The Problem of Ideology and Critical Rationalism

Abstract

In the controversy over neo-Marxist Ideologies, as well as in the discussion of the basic values of political parties, Karl Raimund Popper’s philosophy of Critical Rationalism has often been called upon to defend, by reference to the values of political Liberalism, the idea both of the free constitutional state and the Western political system of parliamentary democracy.1 Certainly Popper’s antitotalitarian social philosophy represents one of the few interesting philosophical alternatives to the pseudohumanistic authoritarian ideologies of the Left (and also the Right). The values of political Liberalism, which are the basic assumptions of Popper’s political philosophy, are not accompanied by an economic “laissez faire”-Liberalism, as has often been claimed by Critical Rationalism’s adversaries on the Left. It is evident, that despite Popper’s arguments for the greatest possible individual freedom and for the limitation of the power of the state, he explicitly demands that unrestricted capitalism be replaced by an “economic interventionism”.KeywordsOpen SocietyPolitical LiberalismConspiracy TheoryParliamentary DemocracyPhilosophical AlternativeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.