An Essay On Popper’s Theory Of The Open Society

Karl Popper regarded his open society and his enemy as a "war book" whose enemy is the totalitarianism. So in a manner of speaking,"the open society" was put forward as the opponent of the totalitarianism. Popper demonstrated the foundation of the totalitarianism in three aspects which are historicism, collectivism and Anti-Rationalism. So far as he was concerned, the three aspects have a bearing on the primitive tribal society whose mysticism such as prophecies, witchcrafts and the community of blood relationship breeds the rudiment of the totalitarianism. The above-mentioned circumstance determines that the totalitarianism is inevitably anti-humanism and pursues the principle of the natural privilege and the collectivism. Popper pointed out thereby that a totalitarian society is inevitably an unequal society. By the contrary, the open society is humanistic and persists the principle of equality whose contents includes complete equality and universal individualism among which the individual is the main body of the society, which is the inherent meaning of the humanism.Through the above analysis we can arrive at the conclusion that Popper believed that the open society is more superior morally than the totalitarianism. This paper points out that Popper’s attitude of the anti-essentialism and the rejection of theories of the origin of states disable him to solve the legitimacy of the open society. According to Simmons, the legitimacy and the justification are different concepts, the former is retrospective which concerns the source and the ancestry of the power and the latter is prospective which concerns the utility and the purpose of the power. Hence the legitimacy is genealogical and the justification is teleological which justifies the power by means of setting some kind of the outer purpose. Since Popper refused the theories of the origin of states and his open society is anti-historical and modernistic, he had to justify his open society by setting the utilitarian purpose, namely the protection of freedom. But in the opinion of Hannah Arendt, not only power but also violence can be justified. So in this sense, the open society and the totalitarianism have the equal position. If Popper persists that the open society is more superior morally than the totalitarianism, he must prove that freedom is the highest value even the only value which merits the choice of the social member, which apparently conflicts Popper’s valuable pluralism. So Popper failed to prove the open society is more superior morally than the totalitarianism. Moreover by the influence of the German philosophy, in the Anglo-American liberalism the negative freedom gradually turns to the positive freedom and the individualism gradually turns to the collectivism. In this condition Popper’s view that regarding the collectivism as the foundation of the totalitarianism is somewhat farfetched.Although there are many flaws in Popper’s theory, his theory of the open society occupies a very important position in the modern western political philosophy. To be specific, Popper’s critique of the utilitarianism makes his theory to be the medium of the liberalism in its transition from the utilitarianism to the new theory of contract. In the viewpoint of Popper, the purpose of the government is not pursuit of happiness but eradication of evil. From this, he critiqued the principle of the greatest happiness of the greatest number of the utilitarianism. Popper pointed out that the essence of the above-mentioned principle is the principle of verification which belongs to the positivism. So his critique of the utilitarianism can be regarded as the application of his falsificationism in the social and political realm. Besides, Popper’s critique of the utilitarianism shows his discontent of the alliance of the liberalism and the utilitarianism. So the purpose of his theory of the open society is to supply new philosophical demonstrations and theory evidences. Although according his anti-collectivism Popper do not put forward the alternate theory of the utilitarianism, the open society do apply the ideal model for the subsequent theories.