https://at-ceu.studyguide.timeedit.net/modules/UGST4256?type=CORECourse Description:This course is designed as an intensive reading seminar. In the center are the two books that have coined and defined the concept of "Open Society," with respect to philosophical foundations and political practice. These are:1) "Two Sources of Morality and Religion" by the French Philosopher and Nobel Prize laureate Henri Bergson. The book, first published in 1932, is an all-out refutation of mechanistic, deterministic, and materialistic understandings of human life and human society. It juxtaposes the tribal "closed society" with the universal "open society". Bergson emphasizes the importance of intuition, free will, and spontaneity; and he insists on the openness and creativity of human life as well as the evolutionary process more generally. Consequently, Bergson is often named as a the most eminent representative of the "philosophy of life" besides Friedrich Nietzsche. His work received renewed interest from postmodern thinkers, such as Gilles Deleuze. However, it may be of even greater relevance in our own time, where the swift rise of artificial intelligence and robotics confronts us with questions about the distinctiveness of human thought and life.2) "The Open Society and its Enemies" by the Austrian-British philosopher Karl Friedrich Popper. The book, first published in 1945, responds to the experience of totalitarian societies. However, Popper finds roots of totalitarian politics not only in modern "historicist" ideologies, such as Marxism, but also in the ancient philosophical roots of Western Society, especially in political thought of Plato. Popper's book is widely considered as a foundational text for modern liberal democracy. However, it differs from Bergson's approach quite significantly. Popper's early philosophical work in the environment of the "Vienna Circle" is mostly concerned with questions of epistemology and the theory of sciences. His "critical rationalism" posits that scientific theories must be falsifiable. Therefore, they cannot make any final claims to truth but, at best, to "verisimilitude." In political terms, this leads to the call for a pluralistic and "open society" in which deliberation and decision-making are characterized by rational debate and the absence of élites. While Popper takes the concept of "open society" from Bergson, he accuses the French Philosopher of "irrationalism". Popper, in turn, has been criticized for an allegedly reductionist perspective on human existence and reality as such. Thus, while both books agree on certain characteristics of closed and open societies, they pursue fundamentally different philosophical approaches. This discrepancy should allow for vivid discussions about the best model for an open society in theory and practice.