La sociedad abierta y sus enemigos

by Karl Popper

Según afirma su propio autor, este libro esboza algunas de las dificultades más importantes que debe afrontar nuestra civilización, una civilización que no se ha recobrado todavía completamente de la conmoción de su nacimiento, de la transición de la sociedad tribal o «cerrada», con su sometimiento a las fuerzas mágicas, a la «sociedad abierta», que pone en libertad las facultades críticas del hombre.

816 pages, Paperback

Published July 25, 2023

About the author

Sir Karl Raimund Popper, FRS, rose from a modest background as an assistant cabinet maker and school teacher to become one of the most influential theorists and leading philosophers. Popper commanded international audiences and conversation with him was an intellectual adventure—even if a little rough—animated by a myriad of philosophical problems. He contributed to a field of thought encompassing (among others) political theory, quantum mechanics, logic, scientific method and evolutionary theory.

Popper challenged some of the ruling orthodoxies of philosophy: logical positivism, Marxism, determinism and linguistic philosophy. He argued that there are no subject matters but only problems and our desire to solve them. He said that scientific theories cannot be verified but only tentatively refuted, and that the best philosophy is about profound problems, not word meanings. Isaiah Berlin rightly said that Popper produced one of the most devastating refutations of Marxism. Through his ideas Popper promoted a critical ethos, a world in which the give and take of debate is highly esteemed in the precept that we are all infinitely ignorant, that we differ only in the little bits of knowledge that we do have, and that with some co-operative effort we may get nearer to the truth.

Nearly every first-year philosophy student knows that Popper regarded his solutions to the problems of induction and the demarcation of science from pseudo-science as his greatest contributions. He is less known for the problems of verisimilitude, of probability (a life-long love of his), and of the relationship between the mind and body.

Popper was a Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the British Academy, and Membre de I'Institute de France. He was an Honorary member of the Harvard Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, and an Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics, King's College London, and of Darwin College Cambridge. He was awarded prizes and honours throughout the world, including the Austrian Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold, the Lippincott Award of the American Political Science Association, and the Sonning Prize for merit in work which had furthered European civilization.

Karl Popper was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1965 and invested by her with the Insignia of a Companion of Honour in 1982.

(edited from http://www.tkpw.net/intro_popper/intr...)

Reviews

[Zielene Wicca Filósofa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Creo que por el momento lo dejaré

[Rafael Carreño · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este libro me sorprendió desde sus primeras páginas, pues apenas empezando ya hace criticas considerables a la idea de república de Platón. Popper no se limita a refutar ideas: disecciona y cuestiona los métodos que les dan origen, sobre todo el análisis que hace sobre el método optado por Hegel me parece asombroso, mostrando por qué ciertas formas de pensar terminan justificando proyectos políticos peligrosos. Esa actitud crítica, meticulosa y argumentada hace de la lectura una experiencia deliciosa. A diferencia de algunas de mis lecturas recientes, que me parecieron valiosas pero débiles al momento de ofrecer una propuesta o una conclusión sólida, aquí encontré una postura clara: frente al historicismo y las promesas revolucionarias, Popper propone la ingeniería social gradual, la crítica racional y la reforma institucional como camino para corregir los defectos de la sociedad sin destruirla. Es uno de esos libros que invitan tanto a subrayar y tomar notas en una sala de estudio como a acompañar una taza de café mientras se reflexiona sobre cada capítulo. Una obra exigente, pero enormemente gratificante para quien disfruta del debate.