文档介绍：The Open Society And Its Enemies
Complete: Volumes I and II
Karl R. Popper
1962
Fifth edition (revised)
1966
ISBN 0-691-01968-1, 0-691-01972-X
Scanner’s note: The text has been spell-checked and checked
for consistency in various ways, but it has not been proofread.
By the same author:
The Logic Of Scientific Discovery
The Poverty Of Historicism
Conjectures And Refutations
It will be seen ... that the Erewhonians are a meek and long-
suffering people, easily led by the nose, and quick to offer up
common sense at the shrine of logic, when a philosopher arises
among them who carries them away ... by convincing them that
their existing institutions are not based on the strictest principles of
morality.
—SAMUEL BUTLER.
In my course I have known and, according to my measure,
have co-operated with great men; and I have never yet seen any
plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who
were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the
lead in the business.
—EDMUND BURKE.
Preface To The First Edition
If in this book harsh words are spoken about some of the
greatest among the intellectual leaders of mankind, my motive is
not, I hope, the wish to belittle them. It springs rather from my
conviction that, if our civilization is to survive, we must break with
the habit of deference to great men. Great men may make great
mistakes; and as the book tries to show, some of the greatest
leaders of the past supported the perennial attack on freedom and
reason. Their influence, too rarely challenged, continues to mislead
those on whose defence civilization depends, and to divide them.
The responsibility for this tragic and possibly fatal division
es ours if we hesitate to be outspoken in our criticism of
what admittedly is a part of our intellectual heritage. By our
reluctance to criticize some of it, we may help to destroy it all.
The book is a crit