Popper, Strauss and the Alleged Totalitarism of Plato

Abstract

This paper addresses the alleged totalitarianism in Plato’s Republic, more specifically Karl Poppers accusation in Open Society and his Enemies that Plato’s political program – opposed to social change, individual liberty, isonomic justice, and enlightenment - is frankly totalitarian. We discuss this thesis of Popper in the light of the interpretation by Leo Strauss of the Republicwhere he rejects any totalitarianism in the political project of the Platonic Republic. Developing a hermeneutic that could be called “ironic-dissimulatory” and “dramatic-comic”, Strauss argues that the realization of the perfect state idealized in the Republic is at the same time unwanted and impossible, since its existence requires the abstraction of eros and the coincidence between political power and philosophy. Our argument is that Strauss’s analysis of the concepts of justice and the parallelism between individual and society in the Republic proved more accurate than Popper’s.