ABSTRACT
With the sociological idea of the open society at hand, this chapter applies the critical-rationalist model of human action in order to address the question of how the open society comes into existence. To this end, it argues that the highest level of critical rationality enables human actors, including thinkers, movements and masses, to enter into “a moral dialogue” for giving themselves “a shard conception” of the good life, and building upon such an account of the good life a set of social institutions of law, government and economy, which not only prevents them from the war of all against all, but also involves them in “a social division of works” to realize the ideal of the good life for all. In this way, the chapter uses the sociological idea of the open society in order to develop “a sociological theory of the open society” in which five mechanisms of the open society formation, namely the metaphysical, moral, legal, political and economic mechanisms, are integrated in one sociological analysis to address the question of how the open society comes into existence.
