“The society of self-realization”: specificity and formation conditions (by K. Popper)

This author of the article studies the issue of the specificity of the phenomenon of an “open society”, which the author positions as the “society of self-realization”. Such a society is formed as a response to the “challenge” of the most progressive type of modern economy of the so-called “knowledge economy”, i.e. an economy where profits can be made from the development of any innovative products. It is clear that these are mainly information and computer technologies that are in great demand and are widely used in everyday life, industry, and science. In modern society, self-realization has become an almost ideal solution to the problem of the meaning of life; therefore, the study of the specifics and conditions of the possibility of forming such a society is a pressing philosophical problem. In the study of this problem, the author relies on one of the most popular works of the prominent Austrian post-positivist philosopher of the 20th century - K. Popper’s “Open Society and its enemies”. K. Popper’s “open society” is a “free market” society, but the “free market” itself cannot automatically lead to the formation of an “open society” and, therefore, a society of self-realization. This requires a number of conditions that the author, following K. Popper, seeks to identify and detail in this article.