The Open Society and Its Enemies

Historicism plays a central role throughout The Open Society and Its Enemies. The moderate definition of historicism argues that the knowledge of history is necessary to inform one’s understanding of specific events of the past. However, Popper relies on a more radical definition. For him, historicism is the use of history as a prophecy to explain past or present events—and to forecast future events. It is “the claim that the realm of social sciences coincides with that of historical or evolutionary method, and especially with historical prophecy” (316). In its most extreme form, historicism is therefore used to interpret history as destiny or fate, in which individuals are swept up by historic events or epochs beyond their control.

The German philosopher Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel was one of the first thinkers to emphasize the importance of history. He used the term “historicism” in a way that points to its predictive character. For instance, fragment 80 in his journal Athenaeum stated, “The historian is the prophet facing backwards.” (Crimmins, Jonathan. The Romantic Historicism to Come, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018, p. 57). However, Popper underscores the reliance on historicist thinking from the dawn of Western intellectual tradition before the term was coined.

For this reason, the author dedicated his book The Poverty of Historicism (1957) to fully dissecting this subject matter. For him, historicism serves as the foundation of Modern totalitarian movements. It is extremely harmful because it takes away both human agency and responsibility for one’s own actions. For instance, Popper sees Hegelianism—the philosophy that informs Marxism—as the worst offender. It is “so far the purest, the most developed and the most dangerous form of historicism” (293). Marx used sociological methodology and the economic iteration of historicism to make his predictions (341). He believed that the very nature of capitalism and its numerous internal contradictions will lead to a boiling point, which will precipitate a social revolution. This social revolution will establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, which will eventually dissolve with the state along with all classes as such, in a new egalitarian, socialist society. Not only does this prediction remove all agency from the working class Marx sought to empower, but successful revolutions in places like Russia (USSR) proved to have the opposite consequences, such as the formation of a more powerful state and a new ruling class from the ranks of the working-class revolutionary leaders. Popper considers the Russian Revolution as powerful evidence of the erroneous thinking that historicism provides.

Of course, Marxist movements are not the only ones to rely on Hegelian historicism. Popper also describes the way fascism replaced the Hegelian Spirit of History with a materialist conception of blood (race). For fascists, and especially Nazis (National Socialists), it is the nation’s blood that informs its destiny (273).

Popper goes back even further in time and analyzes the historicist thinking to which the Greek philosopher Plato subscribed. The author views Plato as the pinnacle of ancient Greek historicism (10). Plato’s emphasis on the collective—rather than the individual—and its destiny as well as on great leaders, epitomized by his concept of the philosopher-king, both exhibit historicist tendencies (7-8). Likewise, Plato’s Theory of Forms or Ideas is used to arrive at historic periodization in which the Golden Age of humankind is located in the ancient past, while historic progress demonstrates corruption and decay.

Throughout The Open Society and Its Enemies, Popper goes beyond simply criticizing Plato, Hegel, and Marx and presents his own constructive solutions. He locates the role of the individual above the collective and advocates for establishing various types of democratic institutions as guarantors of one’s rights, freedoms, and responsibilities. Ultimately, the author discounts the notion of historic destiny as anti-scientific: “The future depends on ourselves, and we do not depend on any historic necessity” (xliv).