We invite you at CADI, on Friday, 27th May 2011 at 1800 to take part in the discussion regarding the possibility and preference of the open society, starting from Willmoore Kendall’s text “The Open Society and Its Fallacies”.

“Nobody wants all-out thought-control or the closed society; and nobody has any business pretending that somebody else wants them. For the real question is, how open can a society be and still remain open at all? Or, to put it differently, is there any surer prescription for arriving, willingly, in spite of ourselves, at the closed society, than is involved in current pleas for the open society? “

Is the society theorized by Mill in “On Liberty” and, afterwards, by Karl R. Popper (the one who named it “open society”) possible? And, supposing that it is indeed possible, is it preferred? Willmoore Kendall gives a negative answer to both questions. Starting from the classical definition of the open society ideal given described by John Stuart Mill in “On Liberty” (“there should be the most complete liberty of working and debate, as an ethical belief, any doctrine, despite of how immoral it may be considered”) and from the argument given to support this ideal (no one is infallible and the suppression of the minority’s opinions makes it difficult to search the truth), Kendall argues contrary to Mill, that society is not a debate club dedicated to truth search, and that the human nature does not allow the peaceful cohabitation of people whose opinions are in opposition. However, if we will try to establish, through coercive means the society desired by Mill and Popper, the society will inevitably become a closed one, whose, theoretically, it oppose initially.

Program

18:00 Tudor Glodeanu presents

18:15 Discussions

Text

Willmoore Kendall, 1960, The „Open Society” and Its Fallacies, The American Political Science Review, 54(4), pp. 972-979