Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume 2 by Karl R Popper

Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume 2 by Karl R Popper

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. In the book, Popper condemned Plato, Marx, and Hegel as "holists" and "historicists"--a holist, according to Popper, believes that individuals are formed entirely by their social groups; historicists believe that social groups evolve according to internal principles that it is the intellectual's task to uncover. Popper, by contrast, held that social affairs are unpredictable, and argued vehemently against social engineering. He also sought to shift the focus of political philosophy away from questions about who ought to rule toward questions about how to minimize the damage done by the powerful. The book was an immediate sensation, and--though it has long been criticized for its portrayals of Plato, Marx, and Hegel--it has remained a landmark on the left and right alike for its defense of freedom and the spirit of critical inquiry.

One of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century was Sir Karl Popper. Popper, who was born in Vienna in 1902, grew up in a place where there was a lot of intellectual ferment. His friendship with philosophers and scientists led to the publication of his first book, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, in 1934. The New Scientist called it one of the most important publications of the twentieth century when it was first published in English in 1959. Popper was obliged to evacuate to New Zealand on the eve of World War Two, when he took up a teaching position at Canterbury University College in Christchurch.

He wrote The Open Society and Its Opponents, which was published in 1945, while meditating on the dictatorship sweeping Eastern Europe. Popper moved to the London School of Economics in 1946 and lectured there until 1969, when he retired. The Poverty of Historicism was published around this time, and the Sunday Times called it perhaps the only book that will outlast this century. In 1965, he was knighted, and in 1982, he was made a Companion of Honour.

In 1994, he passed away.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780691019727
ISBN 10	069101972X
Title	Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume 2
Author	Karl R Popper
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Princeton University Press
Year published	1971-02-21
Number of pages	432
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.