Philosophy and Politics: The Role of Popper and Hayek Epistemology in the Political Controversies of twentieth century

Justice, freedom and, democracy are among the most important issues that political philosophers have dealt with not only in the past, but also in the contemporary history of the West. Based on the epistemology of Popper and Hayek, the present article tries to compare the intellectual concerns of these two thinkers, which are mainly manifested in opposition to the ideology of totalitarianism. The results of this study indicate that Hayek, due to his reliance on "spontaneous order" and "critique of modern rationalism" in epistemology, considers any organized and planned effort to rationally reconstruct society to be futile. But Popper believes in the principle of "gradual social engineering" because of his emphasis on "critical rationalism," "slipperiness," and "refutability" in epistemology. Nevertheless, both advocate the idea of "freedom," "open society," and "democracy." The present research is a descriptive-analytical type with a comparative approach and data collection has been done through libraries and using available valid sources.