Spell of Plato Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume 1: The Spell of Plato, Book 1, (Paperback)

from HadriantheBlind

Straightforward and coldly logical criticism of sociological historicism as seen first in Plato, and later by Hegel and Marx (Vol. 2). Lucid and thorough.

from blake.rosser

I'm still in some shock from the utter thrashing that Popper perpetrates upon Plato, maybe the most venerated philosopher in the history of the world. For that alone the book is exceedingly welcome, although I'm admittedly no expert on ancient Greek philosophy, so it's not prudent to accept every...

from Ramirez

Popper's open society says nothing more than John Locke's classical theory of social contract: government's power is nothing magical or unexceptionable, authority should always be questioned. I think that Popper's best intuition is the falsification principle (something is true until it's proven ...

from LisaMaria_C

This book about one of the fundamental thinkers of Western Civilization was written in the shadow of the fascist threat to that civilization, from Popper's first conception of the book in 1938 to its publication in 1943. A blurb on its back cover describes the book as "a survey of Greek philosoph...

from roblong

This first part of The Open Society and its Enemies is a very fine piece of work. I was new to Popper, and found his attack on Plato very persuasive. The poisonous nature of the Platonic antipathy to change and desire for 'perfection', and the multifarious tyrannies produced by its influence, are...