|
|
|
 |
|

August 16th, 2007, 07:18 PM
|
Sergeant
|
|
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Milwaukee, WI
Posts: 376
Thanks: 14
Thanked 6 Times in 6 Posts
|
|
Re: Philosophers + Drain
And a game question: how successful are Oreiads at seduction? As good/better/worse than Succubi?
|

August 17th, 2007, 12:24 AM
|
Corporal
|
|
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 60
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
|
|
Re: Philosophers + Drain
I never meant to call you a Popperite. I apologize if I came across that way.
|

August 17th, 2007, 12:32 AM
|
 |
Major General
|
|
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Columbus, OH
Posts: 2,204
Thanks: 67
Thanked 49 Times in 31 Posts
|
|
Re: Philosophers + Drain
What's a Popperite?
Jazzepi
|

August 17th, 2007, 01:34 AM
|
Corporal
|
|
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 60
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
|
|
Re: Philosophers + Drain
A Popperite a follower of Karl Popper, a writer who blasted Plato in his book "The Open Society and its Enemies", calling Plato a proponent of tyranny in spite of the fact that Plato considered tyranny to be the worst form of government. Of course, Popper's work is rather limited to science and his political philosophy is rather limited due to his distrust of historicism. Of course, Popper saw himself as a liberal, and yet his ideas on society were, if anything, degenerate and possibly Marxist.
|

August 17th, 2007, 10:33 AM
|
Captain
|
|
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 883
Thanks: 0
Thanked 13 Times in 5 Posts
|
|
Re: Philosophers + Drain
Noname: Just curious, are you an objectivist noname?
|

August 17th, 2007, 01:02 PM
|
Sergeant
|
|
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Milwaukee, WI
Posts: 376
Thanks: 14
Thanked 6 Times in 6 Posts
|
|
Re: Philosophers + Drain
I can't envision a possible world in which Popper is a Marxist, the attack on historicism seems to preculde it. But I don't have any particular rancor about Popper's politics, and I haven't studied them carefully. I've always thought of him as a garden variety liberal. I just think his interpretation of Plato is one-sided.
Popper's best known as a philosopher of science. He coined the idea of 'falsification': that a scientific theory can only be legitimate if it is possible to be falsified (i.e. that it's possible for there to be concrete evidence *against* it).
In terms of his relation to Plato I've always thought of him as the opposite of Leo Strauss. Both point to the manipulative or elitist features of Plato's politics (rule by the 'best', the legitimacy of 'noble lies' told to the people by the leaders if they move society towards the Good, etc.) Strauss lauds these things in a roundabout way: he's a subtle (or subtilizing) reader, and doesn't treat the Republic as a blueprint for a state, but a meditation on politics more generally. Popper straightforwardly attacks them as the seeds of tyranny. I'm not a fan of either of them as readers of Plato.
|

August 17th, 2007, 07:50 PM
|
Corporal
|
|
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 60
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
|
|
Re: Philosophers + Drain
Plato once said that lies infected the soul with evil, and he didn't support the noble lies, as that kind of state was rejected as insufficient (to be fair, Plato rejected all existing states as insufficient.) Also, rule by the best doesn't mean rule by a few or by the rich; it means that those who can comprehend reality and morality best ought to be able to rule. Of course, a few people DO rule modern countries (a few hundred legislatures plus an executive and a supreme/constitutional court rule of states with many millions or even over a billion), and those people tend to be rich. So what I'm saying is, when people criticize Plato, they are really criticizing the world in which we live today, as Plato's philosophy and its ideals (republican government, rule of law, the social contract, etc) have defined the political landscape.
P.S. I called Popper a Marxist because, like Marx, he seems to be upset at the existence of a social contract, or that a state can be guided by an agreement between the government and its people, rather than a monolithic set of ideals as expounded by a single, all-powerful political party. Of course, a single party isn't 100% necessary for Popper, so how Marxist he is is indeed in question, to be fair.
|

August 17th, 2007, 09:38 PM
|
Sergeant
|
|
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Milwaukee, WI
Posts: 376
Thanks: 14
Thanked 6 Times in 6 Posts
|
|
Re: Philosophers + Drain
Right: an earlier version of my post specified how Plato thought of the "best" but I yanked it to not go on too long. Best = morally and intellectually disciplined, motivated by the Good, undesirous of wealth and physical pleasure, and uncorruptible. Oh, and, to *not* want political power.
But Plato is maddeningly ambiguous about lying; in general he comes out utterly opposed to it, but then seems completely willing to have leaders tell followers things that aren't true as long as belief in those things will lead the people towards what is truly good.
If someone criticizes elitist or undemocratic elements in Plato's politics, they're not critiquing present-day political ideals -- according to you, they're just misreading Plato. That's been the nature of our debate. I think it's misreading Plato to take him as straightforwardly advocating modern democratic political ideals. There are things in his dialogues that strongly influence those ideals, but he also says things that seem to advocate top-down, undemocratic governance -- and have influenced thinkers who favor those types of governance.
If what you say is true about Popper, he shares one feature of Marx's view, but not the essential stuff about alienated labor, class conflict, and revolution. And to be fair, Marx considered the one-party 'dictatorship of the proletariat' to be a temporary waypoint on the road to freedom...it's just that no existing or extinct communist state ever seemed to get past it.
Going on too long my specialty...
|

August 17th, 2007, 11:44 PM
|
Corporal
|
|
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 60
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
|
|
Re: Philosophers + Drain
Not to mention that just about every communist state killed millions in purges, gulags, and artificially induced famines.
It's funny that we should be debating this... your location reads Moscow, but it isn't Russia; it's Idaho. Are you at the university there, Tichy?
|

August 18th, 2007, 01:03 AM
|
Sergeant
|
|
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Milwaukee, WI
Posts: 376
Thanks: 14
Thanked 6 Times in 6 Posts
|
|
Re: Philosophers + Drain
Yessir.
|
Posting Rules
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is On
|
|
|
|
|