his work was hailed as prophetic when the communist regimes collapsed in the early 1990s.A Russian translation was published in 1992 and became a best-seller. The political stance of the book, though fundamentally in the social democratic tradition, has been endorsed by many conservative politicians in Britain and Europe. Popper himself stead­ fastly refused identification with any political party. In his later work, Popper returned to problems in the theory of knowl­ edge, the philosophy of science and many other areas. Up until his death he continued to reflect on the Greek philosophers from the PreSocratics onwards; the treatment of Plato (as also of Hegel and Marx) sprang from the deepest roots of his thinking. Karl Popper received many academic and other honours; he was knighted in 1965 and created Companion of Honour in 1982. His books have been translated into over thirty languages. Many of his papers, lectures and corre­ spondence are being prepared for publication through Routledge. Copyrighted Material-Taylor & Francis PREFACE Karl Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies in the contemporary global world * Václav Havel Some time ago a wise old man came to see me in Prague and I listened to him with admiration. Shortly afterwards I heard that this man had died. His name was Karl Popper. He was a world traveller who followed the biggest war ever waged by humankind – the war unleashed by the tribal fury of Nazi ideology – from this country, from New Zealand. It was here that he thought about the state of the world, and it was here that he wrote his most important books. Undoubtedly infl uenced by the harmonious co-existence of people of different cultures on these islands, he posed the question why it was so difficult for the idea of an open society to prevail against wave after wave of tribalism, and inquired into the spiritual background of all enemies of open society and into the patterns of their thinking. One of the targets of Popper’s profound criticism – which he supported by ample evidence – was a phenomenon he called holistic social engi­ neering. He used this term to describe human attempts to change the world * The Chancellor’s Lecture for 1995, Stout Research Centre,Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Given on the occasion of the visit of Václav Havel, the former President of the Czech Republic, to the University to receive an Honorary Doctorate of Literature. 1995 was the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Open Society and Its Enemies . Copyrighted Material-Taylor & Francis xii PREFACE for the better completely and globally, on the basis of some preconceived ideology that purported to understand all the laws of historical develop­ ment and to describe inclusively, comprehensively and holistically a state of affairs that would be the ultimate realization of these laws.