The Open Society and Its Enemies
Book by Karl PopperWikipedia
28
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8
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Search complete. 28 mentions across 8 episodes found for "The Open Society and Its Enemies".
Sep 14, 2026
James RommGUEST
not just because of the letters, but because of the Republic.
James RommGUEST
Popper wrote a brilliant book right around the time of the Second World War called The Open Society and Its Enemies, in which he argued that Plato was one of the foremost enemies of the open society.
James RommGUEST
And in fact, the Republic is an argument for his own attempt at autocracy, that he wanted to make himself absolute ruler in Athens.
James RommGUEST
So it's a very negative view, which I don't endorse, but I discuss in the book.
Bruce CaldwellGUEST
So they...
Bruce CaldwellGUEST
Hayek was instrumental in bringing Popper, uh, to the London School of Economics, uh, getting the Open Society and Its Enemies published.
Bruce CaldwellGUEST
Uh, they maintained a correspondence, uh, throughout, uh, uh, uh, their lifetimes, and the person who's editing the correspondence volume between Hayek and Popper is sitting in the front row if you have any further, uh, questions.
Bruce CaldwellGUEST
His name is Paul Lewis.
Jan JekielekHOST
Rusty Reno is editor-in-chief of First Things magazine.
Jan JekielekHOST
He joins me to discuss his influential book, Return of the Strong Gods.
Rusty RenoGUEST
The strong gods are the things that evoke love and loyalty in us, that cause us to move out of ourselves toward something that we care about enough to make a sacrifice, to
Jan JekielekHOST
take a risk.
Rusty RenoGUEST
The 90s I think also people are nostalgic for, although in retrospect it seems like the commissars in the Soviet Union warned the Americans who had come to oversee their dissolution that we would miss them when they were gone.
Rusty RenoGUEST
And there's something to that.
Rusty RenoGUEST
What I argue in the book, there's this open society consensus that animates the American imagination and our politics after World War II.
Rusty RenoGUEST
And the constraining reality of the Cold War and the Soviet Union of kept it within bounds.
Ram AhluwaliaHOST
There are other people that brought those concepts to the fore, like Hayek, and also people that studied the philosophy of science.
Ram AhluwaliaHOST
There's a great book called The Open Society by Karl Popper, who advanced the theory of epistemology, what is science.
Ram AhluwaliaHOST
So really interesting, which again, also pragmatic, right? Like answering the question of what can we know is true or not, which is what epistemology is, is what Karl Popper advanced.
Ram AhluwaliaHOST
And people like George Soros studied him very closely.
Pete QuiñonesHOST
The latter is still deeply influencing Isra- Israeli Jewish society and determining to a larger extent the Israeli policies.
Pete QuiñonesHOST
It was the above-quoted passage which was chosen by Karl Popper in The Open Society and Its Enemies as describing the essence of a closed society.
Pete QuiñonesHOST
Historical Judaism and its two successors, Jewish Orthodoxy and Zionism, are both sworn enemies of the concept of the open society as applied to Israel.
Pete QuiñonesHOST
A Jewish state, whether based on its present Jewish ideology or if it becomes even more Jewish in character than it is now, on the principles of Jud- Jewish Orthodoxy, cannot ever obtain-- contain an open society.
Pete QuiñonesHOST
The latter is still deeply influencing Isra- Israeli Jewish society and determining to a larger extent the Israeli policies.
Pete QuiñonesHOST
It was the above-quoted passage which was chosen by Karl Popper in The Open Society and Its Enemies as describing the essence of a closed society.
Pete QuiñonesHOST
Historical Judaism and its two successors, Jewish Orthodoxy and Zionism, are both sworn enemies of the concept of the open society as applied to Israel.
Pete QuiñonesHOST
A Jewish state, whether based on its present Jewish ideology or if it becomes even more Jewish in character than it is now, on the principles of Jud- Jewish Orthodoxy, cannot ever obtain-- contain an open society.
Robert BarronGUEST
It stands opposed to totalitarianism.
Robert BarronGUEST
So there is a temptation, and it goes right back to Plato, and here I'm following Karl Popper, you know, The Open Society and Its Enemies.
Todd WarnerGUEST
Sure.
Robert BarronGUEST
A- and maybe he's unfair to Plato, but he blames Plato for that [laughs] great tradition of totalitarianism.
Blue GalHOST
Exactly right, Driftglass.
Blue GalHOST
This is from Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, which was published in 1945.
DriftglassHOST
I don't know what was going on in 1945, Driftglass.
DriftglassHOST
I think it was the jitterbug was invented or something like that.