The Open Society and Its Enemies

The beginning of the second volume focuses on Aristotle and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The first chapter summarizes the relevant intellectual development in the West over two millennia—from ancient Greece to modern Europe—through the prism of the Aristotelian influence on European thought. The next chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the key aspects of Hegel’s philosophy—such as the dialectical triad and the philosophy of identity—along with the historic context of Hegel’s political connections to the Prussian government. Popper’s ultimate goal is to highlight the influence of Hegelianism on 20th-century totalitarianism, in which “oracular philosophy” refers to historicist prophesizing.

First, Popper explains that Aristotle’s relevance in the context of the given book lies in his connection to modern European philosophers Hegel and Marx (217). Popper recognizes Aristotelian erudition but considers Aristotle unoriginal. He describes the way in which Aristotle systematized the work of his teacher, Plato, and his advocacy for empiricism in such fields as biology (219). Unlike Plato’s “flashes of penetrating insight” (220), Popper believes that Aristotelian “dry systematization,” along with the need to settle questions once and for all, are attributes “shared by so many mediocre writers of later times” (220).

Next, Popper examines Aristotle’s political views. The latter believed that citizens have the right to take part in government. However, this category excludes slaves and the working classes. Furthermore, Aristotle continued to support the rigid class system of Athens and argued that the ruling classes must refrain from work, whereas the working classes cannot rule (221). Indeed, Aristotle even surpassed Plato by suggesting that every form of professional work is a loss of a caste. Aristotle also mimicked Plato in his advocacy of a liberal education, especially philosophy, for the ruling class (221).

Aristotle, however, departed from Plato when he replaced his teacher’s pessimism with optimism (222). Aristotle did so by focusing on the final cause, i.e., the goal of any movement: “The Form or essence of anything developing is identical with the purpose or end or final state towards which it develops” (222). Popper refers to this change as Speusippus’s adjustment of Plato, who was Plato’s nephew. For Plato, a Form or Idea was the starting point. Here, however, it appears at the end (222). Popper argues that Aristotle’s final cause is the equivalent of Plato’s “nature” or “soul” (224).

The author also suggests that Aristotle’s contribution to the subject of historicism—for instance, his theory of change—is indirect. This Greek philosopher can be considered a source of three historicist doctrines as they impacted Hegel (224). First, the “hidden, undeveloped essence” of a person or a state can only be known through its development and through its history (224). Second, changing objects possess essences and potentialities, and they become apparent through change. Popper suggests that this doctrine, specifically the concept of the “hidden undeveloped essence,” translates into the idea of historical destiny, which is a historicist approach (224-25). The third doctrine states that the essence “must unfold itself in change” in order to become an actuality (225). The latter is an important starting point for Hegel, who wrote in Lectures on the Philosophy of History, “That which exists for itself only, is…a mere potentiality: it has not yet emerged into Existence…It is only by activity that the Idea is actualized” (225). Popper examines Hegel’s historicism further later on.

After this, the author addresses the European Medieval period briefly as it pertains to Aristotle’s impact on Christian scholars (226): “[E]very discipline, as long as it used the Aristotelian method of definition, has remained arrested in a state of empty verbiage and barren scholasticism” (226). The Aristotelian influence became significant in the 12th century, most notably in the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. Popper focuses on two subject areas: Aristotle as a stagnating influence in intellectual life and the development of the Church from a rebellious to an authoritarian institution.

The author identifies a parallel between the proponents of an open society in Athens—the Great Generation—and early Christians:

There is little doubt that the strength of the early Christians lay in their moral courage. It lay in the fact that they refused to accept Rome’s claim “that it was entitled to compel its subjects to act against their conscience.” The Christian martyrs who rejected the claims of might to set the standards of right suffered for the same cause for which Socrates had died (238).

However, the institutionalization of Christianity as a powerful force in the Roman Empire severed this connection (238). Popper believes that Emperor Justinian’s persecution of heretics and philosophers (529 CE) marked the turn toward the Dark Ages and the trajectory of “Platonic-Aristotelian totalitarianism” leading up to the Inquisition (239). As a result, “[T]he Church suppressed freedom and conscience” and oversaw the suffering and oppression of many (240). Popper is critical not only of the medieval Church as an institution, but of religion per se, from the standpoint of an open society. He argues that the belief in God limits the need to have responsibility for one’s own actions (239).

Next, Popper contrasts the Aristotelian approach to knowledge and, specifically, definitions with that of science. Aristotle considered knowledge to be intuitive or demonstrative, in which demonstrative knowledge is the knowledge of causes (226). He did not diverge from Plato in this context and thought that all knowledge can be obtained by intuitively grasping the essence of things. Therefore, perfect knowledge would mean having access to all intuitive definitions of all essences (227-28). This essentialist approach is the opposite of scientific definitions, for the latter comprises nominalist interpretations (230). In modern science, definitions do not set the meaning of the terms because the facts behind them are indisputable, as is the case with the great precision of physics (234). For Aristotle, however, “essential definitions are the principles from which all knowledge is derived” (231). This difference is one of the reasons for Aristotle’s stagnating impact on Western thought.

Aristotle was also one of the central philosophers to influence Hegel along with Heraclitus and Plato, particularly in their historicist trajectory. Hegel is, therefore, the source of historicism in modern Western thought (241)—“the missing link” between Plato and 20th-century totalitarianism (245). Through Hegel, the proponents of the totalitarian system of government learned to “worship the state, history, and the nation” (245). In addition to this influence, Popper analyzes two key aspects of Hegel’s philosophy, the dialectic triad and the philosophy of identity, in this part of the book.

Hegel’s personal background is also important. The author criticizes Hegel for having ulterior motives for his work—mainly, strengthening Prussian rule under King Frederick William III by using philosophy as an instrument (243, 246). In turn, Hegel’s influence was significantly amplified by the Prussian government (244-46). Hegel’s appointment with the state, particularly his work as the chair of philosophy at the University of Berlin, was designed to “keep philosophy within proper limits” and to serve the “welfare of the State” (249).

Hegel’s far-reaching influence was also the result of broader historic circumstances. The Renaissance marked the decline of Medieval authoritarianism. However, it was the French Revolution of 1789 that challenged the Medieval institution of feudalism. Popper considers this period to be another example of the battle for an open society (245). In response, a reactionary movement arose in Prussia in 1815, and Hegel served its interests:

Just as the French Revolution rediscovered the perennial ideas of the Great Generation and of Christianity, freedom, equality, and the brotherhood of all men, so Hegel rediscovered the Platonic ideas which lie behind the perennial revolt against freedom and reason. Hegelianism is the renaissance of tribalism (245).

By providing an ideology for the Prussian state, Hegel fused Platonism with the thinking of Frederick William III (246). Hegel’s “radical collectivism” therefore supported the “absolute moral authority of the state” (246).

Popper, however, acknowledges Hegel’s accomplishments in the field of logic, crediting him with powerful dialectics, but considers him unoriginal and unscientific (246, 243). Hegel’s dabbling in various sciences, such as astronomy, by using philosophical methods, was generally unsuccessful, and the scientific community of that time did not take Hegel seriously (241, 244). Elsewhere, however, Hegel’s impact remains significant. These are the fields of social and political sciences, excluding economics, as well as social and moral philosophy (244).

Hegel developed his philosophy as a system whose parts are interrelated and are rooted in ancient Greece, specifically with Plato, Aristotle, and Heraclitus. For instance, Hegel used the Platonic concept of the state as an organism as a starting point to identify its Spirit as a thinking essence (251). Indeed, Popper argues that “Plato’s philosophy, which once had claimed mastership in the state, becomes with Hegel its most servile lackey” (259). Elsewhere, however, Hegel departed from Plato as was the case with their respective perceptions of an Idea. Whereas Plato believed that Ideas precede the things in flux, Hegel sided with Aristotle when he argued that Ideas, or essences, are already present in the things in flux: “Everything actual is an idea” (250). Furthermore, Plato arrived at the concept of Ideas, or essences, as a stable starting point. Hegel, however, argued that everything is in flux, including essences. Here, too, Hegel sided with Aristotle, as he suggested that things progress toward an Idea rather than away from it (250). In other words, Hegel refurbished the Aristotelian “final cause” as a “self-realizing and self-realized final cause in itself” (250). Hegel then returned to the Heraclitan concept of fate when he introduced the historicist idea that a nation’s essence reveals itself as history unfolds (281).

Popper summarizes Hegel’s philosophic system by identifying its two pillars: the dialectic triad and the philosophy of identity (254). The dialectic triad comprises thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Each time the thesis and antithesis meet, they establish a compromise—a synthesis—at a more advanced level. This process repeats following each synthesis. The dialectic challenged Kant, whose concept of reason was static (253). The second pillar is Hegel’s way of tackling the question of identity—that is, sameness—and difference rooted in contradiction. The author considers this pillar to be pretentious and obfuscating (254).

What links these two key aspects of Hegel’s thought is the Heraclitan doctrine of the unity of opposites, which Hegel qualified thus: “The way west and the way east are the same” (254). The unity of opposites appeared in Hegel’s philosophy in numerous iterations—not only as the central idea in his dialectical system but also in the questions of matter and spirit, Essence and Idea, reality and appearance, one and many, along with others. Popper suggests that Hegel’s preference for such contradictions means that, eventually, all progress must end, while these contradictions remain. Popper contrasts Hegel’s approach with science, in which progress is the result of removing contradictions (251-54). Popper believes that Hegel sought this reasoning to protect and turn his own philosophy into “reinforced dogmatism” (254).

Hegel’s philosophy of identity also had a practical purpose—to support the interests of the absolutist Prussian government and the status quo. Popper described it as a reactionary response to the French Revolution’s egalitarianism: “Hegel’s dialectics […] are very largely designed to pervert the ideas of 1789” (255). Hegel sought to meet his goal through ethical and juridical positivism, which holds history to be the best judge (261). Popper asserts that for Hegel, the current reality is the ideal; this is “the doctrine that what is, is good, since there can be no standards but existing standards; it is the doctrine that might is right” (254). Thus, Hegel justified the power of the existent Prussian state.

There are several examples of Hegel’s dialectics used to convert various concepts into their opposites. For instance, Hegel flipped the concept of equality into inequality by arguing that for citizens of a state, “Only that equality which they possess in property, age,…etc., can deserve equal treatment before the law…The laws themselves…presuppose unequal conditions…” (257). Another relevant concept is the constitution that would limit the power of a ruler. Hegel used his dialectics to argue that the “constitution is existent justice” (256), thereby amplifying state power. Popper links this transformation to Hegel’s immediate historical circumstances, in which King Frederick William III promised to establish a constitution under great pressure but failed to deliver on this promise (256). However, Hegel went even further to promote absolutism as the optimal constitution, argues Popper, in which “monarchical constitution is […] the constitution of developed reason” (258).

Hegel also used his ethical and juridical positivism for his historicist periodization of Western civilization. In his Encyclopedia, Hegel argued in favor of might being right as well as the Divine right (261). The first historic period for Hegel is “Oriental despotism” (261), followed by Greek and Roman democracies and aristocracies. Germanic Monarchy is the most recent period. The German philosopher further divided the German Monarchy into the Protestant Reformation, “the unfolding of the state of things which succeeded the reformation,” and the Modern Times (1800–1830)—his lifetime (261). Since everything is always changing according to Hegel’s dialectical system, the latest historic period is reasonable and good (261).

Hegel’s work also ideologically strengthened the Prussian state through its advocacy for nationalism. The author views nationalism negatively—like the revival of ancient tribalism based on irrational motivations:

Undoubtedly the tendencies denoted by this term have a strong affinity with the revolt against reason and the open society. Nationalism appeals to our tribal instincts, to passion and to prejudice, and to our nostalgic desire to be relieved from the strain of individual responsibility which it attempts to replace by a collective or group responsibility (262).

In ancient Greece, nationalism was the tool for Plato and Aristotle to challenge the developing open society along with “the new ideas of imperialism, cosmopolitanism, and equalitarianism” (262). However, shortly afterward, authentic tribal nationalism went out of political use with the rise of Alexander the Great’s Empire. Ironically, nationalism reemerged in places like the 19th-century multicultural Prussia with its large Germanic and Slavic populations. Therefore, the nation-state is an artificial and novel concept in the long history of Western civilization. Popper defines this problematic concept as the territory of a state inhabited by one nation (262-63).

Popper chastises the uncritical acceptance of the nation-state as a political category. He acknowledges that some of its proponents were well meaning albeit utopian. One of them was US President Woodrow Wilson, who advocated for the principle of national self-determination in the wake of the First World War. Wilson sought to amplify the agency of the former subjects of the vanquished Austro-Hungarian Empire without considering the repercussions of nationalism (263-64). Unlike religion—the territorial claims of which could be roughly estimated—cogent explanations of what is meant by a nation do not exist. The author traces the roots of this nationalist revival in modern Europe to the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his doctrine of nations as personalities. Another Enlightenment-era philosopher, Johann Gottfried Herder, argued that a state should have natural borders. His most natural state was one populated by those of a coherent, unified national character. German Idealist philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte was the first to offer a working definition of a nation by defining its borders through language. Further rise of nationalism in German-speaking lands was the result of the Napoleonic Wars (263-67).

With these geopolitical circumstances serving as the backdrop, Hegel stripped nationalism of its liberal and imperialist components and replaced them with “Platonic-Prussianist worship of the state” (269). Hegel believed that it is the powerful state that can satisfy the nationalists’ collectivist demands: “Without its monarch…the people are just a formless multitude” (268). Hegel defined a nation in a historicist-essentialist manner: It is “united by a spirit that acts in history” (269). He also identified a nation through negation: It is united against a common enemy. For Plato, it was the state that was a living organism, but for Hegel it was the nation (269, 275, 279). Hegel, therefore, developed the concept of the nation-state in a totalitarian framework.

In order to locate Hegelianism at the root of fascism, Popper defines nationalism as “the historicist idea that the state is the incarnation of the Spirit” (274). For fascists of the racialist variety, Blood replaces the Spirit, and it is the higher races that can establish states (274). The author also identifies a parallel between Plato’s naturalism of the past and materialist racialism in the Modern period, which share the notions of degeneration. Both locate political corruption in the degeneration of the ruling classes (272). Popper takes this parallel further when he compares the Platonic myth of the Earthborn with the Modern myth of Blood and Soil, which includes the “quasibiological conception of blood or Race” (273). Fusing Platonism with Hegelianism, it is the blood that is responsible for a nation’s destiny, thereby giving it a “tinge of biology and of modern evolutionism” for fascists (273). This change does not alter the fundamentals of Hegelianism, which are the philosophical source of Modern totalitarianism.

War is also intrinsic to fascism. Popper asserts that nationalism presupposes war since the state is “the natural enemy of all other states” and can only exist through contact with other states (274-75). Furthermore, the state is free of morality because its existence—that is, its historical success—is the only metric that matters to Hegel (274, 278). The author refers to historic success as the “Platonic-Hegelian historicist moral theory”—one in which World History is of greater importance than personal morality (278). As a result, the state can engage in questionable actions, including the use of propaganda, to distort the truth. This type of state may be ruled by the Great Man—Hegel’s World-Historical Personality—who is both knowledgeable and passionate (274). Hegel contrasts this type of man with the “shallow mediocrity” of the petty bourgeoisie.

The World Historic Personality is one of Hegel’s manifestations of historic destiny (282). This is a great man who “expresses the will of his time” and “acts according to the inner Spirit and Essence of his time, which he realizes” (283). In other words, the Spirit of History acts through such World Historical Men as history unfolds. Each historic period has exemplary great men, including the Great Dictator (283). Popper argues that this tribal concept of a hero has a particular fascist form (284). One way to become a heroic man is to participate in war. Hegel and his followers believed war to be a rare good rather than a commonly found evil, argues Popper (281). Hegel even located ethical elements within it:

War has the deep meaning that by it the ethical health of a nation is preserved and their finite aims uprooted…War protects the people from the corruption which an everlasting peace would bring upon it (279).

Popper believes Hegelian ideas of war to be “surprisingly modern.” The philosopher was even cognizant of the mechanization of war as well as its moral repercussions. For instance, the extent of technological development in World War I, along with the use of chemical weapons, is one of the key aspects of modern warfare. Hegel also described a battle “against a hostile whole” (280), which Popper considers to be an anticipation of the total war of the 20th century. Prior to the two World Wars, warfare was usually limited in scope, particularly for territorial gain. The 20th century, however, saw a mass-scale mobilization—including civilians and resources—for the sake of victory in military conflicts.

Next, Popper briefly discusses the Algo-Irish thinker Edmund Burke. Burke’s best-known political work Reflections on the Revolution in France criticized those aspects of the French Revolution that he saw contrary to the rational values of the Enlightenment. Popper asserts that Burke’s “appreciation of the significance of tradition for the functioning of all social institutions had immensely influenced the political thought of the German Romantic Movement” (271). The author credits Burke’s influence on Hegel in the realm of historical and evolutionary relativism (271).

Overall, Popper’s criticism of Hegel throughout is harsher than that of Plato. He calls his work the “Hegelian farce” and the “intellectual fraud, the greatest, perhaps, in the history of our civilization” (288). Popper also uses Schopenhauer’s chastisement of Hegel: “He exerted, not on philosophy alone but on all forms of German literature, a devastating, or more strictly speaking, a stupefying, one could also say, a pestiferous, influence” (288-89). It is apparent that Popper’s perception of the Hegelian influence on modern totalitarianism is the reason for this degree of criticism.