Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume 1: The Spell of Plato [Paperback]

This is a fascinating book. In a review of another book on Plato, I wrote that one important test of any work of secondary literature is whether the time spent reading it would be better spent re-reading the primary literature instead. Popper's book easily passes that test. I would by no means recommend reading it as a substitute for reading Plato ï¿- it contains too many interpretations that I think seriously wrong, and its narrow focus on political philosophy leaves many aspects of Plato's philosophy untouched, but as a text that helps the reader read Plato critically it is excellent, provided only that the reader doesn't forget to read Popper critically as well.

The principal focus of the book is of course Plato's political philosophy. Popper reads it as part of an Athenian debate between democrats and anti-democratic reactionaries, and that Plato writes on behalf of the reactionaries. Popper presents Plato as a man who began under the tutelage of Socrates, whose positive influence is responsible for the best aspects of Plato's thought, but that Plato over time became increasingly corrupted. Popper summarizes his view in a really fine piece of writing that I cannot resist quoting:

"Socrates had refused to compromise his personal integrity. Plato, with all his uncompromising canvas-cleaning, was led along a path on which he compromised his integrity with every step he took. He was forced to combat free thought and the pursuit of truth. He was led to defend lying, political miracles, tabooistic superstition, the suppression of truth, and ultimately, brutal violence. In spite of Socrates' warning against misanthropy and misology, he was led to distrust man and to fear argument. In spite of his own hatred of tyranny, he was led to look to a tyrant for help, and to defend the most tyrannical measures. ⤠he succeeded in blinding himself, by his own spell, to powers which once he had hated."

As a general rule, I judge an interpretation of Plato by its ability to explain difficult passages and in particular passages that appear to be contradictory. I think that Popper's main thesis, as quoted above, is a very strong interpretation. Many passages that other interpretations struggle with (such as the numerous passages in which seeking the truth is praised vs. the famous passage in Republic in which lying is conditionally endorsed) can be explained by Popper's theory that Plato's thought corrupted over time.

Although Popper's book is absolutely one I recommend, I mentioned that I thought that some of Popper's interpretations were simply wrong and believe that elaboration on a comment like that must be made. One of these is Popper's thesis that Plato was a historicist. Popper's historicist classification of Plato depends on Popper's reading that Plato held that all historical social change to be corruption. I think that this reading creates numerous interpretive difficulties and is therefore very likely false. The primary support Popper cites for this view is the developmentally ordered series of states in Republic VIII. A difficult text for this theory is Statesman 302b-303b: in that text, Plato ranks democracy as superior to oligarchy, and so (according to Popper's theory) oligarchy out to be developmentally later than democracy, yet in Republic VIII it is democracy that is later than oligarchy. Another difficult passage is Laws 694b to 696a, in which Plato describes Persia not undergoing a continuous decline but as going from good (under Cyrus) to bad (under Cyrus's children) to good again (under Darius) and back to bad (under Xerxes). Still another difficult passage would be the brief text in Laws 676a-c, in which Plato proposes an examination into how, over time, states have made moral progress or declined, and how superior states have deteriorated and bad ones improved (the example of Persia mentioned earlier is brought up in this context) with no hint that he viewed the idea of progress or improvement as a problem for his philosophy. On this topic I would conclude with the general observation that unlike Hegel and Marx, both of whom wrote book-length world histories, Plato seldom referred to historical events, and his longest historical text (Laws III from which two of my examples are taken) is unproblematic if read without reference to Popper's theory but becomes a confusing series of puzzles if read with reference to Popper's theory.

In closing, I would like to quote (in a slightly abbreviated form) from Jonathan Barnes' introduction to "The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle": "Suppose you read a chapter in which it is suggested that Aristotle believed such-and-such. If you turn over the page and say to yourself, 'Oh, Aristotle believed such-and-such', then the book will have failed. For you are meant, as you put the book down, to converse with yourself in the following sort of way: "Oh, so Aristotle is supposed to have believed such-and-such. What an interesting - or perplexing, or perverse - thing to have thought. Might it be true? Come to that, did Aristotle really mean exactly that? Let me look now at Aristotle's own words and see what he actually says." I do not know if Popper intended such a response from his book on Plato, but I think it an admirable goal for any work in philosophy's secondary literature and it is certainly the response Popper got from me.

Highly recommended, faults and all.