«As palavras ríspidas proferidas neste livro acerca de algumas das principais figuras intelectuais da humanidade não são motivadas, quero crer, por um qualquer desejo meu de as diminuir. Nascem antes da minha convicção de que, para que a nossa civilização sobreviva, temos de quebrar o hábito da deferência para com os grandes homens. [Este livro] Esboça algumas das dificuldades que a nossa civilização enfrenta - uma civilização que podia talvez ser definida por almejar a humanidade e a razoabilidade, a igualdade e a liberdade; uma civilização que está ainda na sua infância, por assim dizer, e que continua a crescer apesar do facto de ter sido muitas vezes traída por tantos dos próceres intelectuais da humanidade. O livro tenta mostrar que esta civilização ainda não se recompôs por completo do choque do seu nascimento - a transição da sociedade tribal ou "fechada", com a sua submissão a forças mágicas, para a "sociedade aberta", que liberta os poderes críticos do homem. Tenta mostrar que o choque dessa transição é um dos fatores que tornam possível a ascensão desses movimentos reacionários que têm tentado, e continuam a tentar, derrubar a civilização e regressar ao tribalismo. E sugere que aquilo a que hoje chamamos totalitarismo pertence a uma tradição que é tão velha, ou tão nova, quanto a nossa própria civilização. Tenta, deste modo, contribuir para a nossa compreensão do totalitarismo e do significado da luta eterna contra ele.» Karl Popper[...]

Popper's book is a radical re-reading of Plato whom he argues provides, in his authoritarian vision of the perfect state, a template for twentieth-century totalitarianism oppression (Nazism, Stalinism). Rather than a champion of rational social organisation, Plato is therefore in fact the enemy of true political freedom. Perhaps the most unsettling claim - for philosophers anyway - is that Plato's use of the character of Socrates in his dialogues is a complete distortion of what the real Socrates stood for - the opposite, in fact. The book is well-argued, clear, and - apart from some sections which will be challenging to non-philosophers - a pleasure to read. I'm still not sure about all of what Popper says, mind you, but it's definitely a must read for anyone interested in Plato or political theory.

Gareth Southwell is a philosopher, writer and illustrator.

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 everything Popper says on just his word. Indeed, one of the problems I had with the book is that, despite his various reminders that he means nothing personal, and that he still holds Plato in the highest esteem, Popper seems almost gleeful at times while knocking the old Greek down several notches. So were his disclaimers deceptive, ironic, or just disingenuous?

That said, the man has a capacity for argumentation that I'm not sure I've ever encountered. His arguments are clear, logical, and strong. He uses primarily Plato's Republic to paint Socrates' alum as the originator of totalitarianism, highlighting his proposed class stratification, state propaganda to maintain order, and the suppression of intellectual and all other freedoms. One of his most shocking and damning criticisms is the evidence that Plato actively supported selective breeding as one of the first forms of eugenics, to maintain as pure the "master race." Also quite impressive was the documentation of Plato's perversion of his own mentor's teaching. Socrates comes out of this as a shining beacon of liberalism and humanitarianism.

My main criticisms of the book are incidental to the larger point. The brief discussion in Note 4 of Ch. 7 troubled me. In discussing the "paradox of tolerance," Popper correctly notes that a completely tolerant society will breed intolerance, just because they will tolerate an intolerant person or group to rise to power and begin repression. His solution, that it's therefore necessary to repress intolerance, seems like a very slippery slope. I can respect it, as a hater of ignorance myself, but assuming that some abuse-proof way of controlling intolerance is within our grasp seems awfully idealistic. In his abhorrence of Plato's totalitarianism, he seems to err on the side of Tocqueville's "tyranny of the majority." Who can say which is preferable?

This goes into my larger criticism. As more of a radical than Popper (in his literal sense of the word), I remain skeptical of his deep faith in democratic institutes and the process of reform. Maybe he would have thought differently about our democratic process had he lived a couple of decades longer (i.e. witnessing the rise of FoxNews and the neocon). Or maybe he would have just emphasized the need to repress such hateful intolerance, who knows? But for all the cojones and free-thinking Popper shows in going after the originators of Western thought and civilization as we know them, it's a little surprising that he doesn't take it to the next level, wondering if there isn't some problem with our civilization as a whole. Or if there isn't some compromise between the magical tribalism of his Closed Society and the humanist rationalism of the Open. ( )

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

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 philosophy... a history of the rise and fall of Athens, a formal philosophical critique of idealism... and a defense of clarity, scientific method, and democratic procedure." I'm not sure if this should be read before or after having read Plato. It's so lucid, that even in his passionate refutation of Plato's totalitarian tendencies, Popper's book nevertheless makes a good introduction to Platonic ideas. Although personally I've always found Plato among the most lucid, accessible, as well as readable, of philosophers. His dialogues are on the whole brilliant philosophical plays, with plenty of personality and wit.

Popper's book however does make sense of a lot that puzzled me in Plato, and I don't mean the content of the ideas themselves, which are far more understandable than, say, Descartes or Kant, but some of their contradictions. Popper suggests that there's a divide between the philosophy of Socrates, Plato's mouthpiece, and that of Plato himself. That especially in the Apology dealing with Socrates trial, after all a recent event in Athens' history, Plato couldn't do much to alter Socrates' expression of belief in the "open society" of free inquiry, debate and democracy. I certainly saw and admired this Socrates and his precepts in such dialogues as Crito, Apology and Gorgias. But then one finds a rather different spirit in for instance Plato's most famous dialogue, The Republic. (The title of which Popper revealingly claims is more accurately translated, The State.) In the end I found Popper's book a stimulating and thought-provoking study of the connections between such abstruse ideas as Plato's Forms and his advocacy of an unchanging, censorious authoritarianism, between the tensions between the individual and society, and trial and error piecemeal reform over utopian schemes. ( )