Original scientific paper

POPPER AND ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY

Nikola Regent ; HR-51000 Rijeka, Mrkopaljska 35, Croatia

Abstract

This article’s goals are twofold: the first is to demonstrate the fallacy of Popper’s depiction of the Athenian democracy in 5th ct. B.C., especially of its longtime leader Pericles; the second is to defend Thucydides from Popper’s completely unfounded allegations of bias. In line with his vision of an eternal struggle against totalitarianism, Popper attempts to counterbalance totalitarian attitudes whose roots he finds in Plato by expressing the then positive values. He offsets Pericles to Plato, and the Athenian democracy to Plato’s idea of the state inspired by Sparta. Popper first finds an enemy and only then constructs the “open society”. Democracy in Athens, which Popper advances as a prototype of the open society, in practice had very little in common with that concept. However, everything that cannot be incorporated into his concept, Popper simply ignores, distorts, changes. The author dissects Popper’s account of the Athenian democracy, and dwells on Pericles’ famous funeral oration. He describes how Popper devised the term “open society” by taking Pericles’ words out of context, not even shying from using an (altogether) faulty translation of Thucydides.

Keywords

Popper; Athenian democracy; open society; Pericles; Thucyidides

Hrčak ID:

23673

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/23673

Publication date:

5.3.2003.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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