Paradox of Tolerance
A society that permits every doctrine equally may discover, too late, that some doctrines exist to abolish the very permission that sustained them.
Quick Facts
- Period
- 1945 – 1945
- Region
- Europe
- Key Figures
- John Locke, John Rawls, John Stuart Mill +2 more
Key Figures
John Locke
Predecessor
Early modern liberalismJohn Locke’s theory of consciousness was not born in a vacuum of abstract reflection; it emerged from a life shaped by i...
John Rawls
Successor/Interpreter
Liberal political philosophyJohn Rawls is often treated as the philosophical adversary of communitarianism, but that framing misses the more reveali...
John Stuart Mill
Predecessor
Classical liberalismJohn Stuart Mill inherited Bentham’s reforming utilitarianism, but he also inherited its vulnerability: the suspicion th...
Karl Popper
Originator
Critical rationalism; liberal political philosophyKarl Popper’s central question was simple to state and hard to answer: how can inquiry be rational if it never achieves ...
Plato
Predecessor/Interlocutor
Classical Greek philosophyPlato matters to Al-Farabi not only as the author of the Republic but as the philosopher of the ordered soul and the ord...
The Story
This narrative combines documented history with dramatized scenes for storytelling purposes.
The World That Made It
The paradox of tolerance did not begin as a slogan. It emerged from a century in which Europe learned, with terrible clarity, that doctrines of hatred do not re...
The Central Idea
The paradox of tolerance is usually remembered through a short passage in *The Open Society and Its Enemies*, first published in 1945. Karl Popper’s claim is si...
The System
The paradox of tolerance belongs to a larger architecture in Popper’s political thought. It cannot be understood apart from his idea of the open society, his de...
Tensions & Critiques
The paradox of tolerance has always been vulnerable to a double suspicion. To its defenders, it seems merely prudent: a free society may defend itself against t...
Legacy & Echoes
The paradox of tolerance did not remain a footnote in a wartime book. It became one of the most cited and contested formulas in modern political philosophy, mig...
Timeline
Birth of Karl Popper
**1902-07-28** — Karl Raimund Popper was born in Vienna, then a cultural capital of the Habsburg world. His later political thought would bear the marks of a city where intellectual brilliance and political fracture lived side by side.
The Logic of Scientific Discovery
**1934** — Popper’s work on falsifiability and fallibilism established the epistemic outlook that later informed his politics. The same suspicion of final certainty that shaped his philosophy of science would shape his defense of open society.
Emigration to New Zealand
**1937** — Popper left Europe as authoritarianism spread and settled at Canterbury University College. Exile deepened his reflection on the collapse of liberal civilization and the political stakes of toleration.
Publication of The Open Society and Its Enemies
**1945** — Popper published the first volume of The Open Society and Its Enemies, the text in which the paradox of tolerance appears in its best-known form. The work linked his critique of historicism to a defense of democratic institutions against totalitarian threats.
Wartime and Postwar Debate over Liberal Self-Defense
**1945** — In the aftermath of fascism and war, liberal thinkers increasingly asked whether democracies should defend themselves against anti-democratic parties and propaganda. Popper’s argument became part of a wider postwar reconsideration of the limits of freedom.
English Translation and Wider Reception
**1951** — As The Open Society and Its Enemies reached a broader international readership, Popper’s formulation of tolerance entered Anglophone political philosophy and public argument. The paradox began its long life as a portable phrase for democratic self-defense.
Rawls and the New Liberalism
**1971** — John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice helped shift liberal theory toward questions of fair cooperation and public reason. Although not a direct response to Popper, Rawls’s work offered a more procedural way to think about the limits of toleration in pluralist societies.
Militant Democracy and Constitutional Defense
**1990** — Late twentieth-century constitutional debates over banning extremist parties and protecting democratic order gave Popper’s insight renewed practical relevance. The paradox became part of discussions about whether democracy may legitimately defend itself against anti-democratic actors.
Death of Karl Popper
**1994-09-17** — Popper died in London after becoming one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. By then, the paradox of tolerance had already become a standard reference point in debates over free speech and democratic resilience.
Digital Public Sphere and Content Moderation Debates
**2000** — The rise of the internet transformed Popper’s question into a problem of platform governance, moderation, and extremist recruitment at scale. Tolerance was no longer only a matter of state law but also of privately administered digital infrastructures.
Revival in Campus and Platform Controversies
**2010** — Debates over deplatforming, hate speech, and institutional neutrality renewed popular interest in the paradox of tolerance. The phrase became a recurring argumentative tool in disputes over whether openness should include the right to undermine openness.
Tolerance in the Age of Disinformation
**2020** — Arguments over disinformation, extremist networks, and the governance of online speech pushed Popper’s question into everyday civic life. The paradox now operates as a live test of how democratic societies balance freedom, safety, and the preservation of public reason.
Sources
- primary_textKarl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 1: The Spell of Plato
Standard modern edition; contains the famous passage on the intolerant and tolerance.
- primary_textKarl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2: The High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath
Provides the broader political context for Popper’s defense of open society.
- reference_articleStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Karl Popper
Reliable overview of Popper’s philosophy and political thought.
- reference_articleInternet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Karl Popper
Accessible scholarly summary with useful bibliographic pointers.
- primary_textJohn Stuart Mill, On Liberty
Classic liberal defense of free discussion that forms an important background to Popper.
- primary_textJohn Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration
Early modern foundational text on toleration and its limits.
- reference_articleStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Toleration
Helpful for the broader philosophical history of toleration.
- primary_textJohn Rawls, Political Liberalism
Influential later liberal theory relevant to the toleration problem.
- scholarly_bookRainer Forst, Toleration in Conflict: Past and Present
Major philosophical treatment of the concept of toleration and its limits.
- primary_textKarl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism
Important for understanding Popper’s broader anti-dogmatic and anti-authoritarian framework.
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