The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath

Popper describes himself as a rationalist and a fallibilist, as opposed to a historicist, a relativist, or authoritarian. Hegel is the main target of Popper's intellectual vitriol - at one point he calls him a clown, and the entire section on Hegel is amusing as an example of rhetorical assault on not just Hegel's ideas, but also his pretentious and obtuse mode of communication. Heidegger also falls under this category of the intentionally impenetrable writers; it seems he is trying to bury his weak and dangerous arguments under a mountain of difficult prose, so as to deflect any pointed criticism.

Popper's critique of Marx is more nuanced. Popper takes Marx seriously as an analyst of 19th century capitalism, not as a prophet or show more historicist. These latter tendencies of Marx is what arguably created the brutal authoritarianism of Lenin and Stalin.

Although I haven't read Popper before, he is the defender of Enlightenment that we need in 2023. His argument that democratic institutions are the pillars of any free society are so relevant to the anti-rationalist thinking that is so pervasive in the present rise of right-wing totalitarianism. show less

Not nearly as engaging as Volume I. It might be because the material of Hegel's and Marx's philosophies are necessarily more complex than that of Plato and Aristotle. But I also got the impression that Popper, through a large part of the volume, left the discussion of an "open society" off to the side while he treated his preferred topic of historicism, along with other, less relevant tangents (many having to do with Marx's economic theories). The result was a book that I labored to get through, as opposed to Vol. I, which I was consistently thrilled to pick up.

Although not an integral part of his criticism, Popper's treatment of Hegel's dialectic theory left me scratching my head. I'm not a Hegel expert, but I know enough to understand show more that his model of dialectics is considered perhaps his greatest achievement. Popper devoted a whopping three paragraphs to the discussion before discarding the idea out of hand, the result of a logical progression that needed better development.

Popper's views on democracy, science and technology continued to trouble me as well. A short passage will help illustrate:

I do not intend to belittle the very serious problem of purely mechanical work, of a drudgery which is felt to be meaningless, and which destroys the creative power of the workers; but the only practical hope lies, not in a return to slavery and serfdom, but in an attempt to make machinery take over this mechanical drudgery. Marx was right in insisting that increased productivity is the only reasonable hope of humanizing labour, and of further shortening the labour day. Ch. 24, Sec. IV, 2nd paragraph

Excuse me? Yes machines can have all the labour, thereby freeing the labourers to. . . do what, exactly (besides lose their jobs)? Shortening the work day will solve all of our problems? And people will earn money how? I am sure that Popper would have a ready reply to this criticism (as he appears to have for every other), but the apparent lack of foresight in this comment was shocking. Maybe a smarter person can help me out here. Besides this particular passage, Popper demonstrates throughout the book an unwavering faith in science, technology, reason and the democratic process that at times seems delusional.

The best example is with his rationalism (the faith in reason that I just mentioned). Besides the fact that Popper admits it is logically unsustainable (requiring a leap of faith in order to believe in reason at the outset), and that this initial leap of faith requires that Popper then allow other uses of faith and irrationality in order to maintain consistency (which he neglects to do), the rationalism itself has some disturbing trends. Throughout the book, Popper uses language that implies an act of violence toward the natural world. Something that is inherently unnatural must be "subjected" or "submitted" to our reason, in our effort to control it. I enjoy using reason and logic as much as the next guy, but I wonder if a better approach toward something outside of our control and understanding might be a role of cooperation, and coordination, in order to more healthily interact with our surrounding environment. This is, after all, one of the main points of his rationalism, that we use reason to cooperate with our fellow humans. Why not extend that idea to the natural world? show less

Popper's critique of Hegel and Marx is right on point. He doesn't have anything good to say about Hegel's obscure philosophy but gives plenty of credit to Marx's good intentions. He analyzes clearly the motivations behind Marx's philosophical method and admits that Marx could not have anticipated the historical developments which eventually proved the key aspects of his theory of capitalism to be wrong. He directs the strongest critique against modern-day marxists who still cling to this outdated social theory. After he's finished with Marx he presents some chapters on philosophy of science and philosophy of history which seemed a bit disconnected from the earlier parts and weren't of any interest to me at least. Nevertheless, books show more this good are seldom written today. show less

Camus' critique of Marx's thought is a lot better: more reasonable, less boring.

LA SOCIEDAD ABIERTA Y SUS ENEMIGOS

SI en este libro se habla con cierta dureza de algunos de los más grandes rectores
intelectuales de la humanidad, el motivo que nos ha movido a hacerlo no es, ciertamente,
el deseo de rebajar sus méritos. Tal actitud surge, más bien, de la convicción de que si
nuestra civilización ha de subsistir, debemos romper con la deferencia hacia los grandes
hombres creada por el hábito. Los grandes hombres pueden cometer grandes errores y, tal
como esta obra trata de demostrarlo, algunas de las celebridades más ilustres del pasado
llevaron un permanente ataque contra la libertad y la razón. Su influencia, rara vez
contrarrestada, continúa impulsando por una senda equivocada a aquellos de quienes
depende la show more defensa de la civilización, suscitando divisiones en su seno. La responsabilidad
por esta división trágica, y posiblemente fatal, recaerá sobre nosotros, si nos mostramos
blandos en la crítica de lo que reconocidamente forma parte de nuestro patrimonio
intelectual. Pero nuestra renuencia a censurar una parte del mismo puede determinar su
destrucción total.
Este libro constituye una introducción crítica a la filosofía de la política y de la
historia, como así también un examen de algunos de los principios de la reconstrucción
social. En la Introducción se indican su objetivo y el método de estudio empleado. Aun
cuando a veces nos referimos al pasado, los problemas tratados son los problemas de
nuestra propia época; por ello he procurado con todas mis fuerzas plantearlos con la
mayor sencillez posible, a fin de aclarar los males que a todos nos aquejan por igual. Si
bien este libro nada presupone sino amplitud de criterios por parte del lector, su objeto no
es tanto el de difundir el conocimiento de las cuestiones tratadas como la resolución de las
mismas. No obstante, en una tentativa de servir a ambos fines, he reunido todos los temas
que encierran un interés más especializado, en las Notas, que el lector encontrará al final
del libro. show less