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Open society (French: société ouverte) is a term coined by French philosopher Henri Bergson in 1932,^[1]^[2] and describes a dynamic system inclined to moral universalism.^[3] Bergson contrasted an open society with what he called a closed society, a closed system of law, morality or religion. Bergson suggests that if all traces of civilization were to disappear, the instincts of the closed society for including or excluding others would remain.^[4]

The idea of an open society was further developed during World War II by the Austrian-born British philosopher Karl Popper.^[5]^[6] Popper saw it as part of a historical continuum reaching from the organic, tribal, or closed society, through the open society (marked by a critical attitude to tradition) to the abstract or depersonalized society lacking all face-to-face interaction transactions.^[7]

^ • Henri Bergson ([1932] 1937). Les Deux Sources de la morale et de la religion, ch. I, pp. 1–103 and ch. IV, pp. 287–343. Félix Alcan.
• Translated as ([1935] 1977), The Two Sources of Morality and Religion Internet Archive (left or right arrow buttons select succeeding pages), pp. 18–27, 45–65, 229–234., trs., R. A. Audra and C. Brereton, with assistance of W. H. Carter. Macmillan press, Notre Dame.
^ Leszek Kołakowski, Modernity on Endless Trial (1997), p. 162
^ Thomas Mautner (2005), 2nd ed. The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy ["Open society" entry], p. 443.
^ Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, Macmillan, 1935, pp. 20–21.
^ K. R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, 2 vols. ([1945] 1966), 5th ed.
^ A. N. Wilson, Our Times (2008), pp. 17–18
^ K. R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume One (1945), 1 and 174–175.