Talk:The Open Society and Its Enemies/Archive 1

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Why the apparent surprise that it was first printed (by RKP) in London! 80.177.213.144

Tragic Legacy?

Popper is typically respected, though criticized, by the people I read, however, I find it striking that a discussion of the book's legacy describes only criticism, but ho praise. I'm listening to a discussion of Popper as I write, from professor Jeremy Shearmur a student of Popper, who says that the reaction from people who were keen on Plato was that what he said about Plato wasn't sound, but that he really got Marx right, and that the people who still followed Marx would say the opposite, that his criticism of him hadn't fit, but that he really had the problems with Plato. In view of this I doubt that the legacy section was written with a view toward impartiality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.144.236.24 (talk) 18:50, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Downloading

Any idea whether this can be downloaded somewhere?

OPEN SOCIETY Wasn't one of Popper's major points that modern societies are ever more dependent on technology to progress, that technology depends on science, and that science only flourishes where there is a free exchange of ideas? In liberal democracies, that is, rather than under totalitarian regimes.

This would seem to be bourne out but events when Popper was writing (1945) and since. Fascism was defeated; Soviet Russia collapsed, whilst the West flourished.

The issue is more pertient than ever, with the emergence of China--now and historically--a totalitarian regime. The contrast with India is instructive: it has been a democracy since 1948, and is now beginning to flourish in several scientific/technological areas. The barriers to free though there seem to depend principally on poverty, social inequality, and the entrenched caste system.

China--what, 3000 years ago?--is credited with a number of technological advances, then seemed to stop. Anyone know why? My hunch is encroaching bureaucracy and the invention of the memo. My hunch, too, is that some of the advances credited to early Chinese society were actually stolen from elsewhere, though perhaps refined in China.

See my comments on umbrella.

Critique of Marx and Hegel ?

This article only describes Poppers critique of Plato. His critique of Hegel and Marx, which must be recognised as a very important piece of work, is only mentioned.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.224.241.132 (talk • contribs)

I agree, at the moment the presentation is rather unbalanced and the portion of the article dealing with volume 2 of the book needs to be expanded. Nsk92 (talk) 02:13, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heaven forbid that we should encourage readers to think negatively about Hegel and Marx. Our entire academic endeavor in the U.S. for the last 45 years has been to present these two in a positive aspect to students. Now that we are finally developing and progressing into the post–capitalist phase of our history, it is especially important that Hegel and Marx be shown in a flattering light. Therefore, Popper's criticism of Hegel and Marx should be downplayed, as it now is in the article, and criticism of Popper should be emphasized.Lestrade (talk) 05:13, 19 September 2009 (UTC)Lestrade[reply]

According to the article, Walter Kaufmann claimed that "Popper's views are based on an incomplete reading of Hegel, suggesting that 'Popper has relied largely on Scribner’s Hegel Selections, a little anthology for students that contains not a single complete work.' " However, in his "Notes to Chapter 12," Popper wrote: "Quotations from the Selections will, however, be accompanied by references to editions of the original texts." Popper always referenced either Hegel's Sämtliche Werke, 1927, or Encyclopädie, 1870. Kaufmann tried to make it seem as though Popper merely used an abbreviated booklet of partial selections. This information is difficult to include here in the main article, but I will try.Lestrade (talk) 16:42, 15 October 2009 (UTC)Lestrade[reply]

The article says:

Kaufmann also views Popper as betraying the scientific method he proposes so passionately and instead is "intent on psychologizing the men he attacks." In fact, Kaufmann accuses Popper of using the same distorting methods of which totalitarians are also guilty.

Those remarks, and Popper's reputation amongst his students as abrasive, impatient, and intolerant has led to some suggesting his book would have been better entitled:

"The Open Society and its Enemies by One of their Number" Myles325a (talk) 10:49, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

rm Valery Staricov's additions: why

VS added a pile of new stuff [1] and I don't think it belongs. One section (intention) was so badly written it appeared to be gibberish and was heavily rewritten. But I killed that too William M. Connolley (talk) 20:40, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Oracular philosophy"

Dear colleagues, recently I wrote an article "Oracular philosophy" in Russian Wikipedia, but I found unexpectedly that I can't find any mentionings of this term outside of Popper's "Open society and its enemies". (And it is strange for me that this article does not exist in English Wikipedia. Is it possible that Popper was the only one who used this term?) As a corollary, a discussion appeared on the destiny of this article, and I am afraid, it will be deleted eventually. Can anybody help me to find other references so that the article could be preserved? Eozhik (talk) 23:58, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi friend, these results on Google Scholar may be helpful. I think one reason the term "oracular philosophy" has not caught on is that it is (ironically) a fairly broad and vague way to refer to a large body of work.

Doing a little search, I'm surprised to find there's no page called "Criticisms of continental philosophy"—only "Continental philosophy" itself, and then with no Criticism section! Anyway, good luck with whatever develops :-) groupuscule (talk) 13:03, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your answer! Yes I tried google scholar, but it's difficult for me to retrieve those articles, since I am living in Russia. It will take some time and I am afraid I will be late, the decision will be made by that time. Could you, please, explain me whether this is indeed fatal that I a refer only to Popper? Does this automatically mean (by the rules of Wikipedia) that the article can't be notable? (That is the main accusation against my article.) And besides this I gave several quotations that are absent in Popper's book, is it also bad? Eozhik (talk) 14:47, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. From abstracts of these articles in google scholar I can't understand whether they indeed contain something useful. Eozhik (talk) 14:50, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the removal of "negative" material

Alberto cassone removed a large amount of properly cited material from this article, with the edit summary, "The section "Reception and influences" was unbalanced, negative reception of the book being dominant in it. I've restored a balance between positive and negative reception." I have restored the "negative" material that was removed. The relevant policy is WP:NPOV, which states that, "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." Note that this does not mean that material must be, for example, exactly 50% positive and exactly 50% negative. "Balance" of that kind is not aimed at by Wikipedia's content policies. Rather, the policies aim at ensuring that the article reflects reliable sources. If reliable sources happen to primarily depict a topic in a negative light, then an article about it is going to do so also. There is never an excuse for removing "negative" but properly cited material simply on the grounds that one happens to dislike or disagree with it. Without exception, edits that are made for that reason always lower the quality of articles. I suggest to Alberto cassone that rather than erasing "negative" content that he may personally disagree with, but which other readers of Wikipedia may find interesting or helpful, he instead add properly cited positive material about The Open Society and Its Enemies. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 05:14, 4 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

FKC: As I've said, I'm done with this page. Just show ANY philosopher the page as it was before I started editing it, and the way it is now. And yet, every inch of the way, I had to deal with FKC. And, a look at the history of this page, shows that I'm not the only one being instantly and arbitrarily reverted. Wikipedia depends on the willingness of earlier contributors to accept improvements. "FreeKnowledgeCreator" has, obviously, problems with this approach, and for some mysterious reason, his views prevail. When I first started with this page, which covers one of my all-time favorite books, I couldn't believe how flawed it was, how it even failed to capture the book's basic points. Anyway, the matter for me is closed. This entry, to FKC's credit (who permitted changes after prolonged negotiations), is acceptable now. So, there are millions of other entries, and most of them are conflict-free. So, Ciao, karl Popper and FKC.Brachney (talk) 02:03, 7 September 2017 (UTC)Brachney[reply]

The problem is not the negative material. It is how the summary is so poor and how it misrepresents Popper's views. Most striking to me is the way that it represents Popper as criticising totalitarianism where his target is historicism. Totalitarian regimes/movements were especially guilty of historicism in Popper's view but that was not the thrust of his argument. The result is that Popper's views are reduced to a straw man for the negative criticism to knock down.Dejvid (talk) 11:21, 1 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Errm, are you reading the current lede? That says The Open Society and Its Enemies is a work on political philosophy by the philosopher Karl Popper, in which the author presents a "defence of the open society against its enemies",[1] and offers a critique of theories of teleological historicism, according to which history unfolds inexorably according to universal laws. Popper indicts Plato, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and Karl Marx as totalitarian for relying on historicism to underpin their political philosophies, though his interpretations of all three philosophers have been criticized. That, to my reading, makes it clear that the principle is (a) defence of OS; (b) crit of historicism; and only after that (c) crit of Plato etc as totalitarian William M. Connolley (talk) 11:45, 1 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The leed is okay it is the fuller summary later that misrepresents Popper.Dejvid (talk) 11:32, 24 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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