Aither is a double-blind peer review, Open Access online academic journal. It is indexed at ERIH+ and Scopus. It is published by the Faculty of Arts of the Palacký University in Olomouc in cooperation with the Philosophical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. It comes out twice a year. Every second issue is international and contains foreign-language articles (mainly in English, but also in German and French). The journal is registered under the number ISSN 1803-7860.

Aither 34/2025 (International issue no. 13):36-61 | DOI: 10.5507/aither.2025.006

Was Karl Popper a Civic Republican?

Jan Buráň
Palacký University Olomouc

Karl Popper has hitherto been understood as either a liberal or, at best, as a sui generis specimen of socialism. I argue that his political thought bears a remarkable resemblance to what Philip Pettit and Quentin Skinner have dubbed the Italo-Atlantic branch of republicanism. Viewing Popper through a republican lens would reveal that there is a robust and coherent theory behind his attack on the “enemies of the open society”. The paper focuses successively on the concept of freedom understood as nondomination, on the role of the state and the rule of law, and on democracy. That Popper might be classified “as a republican, in something close to Pettit’s sense” has been suggested in passing by Jeremy Shearmur on a handful of occasions. The present article, however, should be the first to focus on the similarities in detail.

Received: July 2, 2025; Revised: November 10, 2025; Accepted: November 11, 2025; Published: December 31, 2025  Show citation

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Buráň, J. (2025). Was Karl Popper a Civic Republican? Aither, 17(34), 36-61. doi: 10.5507/aither.2025.006
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