Karl Popper: Father of 20th Century Science and Open Society - Essay Sample

Introduction

Karl Popper is collectively seen as one of the biggest philosophers of science of the twentieth century. His position as a philosopher was that of being a science and epistemology. He was also a defender of the Open Society. Popper was glorified by Bertrand Russell, educated Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend and Philanthropist George Soros in the London School of Economics.

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Many of his works which carried out due to philosophical demands are of science and mostly it was in physics, most of Popper's interest was that of nature and not anything to do with politics. Though his thoughts on politics have also made a great impact as that one of nature. But this was not related to what he was doing. He was mostly known for his evaluation and autocracy and his protection of self-determination.

His political thoughts majored on rationalism and humanism and were greatly the nemesis of nationalism, fascism, romanticism, collectiveness and many more which he thought to be reactionary and irrational opinions. By the way, he refuses to agree with these ideas was attached in an evaluation of his philosophical beliefs, which he argued using the understanding of scientific methods.

The interest of his philosophies and originality are found from the way he thought and ways he decided to approach it and by the use of the West's most recognized philosophers he locates the start of totalitarianism; those which are old and those that are new. One of the most important political views was that of 'The Poverty of Historicism' and 'The Open Society' and give a vision in science and politics which are unified.

The Critique of the Closed Society

The main target of The Open Society was to define the source and ways of totalitarianism. Popper started to write those essays in the late 1930s due to the going up of fascism, together with his native Austria plus the succeeding Second World War. On this period, he was schooling in New Zealand. The arguments which he provided in these two essays were a great deal.

The Open Society essay even has a full chapter talking about poverty but in both, there is a difference in the way how they stress out their points. In the Poverty of Historicism, it stresses particularly how the is ease of ideas and which led the historians in the wrong methods which also played in the role of handmaiden to tyranny. The Open Society, in the eyes of a popper, is longer and much important piece of work. That is to the way it explains things in depth and the methods used according to social sciences.

Open Versus Closed Societies

In the opinion of Popper, totalitarianism was not helpful in the 20th century. This is because he thought it belonged to an older tradition or the one which is aged as civilization itself. When he went in search of the roots of totalitarianism it led to ancient Greece and that is where he detected the Open Society. He said that the Athenian made their own ays and governed themselves there ending up being a 'closed society'.

Karl Popper, hence one can classify him as a social and political philosopher that is because most of his works were about the society and people in general and he looked deeply into the political ways of these people.

Work Cited

Popper, Karl. Karl Popper: philosophy and problems. Vol. 39. Cambridge University Press, 1995.