In the first part of The Open Society, The Spell of Plato, Karl Popper deals with Plato and gives a devastating criticism of Plato’s political stance and the concept of Historicism.
In the second part, The High Tide of Prophecy, Popper moves closer in time and focuses on Karl Marx and Hegel.
Although much of the second book is centered on Marx’s historicism and its errors, Popper is forgiving towards Marx in the light of the social and economic situation at the time Marx wrote his Communist Manifesto.
Popper points out what ultimately proved to be right, that communism will not work directly and there won’t be a proletariat revolution.
Indirectly, communism had an effect by mobilizing and creating political parties and labor unions, from which, the working class saw tremendous improvement in the standard of living. In this way, Marx’s theory had its intended effect.
However, that does not make the theory anymore correct.
Popper is much harder on Hegel, Hegelianism and its Aristotelian roots.
In the first chapter, he deals several blows to Aristoteles and basically writes him off as a source of any meaningful political theory.
The introduction sums it up perfectly:
“In some of Plato’s latest wrings, we can find an echo of the contemporary political developments in Athens – of the consolidation of democracy.
It seems that even Plato began to doubt whether some form of democracy had not come to stay.
In Aristotle, we find indication that he did not doubt any longer.
Although he is no friend of democracy, he accepts it as unavoidable and is ready to compromise with the enemy.
An inclination to compromise, strangely mixed with an inclination to find fault with his predecessors and contemporaries (and with Plato in particular), is one of the outstanding characteristics of Aristotle’s encyclopedic writings.
They show no trace of the tragic and stirring conflict that is the motive of Plato’s work.
Instead of Plato’s flashes of penetrating insight, we find dry systematization and the love, shared by so many mediocre writers of later times, for settling any question whatever by issuing a ‘sound and balanced judgment’ that does justice to everybody; which means, at times, by elaborately and solemnly missing the point.”
This is a harsh judgment.
However, he continues by highlighting Aristotle’s lack of insight, lack of originality, and points out how his errors have misguided generations of philosophers, thinkers, writers, and politicians until culminating in Hegel.
Popper calls this Oracular Philosophy. If you try to look Oracular Philosophy up, you will not find anything!
Popper uses the term as a derogatory name for a philosophy that is hard to understand and of prophetic nature.
One of the highlights is Aristotle’s misunderstanding of the concept of the ‘first cause’.
As Popper puts it, “The role of definitions in science, especially, is also very different from what Aristotle had in mind.”
In basic terms, cause and effect can be regressed infinitely, which makes the “first cause or first mover” a convenient tool or a lazy way out, to get to the end of infinite regression.
However, the subject of the first mover is complicated and must be dealt with separately, so I’ll leave it here for now.
Popper dismisses the idea of ‘intellectual intuition of essences’ of ‘pure phenomenology’ as neither a method of science nor philosophy.
In short, Popper compares Hegel, and the influence Aristotle had on his ideas, to when a person uses a flashlight to try to shed a light on an object but misses it altogether.
The beam misses the object, continuing in a straight line into space.
The further the light beam goes, the further away it is from the object, meaning that since Aristotle was off the mark, Hegel was still further away from it.
What does this have to do with us today? Well, in short, everything.
Aristotelian philosophy returned to Europe via the Muslim Caliphate during the Muslim occupation of Spain.
In Europe, it was taken up by the church and later by Hegel and others.
While Marxism is virtually dead as a doctrine, Hegel’s nihilism is alive and well. We have seen it rear its ugly head in various locations around the world.
In Western Europe, we have fascist-leaning groups in several countries, notably France, Spain and Italy, while Hungary, Poland and Turkey have gone much further down the road of limiting democracy.
Similar tendencies are also seen in the Philippines, several of the ex-Soviet countries, Venezuela, and several African countries.
Note that totalitarian tendencies can come, both from the right as well as from the left.
The highlight of this totalitarian movement was the presidency of Donald Trump.
It is not that Trump was the worst we have seen.
No, there have been worse governments around the world, but the influence of the USA is such that it lends a special status to totalitarianism, placing it in the highest office of the USA.
Trump’s government can be characterized as an all-out attack on democracy.
Attack on the free press, attack on everyone and anyone that did not agree with the “party” line, attack on governmental institutions, and the attempt to demonize democracy in every way possible.
All this makes Aristotle and Hegel very relevant today.
It also goes to show how deep understanding Popper had of their theories in general and historicism in particular.
Popper has been the harshest critic of the totalitarian tendencies of Plato, Aristotle and Hegel, although he was not alone.
We must take Popper’s warning seriously.
The enemies of the open society are relentless and don’t play by the rules.
Hitler and Trump did not take their positions by force, they got there because of democracy, which goes to show that democracy is not perfect.
However, it’s the best option we have.
Until we have something better than the democracy, we must guard it, nurture it and develop it, to make sure that it can withstand any onslaught.
Strengthening democratic institutions, guaranteeing political access for everyone, keeping unfettered capitalism in check and making sure the statement ‘by the people for the people’ applies at all times.
We must realize that already, corporations and money have more rights than people.
Of course, it varies by country and region, but check your own law and verify.
It would be interesting if everyone would list here the laws that favor corporations and money over people in their country.
If you do, I would like you to reference the law, when it was enacted, and explain the negative short and long-term effect you see the law having.
Such a database then can be used by politicians and activists to modify, repeal, and/or counter the legislature to eliminate or at least minimize these negative effects.
RELATED: BOOK REVIEW: The Open Society and Its Enemies Vol. 1
