Carl Popper and His Book «The Open Society and Its Enemies»: from Socrates to Marx – the Philosophical Tradition of the Open Society

Abstract

The given in the article analysis of Popper’s historical and philosophical concept, reconstruction of the genesis of historicistic thinking shows that Popper opposes two traditions in the history of philosophy: 1) the tradition of historisistic philosophy, which includes Plato, Aristotle, Hegel and 2) the tradition critical rationalism which includes Democritus, Socrates, Antisthenes, Schopenhauer, and also Marx. The last one is also called in the article the philosophical tradition of the open society. According to Popper, the necessary component of critical rationalism is the personal moral responsibility of a philosopher for his philosophical statements. The author of the article argues that the concept of historicism is designed not to condemn Marx, but to separate in his doctrine his moral radicalism and social activism from historicistic aspiration to take the History as his ally and, hence, to present him as the defender, but not the enemy of the open society. On the author’s oppinion the concept of historicism is not yet obsolete. With the appropriate specifications it can be useful for the analysis of modern futurologists’ conceptions of postindustrial society.