The Open Society and Its Enemies

Aristotle (384-322 BCE) was an ancient Greek philosopher and a student of Plato. He is considered one of the central philosophers in the history of Western intellectual tradition. His work served as an important influence on various traditions, including Christian Scholasticism in the Medieval period, and St. Thomas Aquinas specifically. He also left a mark on Medieval Islamic philosophy, for instance scholar Ahmad Ibn Rushd, known as Averroes in the West. It is this period impacted by Aristotelianism that is of interest to Popper in his book along with his influence of Hegel. Aristotle relied on a multidisciplinary approach and focused on science, formal logic, metaphysics, political theory, aesthetics, and ethics—beyond philosophy, for which he is best known. This broad range of subjects is the reason why categorizing Aristotle’s work is not an easy task.

Born in Stagira, Greece, Aristotle spent a significant amount of time in Athens as Plato’s student at his Academy and, later, as his colleague, until 347 BCE. He established his own school called the Lyceum in 335 BCE.

Aristotle was certainly influenced by Plato’s views, such as his view of the soul. Popper, however, goes further and challenges the accepted view of Aristotle. He suggests that Aristotle was largely unoriginal and focused on systematizing his teacher’s work. Aristotle applied his systematization skills and intellectual curiosity and erudition in the fields of zoology and biology. For instance, he described and classified more than 500 animal species (Kenny, Anthony J.P. “Aristotle,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 1999). In politics, Aristotle evaluated different forms of government, including democracies, oligarchies, aristocracies, and tyrannies, to determine which is optimal for human happiness. Aristotle based his ideas on his immediate environment—the Greek city-states, such as Athens, in which he spent a significant portion of his life. Like his teacher Plato, Aristotle was critical of the democratic form of government but did not discount it altogether.

Some of Aristotle’s best-known works are Politics, focused on political philosophy, and Nicomachean Ethics, which discusses the optimal lifestyle for a human being, including intellectual work, community engagement, and happiness. It is important to note that Aristotle’s texts typically comprise his lecture notes and drafts rather than entirely finished works.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1830) was a German philosopher and one of the most influential thinkers of the Modern period in Western thought. Like Plato before him and Marx after him, Hegel was a philosophical system builder. Hegel is best known for his work on dialectics, as the dialectic triad of thesis–antithesis–synthesis informed historic progress. His theories are rooted in idealism, and his thought impacted several important thinkers, including Marx.

Born to a family of a revenue officer, Hegel studied classics, philosophy, and theology in Tübingen in central Germany (Knox, T. Malcolm. “Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 1998). His early intellectual life was heavily influenced by another key philosopher, Immanuel Kant, from whom he moved away later on. Hegel began working as a lecturer in Jena, Germany, in 1801. He published his first work of note, The Phenomenology of Spirit, in 1807. Married to Marie von Tucher four years later, Hegel went on to hold a number of other positions, such as his job as a gymnasium rector in Nuremberg, and a professor in Heidelberg. Hegel’s most noteworthy appointment was as the chair of philosophy at the University of Berlin in 1818.

It is this appointment that earned him Popper’s scathing criticism as the servant of the absolutist and reactionary Prussian state. Popper asserts that Hegel did not pursue philosophy for the purpose of expanding knowledge but to use this field of study as the intellectual backing for King Frederick William III. In order to do so, Hegel used his dialectics to change the meaning of certain terms, such as justice, into their opposites. Popper also argues that Hegel’s philosophical system is the single most important source of all 20th-century totalitarian movements, particularly his historicism.

Hegel’s key works include The Science of Logic (1816), Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1837), and The Philosophy of Right (1821). They are to be understood in the context of his complex philosophical system.

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, and economist. He is one of the most influential thinkers in the Modern world. Marx’s body of work is referred to as Marxism. Marxism, and the related ideologies of socialism and communism, provided the theoretic framework for successful revolutions in places such as Russia (USSR) and China.

Marx was born in Trier, Germany, to a Jewish family. His father converted to Protestantism to escape anti-Semitism (Wolff, Jonathan and David Leopold, “Karl Marx,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [Spring 2021 Edition], Edward N. Zalta [ed.]). As a young man, Marx attended the Universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Jena to study law and philosophy. In the 1840s, Marx lived in Paris and Brussels, respectively. He was expelled from both cities for political activism. Marx eventually settled in London and remained there for decades—until his death—with his wife, Jenny von Westphalen, and their children.

It was in Berlin that Marx was introduced to the philosophy of Hegel. Specifically, Marx was interested in dialectics—change achieved through the interaction of opposing forces. Hegel believed dialectics to be the basis of historic progress. Eventually, Marx, along with his associate Friedrich Engels, modified Hegelian dialectics. Marx applied this concept to materialism, which deals with conditions in the real world. Marx reimagined the broad development of history through the prism of class struggle. He predicted that eventually, this struggle would lead to the disintegration of capitalism—a form of social relations defined by inequality, in Marx’s view—as it will be replaced by socialism (communism). Marx’s best-known works include The Communist Manifesto (1848) and The Capital (1867–1883), in which he explores these ideas.

Popper is sympathetic to Marx’s method of analyzing class relations and his genuine humanitarian concerns but critical of his historicist prophecy. This tension is evident throughout the second volume of this book.

Plato is one of the key philosophers of Western intellectual tradition. He was born in Athens, Greece, around 429 BCE and died in 347 BCE. Historians describe this time as the classical period of ancient Greece, in which Athens was a prominent intellectual and cultural center. Born into a highly privileged Athenian family, Plato received a well-rounded education, which ranged from academics to athletics. Plato studied philosophy with another major thinker, Socrates. In turn, Plato’s most famous student is the philosopher Aristotle.

Scholars credit Plato with establishing Western political philosophy as a field of inquiry. His works have been studied for over two millennia. Plato is one of the only philosophers to have such a significant impact on Western thought as a whole beyond the realm of philosophy—from visual arts to religion. Plato’s name is even used idiomatically, for instance, when referring to Platonic love.

One of Plato’s best-known and most important concepts is the distinction between objects in the physical world and the corresponding Ideas (Forms) outside of time and space. In Plato’s view, the former is mutable and defective, whereas the latter is immutable and perfect. Plato assigned special status to certain ideas, including goodness and beauty. This divided view of reality is the sine qua non in most of Plato’s works. Plato’s followers, scholars, and Plato himself focused on the implications of differentiating between Forms and Ideas, such as the religious conception of the soul.

Plato chose to write in the form of dialogues. His key works include the Republic, Symposium, Statesman, and Timaeus, among many others. Plato is one of the key figures in The Open Society and Its Enemies because Popper views him as the ultimate philosophical source of totalitarianism (authoritarianism) and the empowerment of the state at the expense of individual rights. Whereas Popper recognizes Plato’s intellectual prowess, he considers his influence on both philosophers and scholars in the Western intellectual tradition to be harmful.