Most/Least Favorite Philosopher and Why?

[Berzerker]

Yes, but if the alternative is to starve then you aren't really free to disagree.

Freedom to starve is not a freedom worth fighting for or defending. The world does not naturally belong to anyone, property rights are a cultural fiction which we are free to change.

How about the freedom to start your own business instead? Oh, we wouldn't have that freedom under communism because some bureaucrat has decided what we will do. And what happens under communism if you refuse to work at the job assigned to you? Off to the gulag? Execution to educate others about the greater good? Starvation? Oh, welfare? That system has worked wonders on out-of-wedlock birthrates, the greatest factor wrt poverty.

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
I reiterate, more deeply, my apologies.

As an extremely poor excuse, I would like to mention that I was induced to participate by your sentence

which I wrongly understood as referring to the reality, when it was obviously a deep philosophical assumption, probably located in the cart (or am I wrong again?)

He's got a point Agathon. You're calling the kettle black.

and Davout, so sauve...

[Agathon]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
I reiterate, more deeply, my apologies.

As an extremely poor excuse, I would like to mention that I was induced to participate by your sentence

which I wrongly understood as referring to the reality, when it was obviously a deep philosophical assumption, probably located in the cart (or am I wrong again?)

Whatever... It's obvious you are trying to back out now you've realized you made a mistake. Nice try.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle


He's got a point Agathon. You're calling the kettle black.

and Davout, so sauve...

Nope. It's just a plain fact that these are different issues. If you want to argue that ends and means really are the same thing, then go for it.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Berzerker


How about the freedom to start your own business instead? Oh, we wouldn't have that freedom under communism because some bureaucrat has decided what we will do. And what happens under communism if you refuse to work at the job assigned to you? Off to the gulag? Execution to educate others about the greater good? Starvation? Oh, welfare? That system has worked wonders on out-of-wedlock birthrates, the greatest factor wrt poverty.

You don't have the freedom to exploit others. Other than that do what you like.

[Harry Tuttle]

8) Logical statements are only based on my sense of logic. Your so-called definitions and scientific fact are only an interpretation of your general world outlook of what is reality.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
8) Logical statements are only based on my sense of logic. Your so-called definitions and scientific fact are only an interpretation of your general world outlook of what is reality.

Then why are you bothering to post? It's clear that if your statments refer to some private reality, then no one else can really understand what you are talking about, since they don't have access to your private world and won't be able to know what your statements refer to. And the same goes with regard to yourself and other people's statements.

And the right dare to accuse the left of being relativists.

If you aren't a relativist then it's clear that people who live solely off things like investments and rents do not work (unless they choose to work for free). What's so weird or controversial about that claim?

edit: weren't you the guy who was accusing communists of denying basic logic a couple of pages back (Rand's A is A stuff). I mean, she is wrong about the foundations and implications of logic but that doesn't mean that people who disagree with her can't make simple identity statements.

[Agathon]

Note: people disagree with Rand over whether the truth of tautologies is due to something about the world. Most contemporary philosophers do not believe that logical statements are about the world because tautologies are true a priori. Most philosophers believe that tautologies are true independently of the way the world is and that logic does not describe the world at all. This conception of logic is basic to Russell and the early Wittgenstein, the two premier thinkers on the status of logic in the last 150 years.

Thus they wouldn't take the A is A thing as justifying Rand's Objectivist claim.

But they would agree with her that tautologies are necessarily true and that logical rules are the same for everyone.

[Agathon]

Here's why logical truths are not about the world.

let p and q stand for any proposition about the world you like. p and q are true or false depending on whether they match up with a state of affairs or don't - that's dependent on the world.

Now take the complex proposition "If p then q". The same goes for this one. But because it is complex, it's truth is dependent on the truth of both p and q and a set of rules that define material implication ("If.. then..." statements).

That rule is "If p then q" is true under all conditions except when p is true and q is false. Similar truth functions exist for "and" and "or" (and we can define these operations in terms of each other).

But take the valid inference (1) "If p then q"; (2) "p"; (C) therefore "q". The relation between the premises and the conclusion is also one of material implication (since if the premises are true, the conclusion must be).

This can be proved by formulating the conditional If ((If p then q) and p) then q

Following the rule for material implication it turns out that whatever values you assign to p and q the conditional always turns out true. So the truth of the conditional is indenpdent of whatever way the world is (since p and q and be both true or both false or one or the other and the conditional will still turn out true).

I believe that's why people think Rand is wrong.

[Harry Tuttle]

Yes, I'm sure metaphorical algebra factors greatly into their decision making.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
Yes, I'm sure metaphorical algebra factors greatly into their decision making.

And into yours.

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by Agathon


And into yours.

Quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, acts like a duck. That's about the extent of the mathematical implications brought on by the statement A is A.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Agathon


Whatever... It's obvious you are trying to back out now you've realized you made a mistake. Nice try.

Any reasonnable person would stop discussing with a Master using the authority argument : I am right because I am the Master.

Please consider the following as not intended to you.

If we accept the idea that all workers under a salary contract are exploited, and as exploitation is immoral, the salary contract is immoral, we expect the moralist to suggest another form of work which would be moral. The most serious attempt ever made to suppress exploitation (without suppressing freedom) is the workers associations (coop and mutuals) in which there were no non working shareholders or lazy incompetent capitalist of any kind.

This organization of work has proved to be viable for about one hundred hears or so, within serious limitations, and without never decisively proving that workers were less exploited in coop than in ordinary business. The recent quasi total collapse of that form of economy, not caused by an aggression of the capitalist world and despite a sympathetic attitude of the public opinion, raised the following moral question:
- if the workers under all systems are equally treated, there is no exploitation specific to the salary contract under capitalism;
- is the alienation resulting from the biological obligation to make a living the real content of a fictitious moral issue?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by DAVOUT

we expect the moralist to suggest another form of work which would be moral.

No we don't and you've made the same mistake again.

The moralist could suggest co operatives as the only truly non-exploitative form of production and the moral point would still hold. This is one goal to aim for.

Let's say for the sake of argument that co-operatives face some practical problems which involve frustration of other moral goals (say the avoidance of poverty). Lets say, again for the sake of argument, that people are just too innately selfish to make it work.

So we do the best we can to minimize egregious exploitation. That is just compromising one of our moral goals to further others. It does not involve the invalidation of the original claim. Moreover it does not logically require anyone to say that the original claim was false - exploitation may still be a bad thing, even if we can't avoid it.

All this means is that we have problems living up to all our ideals. But it has never been a good argument for murder that people can't help doing it.

The recent quasi total collapse of that form of economy, not caused by an aggression of the capitalist world and despite a sympathetic attitude of the public opinion, raised the following moral question

Have you declared war against the English language or something?

[DAVOUT]

It is the privilege of real idiots to do the same mistake again and again: thanks for reminding me my inalienable rights.

I ask you not to consider my fautive English as a lack of respect toward the language; it is just another evidence that non mastering the academic discourse precludes any possible discussion.

BTW, I would consider a favor that you tell me the correct expression for *quasi total collapse*.

[DaShi]

Don't worry, it just means that he has nothing else to attack you on. Since he just wants to attack you, and your points are so sound, he is forced to hound on your language skills, which, in truth, are not really that open for an attack to begin with.

[BeBro]

Originally posted by Elok
I will not post WHY I dislike Nietzsche at the moment, because I have reason to believe that I am seriously hammered

That is as evil as when people say "I know a nice joke, but I won´t tell you!"

[Ned]

PARABLE OF THE FIELD OF PART TWO

The next spring the field workers returned to find that the farmer had been killed for his own greed. They decided themselves to plant the field and harvested it. But since one of the field workers had a horse, they agreed to allow him to use the horse to plow and plant the field and that the rest of them would harvest the field and share the harvest 50-50 with the field worker who did all the planting.

At harvest time the other field workers returned to conduct the harvest. At the end of the day, the field workers returned and split the contents of their baskets with the planter. At the end of the line the same field worker who harvested nothing in the year before again came forward with his basket empty. He said to the planter, "I am sorry I have harvested nothing, I fell asleep under the shady oak tree and just now woke up. But even though I have nothing to share with you can you give me the $10 the farmer would have paid me for reporting to work and going into the field?"

The planter shook his head no.

At this, the field worker went and sought out the Communist Party member and explained that he had gone into the field with the rest of the field workers and has received nothing from the planter for his time and that if he did not receive at least $10 he and his family would starve.

The Communist Party member took his gun and went to accost the planter. He said, " In our great Communist paradise, we live by the motto, 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.' Will you pay this worker a living wage which is his right under our system."

The planter tried to explain the agreement the field workers had with each other to plant and harvest, but the Communist party member interrupted him abruptly and said, "When will you running-dog landlords ever learn?" And with that, he pulled the trigger.

The planter fell dead, a victim of his own greed.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Using the liberal standards that many of the posters here seem to have...

Good:

- Jesus (a cool dude)
- Friedrich Nietzsche (because I can spell his name)
- Robert A. Wilson
- Malaclypse the Elder

Bad:

- Jesus (I kinda dislike that whole dying-for-your-sins business)
- Kant
- Ron L... OK, yeah, this is a given and he's not a philosopher anyway.

[chequita guevara]

In my fairy story, Ned's a big doodoo head. Amazing thing about stories, you can make up whatever you want in them.

[GePap]

Can any of the anti-communists here's argue against Marx's theories as separate from Lenin's and Mao's, which is what most you you are actually arguing againts, as Neds "parable's show"? Becuase for Marx, communism was only possible in a highly developed capitalist society, ie, only once Capitalism had reached it's most porductive phase: so all these shortages people ascribe would not exist.

Take the US today- everyone today could be given shelter, cloathing, full nutrition, and full preventive health care without forcing poverty of any kind. Now, would the system have as many luxury good around? NO, it would not- but imagine how much energy and resources went into making something utterly unnecessary, like an SUV, and how all that energy could easily have gone into meeting the bsaic needs of all individuals in this society, and still leave energy for toehr useless things like wide screen TV's and so forth.

Marx never envisioned communis coming into being in societies too poor to meet all the needs of eeryone, which is why for him it could only come after the full development of the productive abilities of capitalism (which Marx acknowledges as the most productive economic system): what marx advocates against are the moral and social implications of this most productive economic system- he never argues communism could do better economically, but socially and moraly- but again, only in a system rich enough to afford it.

Does anyone have arguements vs this, as compared to the Leninist and Maoist additions of politicallydriven vanaguards that could somehow kickstart the progress prior to the ful development of the productive forces of capitalism?

[Oncle Boris]

Ned, are these parables your best arguments against Marx's Capital?

GePap is absolutely right. "Communism" has only failed on delivering its promises in countries that were already poor. Does that make me a supporter of Lenin? Hell no- but someone who found lots of interesting ideas in Marx's works? Yes.

[Berzerker]

You don't have the freedom to exploit others.

You do if they agree to be "exploited", if I choose to be "exploited", that too is my freedom. Of course, according to your fictional definition of "freedom", you'd get to over rule all our contracts since we can neither exploit with consent nor consent to be exploited leaving only you to decide which contracts are devoid of exploitation. Ironically, many religious fundies agree with you. To them, prostitution, strip clubs and pornography are exploitive and not even the people employed in these businesses are free to choose to be exploited.

[Berzerker]

GePap is absolutely right. "Communism" has only failed on delivering its promises in countries that were already poor.

Gee, capitalism has transformed poor countries into rich countries, why can't communism?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Berzerker


Gee, capitalism has transformed poor countries into rich countries, why can't communism?

Becuase, as Marx wrote, capitalism is the most productive economic system (do you read posts?). The point of communism is NOT to make countries rich, and in fact, according to Marx (but not Lenin and Mao) it can only come into being after the full development of the capitalist system.

Which is why I asked if you or any of the anti-communist have any arguements against Marx as opposed to Marx modified by Lenin and Mao and others who added a political component beyond Marx's.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Ned, are these parables your best arguments against Marx's Capital?

GePap is absolutely right. "Communism" has only failed on delivering its promises in countries that were already poor. Does that make me a supporter of Lenin? Hell no- but someone who found lots of interesting ideas in Marx's works? Yes.

Oncle Boris, at times a picture is worth a thousand words and a parable is better than a philosophical dialectic. That is why I liked Orwell so much. He portrayed what life would actually be like under communism in his books. I am just taking what you said about killing the capitalist or landlord who failed to pay his workers a living wage and seeing how it actually works in context of a farm.

Do you have any idea how part three will play out?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ned


Oncle Boris, at times a picture is worth a thousand words and a parable is better than a philosophical dialectic. That is why I liked Orwell so much. He portrayed what life would actually be like under communism in his books. I am just taking what you said about killing the capitalist or landlord who failed to pay his workers a living wage and seeing how it actually works in context of a farm.

Do you have any idea how part three will play out?

Interestingly Orwell was a life-long socialist. What he portrayed was life under a totalitarian system, which, while you might make the arguement ois what comes thanks to Leninist and Maoist theories, you have filed to show is what one would get under orthodox Marxist theories.

Interestingly, I think socialism, by blunting so many of the worse impulses of capitalism has blunted the possibility of the Marxist revolution. After al, by innitiating minimum wages and safety rules and public pensions and so forth the average workers is bought by the system and does not suffer as they might given an unchecked capitalist system.

[Oncle Boris]

Originally posted by Berzerker


How about the freedom to start your own business instead? Oh, we wouldn't have that freedom under communism because some bureaucrat has decided what we will do. And what happens under communism if you refuse to work at the job assigned to you? Off to the gulag? Execution to educate others about the greater good? Starvation? Oh, welfare? That system has worked wonders on out-of-wedlock birthrates, the greatest factor wrt poverty.

Who said I, or Agathon, or GePap, is communist?. Referencing Marx does not make me communist.

What you've got to understand, Berzerker, is that the Corporation is the epithome of oligarchy. As legal entities, they survive humans. Corporations are mini-states whose power is growing, and those of the financial elite are inheriting their control from father to son just like a monarch would. Yes, there are those exceptional cases of poor persons rising in social class because of talent and valor. But yet upgrading your social class involves the necessary separation between the elite and the masses- and thus the idea that becoming part of the oligarchs is hard or impossible for most.

And because of technological evolution, the means of production are becoming increasingly expensive- which means that business is less and less about benefitting from your work, but getting control of the already existent means of production through the advantages provided by your birth (school and family wealth). Publicly held companies with thousands of shareholders obey that logic; no one can afford full control, and no one wish it anyway (Gates, Dell, for instance, have been selling their stocks like hell since the 90s); the only thing in control is their charter, which defines profit as their sole objective. Corporations work for humans even before they are there; they buy advertisements and build multi-billion factories. For the Indonesian teenager, there is no such thing as hiring 1000 workers, giving 30 millions a year to Jordan, and selling his shoes in the US.
The only thing left is to become part of the economic logic created by Corporations and sell them your work, at an usually unfair price because of the power they hold over you. (Your primary goal is to avoid starvation, not to create a business). Agathon was right here; since a Corporation's goal is to increase productivity of its facilities, it can only alienate humans in making them a gear of their inner workings (independantly of their free will, again: because the economic logic has become the only one able to provide for basic needs). Why do you think there has been serious talk in the FTAA to make schools a private merchandise? Because the 'economic logic' wants the schools to teach humans an ability that will help them sell their workforce, whereas a public school's aim is (still) to teach someone how to become a citizen before anything else- which is not compatible with a Corporation's agenda.

Chaplin, Kafka, and some philosophers whose name I forget have described this power in detail. Some went as far as to compare it with the (almost overused) literary figure of the 'Train' and the 'Holocaust', in which the complex stratification of the work involved are responsible of a 'deshumanization' process, which makes it possible for a gear to work only in regard to the next one, without considering the global figure- i.e., "I was only driving", "I was only filling the registry", "I was only pulling the lever", "I was telling him to pull the lever because the general told me to", "I was only doing research on 'pesticides' ", or "My job is to make the missiles take off; where they come down, that is not my department".
As if morale was not everyone's department (!!!)

Since you have problems with my thesis , let's put it straight.

1.The right to found a business is not economic freedom; it is only a legal mean to enforce it (which in its current state is being abused).
2. Economic freedom is part of everyone's dignity. Benefitting from your work is sufficient for it to be achieved. There needs to be some restriction on the extent by which you can benefit someone else's work, i.e. how ownership of the means of distribution and their rampant proliferation under corporate law gives undue power to the oligarchy behind it.
3. (Know this tale of the king who had two sons when he died? He asked one of them to separate his heritage in two parts, and the the other son would choose which one he gets. So the son decided one would have the political power, while the other would hold the treasury. The eldest took the 'power', so the younger took the money. Guess which one overtook the other in the end?)
Morale: because of the money and the power involved, economic freedom is probably the part of human dignity that can the most easily gobble up the others and enslave them. As in: want to paint? Buy your stuff! Want to eat? Buy your food! A Corporation is what truly holds the means of production; and its goal, in fact, is to generate profit- which has nothing to do with dignity (even economic freedom). Profit is neverending in its nature, and overwhelmingly absurd; dignity is fairly descriptible and more possibly attainable. Human dignity should be and end in itself, while the capitalist logic is denying it to make everyone a tool of a single, inalienable goal (which serves the oligarchy).
That is immoral.

[Oncle Boris]

Originally posted by Berzerker


You do if they agree to be "exploited", if I choose to be "exploited", that too is my freedom. Of course, according to your fictional definition of "freedom", you'd get to over rule all our contracts since we can neither exploit with consent nor consent to be exploited leaving only you to decide which contracts are devoid of exploitation. Ironically, many religious fundies agree with you. To them, prostitution, strip clubs and pornography are exploitive and not even the people employed in these businesses are free to choose to be exploited.

In Canada, it took a Supreme Court ruling to determine that certain contracts, when they are blatantly violating one's fundamental rights, can be denied by the Court. I heartily agree with this.

About the exploited workers, put it the other way: is it acceptable to accept a contract which denies one's freedom? Think Immanuel Kant here.
And about the strip clubs: I have nothing against them. I think using your body as you see fit is part of freedom, as long as no one is forcing you to.

[Ned]

GePap, what you describe as "socialist" could also be described as "Christian." The whole ethos of Christianity is concern for the poor and less fortunate. That is not something that Marx invented.