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Karl Popper, Winston Churchill, and the Tradition of Liberty among the English-speaking Peoples
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 June 2018
Abstract
This paper starts by recalling a conversation of the author, then a young student, with Karl Popper in 1988. Popper argued that there is a ‘British mystery’ among the English-speaking peoples: their deep love of liberty, combined with a deep sense of duty, which was epitomised in the 20th Century by Winston Churchill. This paper argues that Churchill was a representative of an old tradition that goes back to Magna Carta of 1215. At its core is the protection of liberty to enjoy decentralised and peaceful ways of life and the corresponding allergy to revolutions and to schemes of perfection centrally designed.
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- Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2018
References
1 Espada, João Carlos, The Anglo-American Tradition of Liberty: A View from Europe (London: Routledge, 2016; paperback edition, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This book provides the argument which the present paper summarises. An earlier version of the present paper's view on the political philosophy of Winston Churchill was published in Finest Hour 173 (Summer 2016), 32–35.
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