08-23-2010, 02:07 PM | #916 | ||
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Most of what counts as philosophy in America and England is a historical argumentation over "the central issues," whichever of those happen to be in fashion at the moment. Struggling with the historical dialectic, coming to terms with its most difficult figures, reading works from other traditions is seen as undergraduate foolishness that must be left behind in order to do serious work. For example how can you claim to be an epistemologist if you've never read any Hegel??? I asked one famous epistemologist (whose shocking thesis is that context actually matters in acquiring and valuing knowledge ) if his work was rooted in some of the famous figures from the first half of the 20th century like Dewey or Wittgenstein. He answered, "Oh, I don't do the history of philosophy. I haven't read anything before 1970 in years." Yeah, I like Bourdieu too as well as Foucault, Deleuze, etc. I think France is our best hope in terms of keeping philosophy alive. My own education in America was really abnormal. I too read Freud, Dilthey and a few other cast-offs alongside the historical canon...but even reading figures in the history of philosophy means that my graduate education was atypical to say the least. Quote:
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08-23-2010, 03:00 PM | #917 | |
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But my problem with Rawls is that deriving justice as such is obsolete. Or, as he points out himself, only relevant during a constitutional crisis or the formation of a new nation. I really don't care about deriving justice as such, but rather I think the issue is how ought we to collectively create, rather than derive, more just conditions. The Rawlsian model of the authority deriving, once and for all, some transhistorical conception of democratic justice itself enacts an aristocratic form inquiry which necessarily excludes the citizen. I, of course, much prefer the model of inquiry offered by John Dewey where the philosopher creatively offers a cosmology which encourages democratic participation, tries to clarify the problems that the public faces and the tools that they can then use to ameliorate them. As Dewey pointed out, the intellectual energies of some our brightest folks have been misdirected toward the relatively artificial problems of the academy. Meanwhile the common citizen gets the distinct impression that he has no part in the sort of serious work that only the professional intellectuals can handle. So I agree with you about the significance of cultural lag. We are Lockean liberals by nature, and that inheritance has significantly confounded the advancement of democratic politics in America certainly. We still act as if our problems can be solved my moving west or waiting for the aristo/technocrats to take care of it. As far as I'm concerned, Rawls just continues that aristocratic pattern of inquiry. I think the future of political thought has to be or ought to be at least somewhat Deweyan in the sense that focus on democratic institutions has to be secondary to the focus on building up the critical intellectual and moral resources of the citizenry. In other words, first and foremost, democratic thought has to become about how to a foster a moral community capable of collectively managing the procedures and institutions, and then only secondarily and collectively about the specifics of how we are going to engage in institutional transformation. For a long time we've been putting the cart before the horse to no effect. |
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08-23-2010, 03:12 PM | #918 | |
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08-23-2010, 03:13 PM | #919 | |
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08-23-2010, 03:24 PM | #920 | |
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In many lands it not the moral community that is lacking, but the structural institutions that would give that community voice. I would agree that you cannot impose the institutions top down: indeed many of the current problems have their roots in this very mode of proceeding. But I'll admit that I would not be looking to philosophers from the anglosphere to deal with this kind of question. I'd be looking to the social historians - to Mann and Tilley, for example - to the political anthropologists like James C. Scott or Taussig, or to political sociologists such as Susan Strange. Or to look at Florence's point about how new communication systems have impacted on society and the polity, Manuel Castells or Sennett. But then philosophy does bleed into these writings. I don't think that there is a single interesting social theorist who has not been influenced by Wittgenstein. Whether she knows it or not. |
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08-23-2010, 04:01 PM | #921 | |
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But meanwhile phenomenology and radical empiricism have given very interesting and useful accounts of experience as such by abandoning the very problematic of mind/body dualism. |
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08-23-2010, 04:02 PM | #922 |
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08-23-2010, 04:22 PM | #923 | |
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I would think that you might find Jurgen Habermas very interesting as he sits in a very strange middle position between someone like Rawls and Dewey. He is something of a latter day Kantian in that he believes that political norms can be derived starting from the performative contradictions inherent in communicative practices. That sort of project connects up to anglo-american thought and moves forward toward concerns about procedure and such. He is horrible to read however (maybe worse than Hegel) and i wouldn't wish him on anyone. |
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09-17-2010, 09:54 AM | #924 |
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I am going to start introducing a philosopher that has been overlooked by most of the world. 'Abdu'l-Baha.
I have read some of the philosophers of Christian Europe. Most of them in my youth. Then I read the words of Christ, Muhammad, Buddha, Krishna, etc. Each one would change the way I look at the world. And you are right. Everyone is philosopher, every person, writer establishes an atmosphere and harbours secrets that could change others. We all are valuable assets that have yet to be tapped. More to say latter. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19289 |
09-17-2010, 10:15 AM | #925 | |
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Seems you are talking more religion than philosophy. Yeah somewhat related, but also very different. Last edited by kennyc; 09-17-2010 at 10:25 AM. |
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09-17-2010, 10:38 AM | #926 |
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09-17-2010, 10:43 AM | #927 | |
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and I did download the book. Last edited by kennyc; 09-17-2010 at 10:46 AM. |
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09-17-2010, 11:40 AM | #928 |
Bah, humbug!
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So did I. I don't mind people making a sales pitch for a particular religious or philosophical viewpoint as long as they don't become overbearing. As far as I'm concerned, everyone is welcome to bring their wares to the marketplace of ideas.
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09-24-2010, 09:44 AM | #929 |
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Some time ago I was going through the book by West "Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient". He says that to understand Heraclitus it is more helpful to read "Brhadaranyaka Upanishad" than the other earlier presocratics. Well I have started on that path by downloading the commentary by Krishnamurti as a pdf and a very well commented French version from
http://www.les-108-upanishads.ch/brihadaranyaka.html. This is easy to turn into an ebook using for example Sigil. Was West correct - any opinions, thoughts? |
09-24-2010, 10:14 AM | #930 | |
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They went to the Jewish leaders and studied there, coming back with the concept of One God. I get the impression religion is an overbearing subject but it is the foundation of philosophy. Our western world is based on Christian teachings, or someones interpretation of those teachings. So we messed up. It does not mean that the original message was wrong. Last edited by Arthursbedtime; 09-24-2010 at 10:22 AM. |
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