ABSTRACT
Written in political exile in New Zealand during the Second World War and published in two volumes in 1945, The Open Society and its Enemies was hailed by Bertrand Russell as a 'vigorous and profound defence of democracy'. This legendary attack on the philosophies of Plato, Hegel and Marx prophesied the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and exposed the fatal flaws of socially engineered political systems. It remains highly readable, erudite and lucid and as essential reading today as on publication in 1945. It is available here in a special centenary single-volume edition.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |244 pages
The Spell of Plato
part |32 pages
The Myth of Origin and Destiny
chapter |4 pages
Historicism and the Myth of Destiny
chapter |8 pages
Heraclitus
chapter |18 pages
Plato's Theory of Forms or Ideas
part |55 pages
Plato's Descriptive Sociology
chapter |23 pages
Change and Rest
chapter |30 pages
Nature and Convention
part |90 pages
Plato's Political Programme
chapter |36 pages
Totalitarian Justice
chapter |19 pages
The Principle of Leadership
chapter |20 pages
The Philosopher King
chapter |13 pages
Aestheticism, Perfectionism, Utopianism
part |36 pages
The Background of Plato's Attack
chapter |34 pages
The Open Society and its Enemies
part |344 pages
The High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath
part |85 pages
The Rise of Oracular Philosophy
chapter |27 pages
The Aristotelian Roots of Hegelianism
chapter |56 pages
Hegel and the New Tribalism
part |59 pages
Marx's Method
chapter |9 pages
Marx's Sociological Determinism
chapter |12 pages
The Autonomy of Sociology
chapter |11 pages
Economic Historicism
chapter |7 pages
The Classes
chapter |18 pages
The Legal and the Social System
part |70 pages
Marx's Prophecy
chapter |12 pages
The Coming of Socialism
chapter |21 pages
The Social Revolution
chapter |28 pages
Capitalism and its Fate
chapter |7 pages
An Evaluation of the Prophecy
part |16 pages
Marx's Ethics
chapter |14 pages
The Moral Theory of Historicism
part |52 pages
The Aftermath
chapter |13 pages
The Sociology of Knowledge
chapter |37 pages
Oracular Philosophy and the Revolt Against Reason
part |25 pages
Conclusion