Popper - Open Society and Its Enemies, STUDIA, Filozofia nauki, Filozofia Nauki
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The Open Society And Its Enemies
Complete: Volumes I and II
Karl R. Popper
1962
Fifth edition (revised)
1966
ISBN 0-691-01968-1, 0-691-0197
Scanner’s note:
The text has been spell-checked and checked
for consistency in various ways, but it has not been proofread.
2-X
By the same author:
The Logic Of Scientific Discovery
The Poverty Of Historicism
Conjectures And Refutations
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 principle
rality.
—
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
in the business.
—
EDMUND BURKE.
s of
mo
understanding to the person who took the
lead
Preface To The First Edition
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, the wish 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. Great men may make great
mistakes; and as the book tries to show, some of the greatest
leaders of the past supported the perennial attack on freedom and
reason. Their influence, too rarely challenged, continues to mislead
those on whose defence civilization depends, and to divide them.
The responsibility for this tragic and possibly fatal division
becomes ours if we hesitate to be outspoken in our criticism of
what admittedly is a part of our intellectual heritage. By our
reluctance to criticize some of it, we may help to destroy it all.
The book is a critical introduction to the philosophy of politics
and of history, and an examination of some of the principles of
social reconstruction. Its aim and the line of approach are indicated
in the
Introduction
. Even where it looks back into the past, its
problems are the problems of our own time; and I have tried hard
to state them as simply as I could, in the hope of clarifying matters
which concern us all.
Although the book presupposes nothing but open-mindedness
in the reader, its object is not so much to popularize the questions
treated as to solve them. In an attempt, however, to serve both of
these purposes, I have confined all matters of more specialized
interest to
Notes
which have been collected at the end of the book.
1943
Preface To The Second Edition
Although much of what is contained in this book took shape at
an earlier date, the final decision to write it was made in March
1938, on the day I received the news of the invasion of Austria.
The writing extended into 1943; and the fact that most of the book
was written during the grave years when the outcome of the war
was uncertain may help to explain why some of its criticism strikes
me to-day as more emotional and harsher in tone than I could wish.
But
it was not the time to mince words—or at least, this was what I
then felt. Neither the war nor any other contemporary event was
explicitly mentioned in the book; but it was an attempt to
understand those events and their background, and some of the
issues which were likely to arise after the war was won. The
expectation that Marxism would become a major problem was the
reason for treating it at some length.
Seen in the darkness of the present world situation, the
criticism of Marxism which it attempts is liable to stand out as the
main point of the book. This view of it is not wholly wrong and
perhaps unavoidable, although the aims of the book are much
wider. Marxism is only an episode—one of the many mistakes we
have made in the perennial and dangerous struggle for building a
better and freer world.
Not unexpectedly, I have been blamed by some for being too
severe in my treatment of Marx, while others contrasted my
leniency towards him with the violence of my attack upon Plato.
But I still feel the need for looking at Plato with highly critical
eyes, just because the general adoration of the ‘divine philosopher’
has a real foundation in his overwhelming intellectual
achievement. Marx, on the other hand, has too often been attacked
on personal and moral grounds, so that here the need is, rather, for
a severe rational criticism of his theories combined with a
sympathetic
llectua
understanding of their astonishing moral and
inte l appeal. Rightly or wrongly, I felt that my criticism was
devastating, and that I could therefore afford to search for Marx’s
give his motives the benefit of the doubt.
real contributions, and to
ny case, it is obvious that we must try to appreciate the strength
of an opponent if we wish to fight him successfully. (I have added
in 1965 a new note on this subject as
Addendum II
to my second
volume.)
No book can ever be finished. While working on it we learn
just enough to find it immature the moment we turn away from it.
As to my criticism of Plato and Marx, this inevitable experience
was not more disturbing than usual. But most of my positive
suggestions and, above all, the strong feeling of optimism which
pervades the whole book struck me more and more as naive, as the
In a
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