BRIEF REFLECTIONS ABOUT KELSEN'S ANTI-PLATONISM IN DEFENSE OF OPEN SOCIETIES

This article intends to investigate some elements of Kelsen's antiplatonism in order to indicate Plato's presumed defense for closed societies in opposition of Kelsen's political project, particularly in Pure Theory of Law, which was give ammunition to society to combat the forces of power in order to preserve freedom. The justification for this brief investigation is the fact that Plato was appointed as the inaugural theorist of totalitarism by authors such as Popper (1987). Kelsen (2000b) also has followed this authors because he did not share Plato's view of the essentiality of coincidence between the power of the forces (State) and culture (philosophy). For the austrian jurist, it is necessary that culture's forces and science's forces remain independent of the State's power, so that they may surveillance society with the indispensable critical mass, here is the deepest political sense of the project contained in the Pure Theory of Law. The main theoretical frameworks of this study are Plato and Kelsen (2000b) included some of his commentators, with brief notes about the concept of Popper's (1987) "open society". The survey was materialized by the consultation of the main texts of the chosen theoretical frameworks picket out from the investigated topics. It was concluded that Plato defended closed societies in opposition of open and democratic societies defended by Kelsen.