ABSTRACT
This chapter applies the critical rationalist model of action to formulate a sociology of the closed society in order to address the question of how the closed society comes into existence. It explores the relation between the low level of critical rationality and the idea of the closed society, arguing that when people use this level of rationality, they create a set of moral values and social institutions, which originate in the dogmatic beliefs. The chapter answers the following questions: (i) “what is a closed society?” and (ii) “how does it come into existence?”. In so doing, it proceeds as follows: (a) a study of how the critical rationalist model of action supplies the sociology of the closed society with a “new micro-foundation”, (b) an inquiry into the question of how the justified true belief account of knowledge shapes the epistemology of the closed society and (c) an exploration of the five mechanisms by the means of which the closed society comes into existence. In short, the sociological theory of the closed society, which is offered in this chapter, should be considered as “the first systematic attempt” to address the role of the philosophy of critical rationality in a sociological understanding of the closed society.
