VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

DUONG THI PHUONG

THE POLITICAL – SOCIAL THOUGHT OF
KARL RAIMUND POPPER.
ITS PHILOSOPHICAL VALUES AND LIMITATION

Major:

Philosophy

Major code: 9229001

DOCTORAL THESIS SUMMARY

HA NOI - 2019


The work was completed at the Graduate Academy
of Social Sciences

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Tan Hung

Reviewer 1: Prof. Dr. Nguyen Trong Chuan
Reviewer 2: Prof. Dr. Tran Van Phong
Reviewer 3: Prof. Dr. To Duy Hop

The thesis will be defended in front of the PhD Evaluation
Committee at the Graduate Academy of Social Sciences at ...

philosophical thought corresponds to the line of innovation of the
Communist Party of Vietnam. It will have a dual effect: firstly, a
contribution to the development of the branch of History of
Philosophy in Vietnam, and secondly, the reception of the
progressive values in these philosophical trends in sevice of the
building of socialism in our country.


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The study of Karl Popper’s political and social philosophical
thought, pointing out its contributions will help improve the
scientific approach to several theoretical and practical issues,
innovate the method of studying and teaching of the Marxist –
Leninist subjects, promote the role of critical thinking, widen
democracy and foster the creative role of all individuals in the
building of an open society and in the international integration of our
country. At the same time, the detection of the limitations in Karl
Popper’s political and social philosophy will be a contribution to the
protection of the theoretical values in the Marxist – Leninist
philosophy and the political line of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
For these reasons, we chose “The Political - Social Thought of
Karl Raimund Popper. Its Philosophical Values and Limitations”as
the topic of our philosophical doctoral thesis.
2. Aim and objectives
The aim of the thesis is to systematically study and analyze to
clarify the basic contents of the political - social philosophical
thought of Karl Popper, thereby pointing out its philosophical values
and limitations.
In order to accomplish the above aim, the thesis needs to
perform the following tasks:

practical activities.


4
In terms of method: The thesis offers an objective assessment
both in terms of philosophical contributions and limitations of Karl
Popper, overcoming the one-sided criticism as before.
6. Theoretical and practical significance of the thesis
The thesis contributes to the study of the history of the
philosophical thought of modern Western schools to inherit their
reasonable points to supplement Marxism - Leninism, and to criticize
its mistakes to protect the correctness of the Marxist - Leninist
philosophy. The thesis can be used as a reference for the studying
and teaching of the the history of modern Western philosophies.
7. Structure of the thesis
Chapter 1: Overview of the studies related to the thesis topic
Chapter 2: Background and preconditionss for the forming of the
social - political philosophical thought of Karl Popper
Chapter 3: Basic contents in the political - social philosophical
thought of Karl Popper
Chapter 4: Philosophical contributions and limitations in the
political - social thought of Karl Popper

CHAPTER 1
LITERATURE REVIEW
The thesis was done based on the studies of the original works
of Karl Popper including “The Open Society and Its enemies” (2
volumes) and “The Poverty of Historicism”. The thesis also referred
to some of his other works, such as “Autobiography”, “Objective
Knowledge”, “The Logic of Scientific Discovery”. In addition, the


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analyzing the political and social philosophical thought of Karl
Popper, including the open society and historicism.
M. Cornforth spent chapter III of the book "TheOpen Philosophy
and The Open Society" answering issues about the relationship
between the open society and the closed society and the path to the
open society. In chapter VI of the work, M. Cornforth gives Karl
Popper an answer about the enemy of the open society. Ly Quoc Tu
in chapter IV of "Karl Raimund Popper" mentions the concept of the
open society in Karl Popper's "The Open Society and its Enemies".
The author generalized the basic concept of Popper about the open
and closed society. It can be said that this is a source of material for
us to study Popper's concept of the open society.
Luu Phong Dong in "Modern Western Philosophy" vol. IV,
mostly analyzes Popper's philosophical thought of science; however,
he has a short paragraph about the political philosophical thought of
Karl Popper.
Luong Dinh Hai in the article "Karl Popper – The Open society
and its enemies" concretely presents Karl Popper’s conception of the
open society and the closed society. The author also shows some
Marxist points of view that Popper criticizes, then makes his
comments on these points.
1.2.3. Studies related to Karl Popper's criticism of historicism
Nguyen Tan Hung in his paper on Karl Popper published in the
Seminar Proceedings on Austrian Philosophy and in his work "Some
Western

Contemporary


dialectical reasoning.
Nguyen Tan Hung in his work ‘Some Western Contemporary
Philosophical Trends and Political Ideologies” pointed out some of
Karl Popper’s

limitations: He completely rejected the dialectical

reasoning which is in reality a significant achievement of mankind,
and as a result, he took a metaphysical approach to several problems.
He did not know how to combine the holistic and the piecemeal
approaches in thinking and reality. He stressed the relativity of
knowledge wich resulted in his complete denial of the absoluteness
of truth.
1.4. General remarkss on the studies and evaluation about
Karl Popper
The aboved mentioned studies on Karl Popper’s life and works
have provided us with a relatively clear and complete picture of the
turning point in his transformation of thought. However the contents
of Karl Popper’s philosophy of the open society anf of his criticism


10
of historicism have not been referred to fully and sytematically.
Therfore, the task of our thesis is to conduct further studies,
analyzing the political and social philosophical viewpoints of Karl
Popper; pointing out the contributions and limitations in his political
and social philosophy.
CHAPTER 2
BACKGROUND AND PRECONDITIONSFOR THE
FORMING OF KARL POPPER‘S POLITICAL-SOCIAL

this principle, it is impossible to determine both position and
momentum of an electron simultaneously. The Uncertainty principle
in quantum physics is the scientific foundation for indeterminsm in
philosophy. Based on the liberal stance, Karl Popper harshly
criticized determinism and advocated for indeterminism. However,
he still realized there was something unfair in indeterminism. As a
matter of fact, determinism and indeterminism both have their
unilateral characteristics.
2.2.2. The influence of the theory of evolution on Karl Popper’s
social philosophy
Karl Popper inherited Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, but
he applied it in accordance with his principle “Trial and error
elimination” (Trial and Error). The evolution of knowledge was
studied in his work entitled “Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary
Approach”. His idea of the social evolution with his principle “Trial
and Error” were applied in his work entitled “TheOpen Society and
Its Ememies”.


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2.2.3. The influence of Albert Einstein’s theory of Relativity on
Karl Popper’ political - social philosophy
It can be said that the most importand and the most durable
influence is the influence of Einstein’s scientific theory. Einstein’s
attitude towards his own theory had a strong impression on Popper.
Einstein had never considered his theory as a dogmas, but he
emphasized the role of practical testing. It is Einstein’s willing
attitude to accept criticism and rejection for his theory that became a
methodological basis for K. Popper’s falsiability principle as a
criteria of the demarcation between scientific and non-scientific

2.3.2. The influence of rationalism and the critical thinking
method
Karl Popper took the stance of rationalism as opposed to the
Vienna Circle’s empiricism. K. Popper’srationalismhad some
similarities and some differences with traditional rationalism. Karl
Popper acknowledgedthe great role of rationality, innate ideas and
intuitive perception, but the key difference between hisrationalism
with the traditional one is that: reason is not the criteria of truth and
that all the results of rational knowledge are only “conjectures” and
uncertain knowledge although it complies with strict logic rules.
Critical thinking method is the tradition of German - Austrian
philosophy. I. Kant has three philosophical works entitled
"Criticism".KarlMarx and Friedrich Engelsused the word "Critique"
to name a series of his works. According to Popper, reasonis as
limited as sensesdue to thepossibility of committing errors,Therefore,
he advocated for criticism as a meansof eliminating errors.
Thus, despite having thestance of rationalism, Karl Popper did
not absolutiserational knowledge. He sought to overcome the
limitations of rationak knowledge by applyingthe critical thinking
method. The term "critical rationalism" is coined by Popper to refer


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to his epistemological stance and philosophical method and which
were applied in his studies of political and social issues.
2.3.3. The influence of Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalysis and
Alfred Adler's Individual Psychology
Karl Popper had spent some time for the study of S. Freud’s
Psychoanalysis and A. Adler's Individual Psychology. Healso
voluntarily worked without pay for a short time in an


unlike

Hayek's

liberalism

with

limited

state

intervention.
2.4. An overview of the life and scientific works of Karl
Popper
Popper, whose full name is Karl Raimund Popper, was born
on July 28, 1902 in Vienna (Wien), Austria. He was of Jewish
descent yethis parents converted to Protestantism before he was born.
Karl Popper grew up in a family where books and music always
played an important role in his life. Karl Popper's father, Simon
Siegmund Carl Popper (1856-1932), was a doctor of law at the
University of Vienna. Karl Popper graduated from University of
Vienna with a PhD degree, but he mainly lived and worked abroad.
In 1928, Karl Popper graduated with a doctorate. In 1934, he
published the first book in German: The Logic of Scientific
Discovery. In 1937, Karl Popper came to New Zealand and taught
philosophy as a senior lecturer at University of Canterbury. Here, he
wrote two works: "The Poverty of Historicism" and "The Open
Society and Its Enemies", published in English. After World War II,

criticizm of historicism, of the totalitarian regime, of the social
injustices and in his support for the state's measures for social
transformation called "piecemeal social technology".
3.2. Karl Popper’s philosophical viewpoints on the open
society
Karl Popper was the one who developed the concept of the open
society and identified some of its basic characteristics in his own
view. According to Popper, the open society is a society which is
open for everyone to freely participate in its building and creating.
3.2.1. The transition from the closed society to the open society


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Karl Popper established the standards for the developmet of the
society from the closed to the open. He asserted: Firstly, when
people came to realise that the social institutions are created by men
(not by God), that the society would go from being closed to being
open. Secondly, when the clan society disintegrated, individual
interests or group interests started to appear. As a matter of fact, the
transition from the closed to the open society is primarily due to
several other important economic factors that Karl Popper had not
noticed.
3.2.2. Basic characteristics of the open society
Firstly, according to Karl Popper, the open society is a society
created freely by the people.
Secondly, the open society does not depend on any historical
necessity and laws.
Thirdly, the open society is a democratic society. The state
represents the will of the people. Therefore, it must follow the
people's wishes , rather than make the people follow its laws.

transformation called "piecemeal social technology".
- Karl Popper upheld the role of social experimentation
Karl Popper believed that not only natural sciences but also
social sciences must go through experiments; experiments only could
test social theories and find the errors to eliminate (the principle of
falsification).
- Karl Popper rejected the possibility of knowledge of social
laws
Karl Popper believed that in the social life there exist only
tendencies and trends which are not laws, so he rejected the


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possibility of detection of social laws. He said that historicism is
"confused" when equating the trends with the laws.
- Karl Popper rejected the historicist view about the possibility
of predicting the future
Karl Popper's criticism of historicism focused on the rejecting
the possibility of predicting history. He made a logical argument
with 5 statements as follows:
(1) The course of human history is strongly influenced by the
growth of human knowledge
(2) We cannot predict, by rational or scientific methods, the
future growth of our scientific knowledge.
(3) We cannot, therefore, predict the future course of human
history.
(4)

This means that we must reject the possibility of a


with certain “social technologies” in the fight against injustices and
social deficiencies.
4.1.3. Karl Popper proposed a number of new ideas in the view
and method of the building of an open society.
Karl Popper developed the philosophical theory of the open
society and pointed out some of its important characteristics. He
proposed a new philosophical approach and new methods, in which
there are certain rational elements regarding the building of an open
society.
The socialist innovation of our country is a process of changing
the social development model from the “central planning” - a closed


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social form, to a new social model: socialism based on the market
mechanism, with the openness and international integration, the
maximum enhancement of the role of the free creative role of all
individuals, and is a form of “open society”. Therefore, the study of
theories about the open society will help us understand what is meant
by the open society; the inevitability of the development from the
closed to the open society; the advantages of the open society
compared to the closed one; and the ways to develop the open
society.
4.1.4. Karl Popper distinguished between trends and and laws
and pointed out limitations in the knowledge of social laws and in the
future prediction.
Theoretically, this is a valuable contribution of Karl Popper in
dícovering mistakes in the tradition of theoretical research. In
practical terms; we can relate these Karl Popper’s critiques to our
past lessons to improve the theory of socialist innovation.

The dialectics from Heraclitus to Hegel and Marx became the
subject of Karl Popper’s severe criticism, because he regarded it as a
manifestation of historicism. In his philosophy of science, Karl
Popper fell into a metaphysical and extremist approach. When taking
this side, he completely denied the other side. While pointing out the
limitations of the inductive method, he completely rejected it and
absolutized the deductive method. He only accepted the relativeness
and denied the absoluteness of the truth.He only accepted the
piecemeal and rejected the holistic approach.


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4.2.3. He failed to apply the historical method in the social
research.
Karl Popper was not able to distinguish between the historical
method and historicism. Rejecting historicism, he also rejected the
historical method. Karl Popper failed to apply the historical method
in considering the processes of social development. As a matter of
fact, the closed or open society; the role of the community and
individuals all have economic origins from the level of the
productive forces and all have their change and ascending
development in the historical development.
4.2.4. He absolutized personal freedom and did not adequately
evaluate the role of the social community.
The society is made up of individuals; the open society is the
result of individual creative activities. However, that is just one side
of the problem. On the other hand, individuals are the products of a
certain social community. It is a mistake of Karl Popper when he
denied the role of the community and identified communism which
tribalism.