https://doi.org/10.1177/0048393120920228 Philosophy of the Social Sciences 2020, Vol. 50(4) 366–380 © The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0048393120920228 journals.sagepub.com/home/pos Discussion Abstract Society in the Time of Plague Adam Chmielewski 1 Abstract The global lockdown following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to generate all sorts of consequences: psychological, social, economic, and political. To hypothesize about what will emerge from the present situation is at this point both premature and impossible. The impossibility comes primarily from the gravity and vastness of this emergency and from the lack of intellectual resources to deal with the challenge. At the same time, however, the need to get a grasp of the condition in which we have found ourselves is both understandable and irresistible. One way of responding, at least partially, to the demand and its possible consequences may be to refer to the concept of abstract society, an idea formulated 75 years ago by the Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper. Keywords abstract society, interpassivity, public agoraphobia, obedience, freedom 1. Unintentional Prophet Though not born into the English language, Karl Popper proposed many use- ful concepts which subsequently became a part of the vernacular of contem- porary philosophy. In philosophy of science, we speak the Popperian language even if we do not subscribe to all his conceptions. We do likewise in the Received 15 March 2020 1 University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland Corresponding Author: Adam Chmielewski, Institute of Philosophy, University of Wroclaw, plac Uniwersytecki 1, Wroclaw 50-137, Poland. Email: adam.chmielewski@uwr.edu.pl 920228POS XX X 10.1177/0048393120920228Philosophy of the Social SciencesChmielewski research-article 2020