The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper
The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper
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The Open Society and Its Enemies
New One-Volume Edition

Author: Karl Popper

Narrator: Liam Gerrard

Unabridged: 23 hr 17 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/19/2019

Synopsis

One of the most important books of the twentieth century, Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies is an uncompromising defense of liberal democracy and a powerful attack on the intellectual origins of totalitarianism. 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.

An immediate sensation when it was first published in two volumes in 1945, Popper's monumental achievement has attained legendary status on both the Left and Right and is credited with inspiring anticommunist dissidents during the Cold War. Arguing that the spirit of free, critical inquiry that governs scientific investigation should also apply to politics, Popper traces the roots of an opposite, authoritarian tendency to a tradition represented by Plato, Marx, and Hegel.

About Karl Popper

Karl Popper (1902-1994) was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. His books include The Logic of Scientific Discovery, The Poverty of Historicism, Conjectures and Refutations, and an autobiography, Unended Quest. He was a professor at the London School of Economics.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Clif on January 05, 2022

Have you wondered what Plato was all about or had trouble reading through his lengthy works? Get this wonderful book where an outstanding author does the hard work for you, then lays out the gist of Plato's thoughts in clear, easily and quickly readable prose. Behind our societies lie influential ide......more

Goodreads review by Matthew on August 30, 2016

Popper's Open Society and its Enemies is devoted to a crushing polemic against Platonism. Plato's Republic is described as a detailed defense of what Popper calls "Closed Society", which is taken to be totalitarian in all its forms. Platonism is hard to summarize concisely, but roughly amounts to an......more

Goodreads review by Kyle on February 22, 2016

An incredible work on Plato yielding one of the most important interpretations of his philosophy of all time. We tend to idealize the great Athenian philosopher but Karl Popper, a philosopher of science, sets the record straight with this scathing indictment of his philosophy and its cruel implicati......more

Goodreads review by Steve on April 01, 2012

This is one of the most important books written in the 20th century, taken with its second volume - a searching analysis of the modes of thinking of "development" that takes in Plato, Hegel, and Marx. The best edition is this one, that keeps more detailed analysis in wee tiny print in appendices - b......more

Goodreads review by J.D. on July 29, 2020

Popper severely criticizes Plato for his totalitarianism. The Republic, the Laws, and the Statesman are designed to put a divine system in this world. Except for the Philosopher-King, whose job it was to provide vision-order-stability, Plato shuts down reason for others. Everyone has a place. For mo......more

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