Popper

Karl Popper · Austrian-British philosopher of science and social and política e falsificationism and for criticism of Plato, Hegel and Marx as totalitarian opponents of open society (1902-1994) · 1902–1994

Appears in 21 videos · 26 passages, 8 of them in depth.

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What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani mainly returns to the reading of the history of philosophy that Popper gives in The Open Society and Its Enemies: there Plato, Rousseau and Hegel become totalitarian thinkers, which, in his view, amounts to making all of philosophy totalitarian1 2. He reproaches him for forgetting that the whole is not totalitarian3, for never having read Hegel, and for setting against him Locke, who justified slavery4. He places him, together with Bobbio, among the proponents of a dichotomous logic of friends and enemies of freedom, tied to Atlanticism and the Cold War5. On falsifiability, he answers that it has been known since Aristotle and Euclid, and he refuses to make the hard sciences the model for all knowledge6 7. In the more recent sessions, he makes Popper the figure of the dominant neopositivism and of scientistic naturalism, whose targets are Marx and Freud, and whose "open society" passes over in silence the massacres in Vietnam and Korea8 9.

Summary produced automatically from 26 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.

Who is this?

Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian–British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the classical inductivist views on the scientific method in favour of empirical falsification made possible by his falsifiability criterion, and for founding the Department of Philosophy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. […]

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Season 14 · 28 Aug 2026From Copernicus to Lenin: Revolution!

24:37The philosopher most widespread in the dominant ideology; his falsifiability is not an invention, it has been agreed upon for 2500 years.

Season 9.2 · 7 Jan 20219 #11 How can sciences of history be real?

44:36Usurped prestige in philosophy of science, obsessed with his anti-Marxism; his "open society" conceals the carnage of Vietnam or Korea.
52:03His ukases throw ideas into the trash.

Season 9.1 · 3 Dec 2020#7 Answers to questions (continued)

13:37A relentless anti-Marxist who advanced no philosophical concept; even his criterion of falsifiability would be satisfied here.

Season 6 · 3 Dec 2019#6.2 • The Logic of the Subject in the face of the reconstitution of Nazism

44:55Falsifiability makes the hard sciences the model for all knowledge; he refuses this extension.
1:32:58Refutability has been known since Aristotle and Euclid.
1:45:17Knows only causality.

Talks · 2 Jul 2018Tribute to Domenico Losurdo

7:29A philosopher of financialized capitalism and Atlanticism, for whom Hegel is the bête noire.
34:10A representative, with Bobbio, of the dichotomous logic of friends and enemies of liberty.
1:05:31He never read Hegel, whom he presents as a theorist of slavery, and contrasts him with Locke, who justified slavery.

Talks · 2 Jul 2018The Phenomenology of Spirit

1:36:12The Open Society and Its EnemiesTraces the beginning of totalitarianism to Rousseau and Hegel; he assimilates Bergson to Hegel, which is not serious.