Should philosophy be outlawed?

@Ascendere,

Ascendere;145182 wrote:

Even modern philosophy can have the same effects tho. I would have to argue i's not realy the philosophy, but the people's inability to recognize faulty logic.

Good teaching can make stupid people decent thinkers, poor teachings can make intelligent people stupid.

@HexHammer,

HexHammer;145187 wrote:

Good teaching can make stupid people decent thinkers, poor teachings can make intelligent people stupid.

But geniuses overcome their education (according to Rousseau in Emile).

@PappasNick,

PappasNick;145233 wrote:

But geniuses overcome their education (according to Rousseau in Emile).

There's been many geneiouses through history, don't think any of them got it 100% right by themselfs, only complementary knowledge would finish their work.

Lenonardo Da Vinchi invented the parachute, but didn't leave a hole in the top for better stability, also invented a helocopter, but had the propellar wrong as it was a spiral, only Isambard Brunell would by accident discover how to make an efficient propellar.

..therefore the good teaching is always valued the most, as it let the masses generate a greater thinking power than only a very limited group of genious people.

@Arjuna,

Quote:

..therefore the good teaching is always valued the most, as it let the masses generate a greater thinking power than only a very limited group of genious people.

I agree. We can't depend on just a few, select idiciduals to drive humanity as a whole. Good teaching can lead to autonomy.

@Arjuna,

Arjuna;142216 wrote:

Thomas Aquinas wrote that faith should be legislated. Those without it should be persuaded. If persuasion doesn't work, we should kill them.

We can therefore pin all inquisitions on him. It's not clear what part of the New Testament he was aquainted with. Jesus never said faith should be legislated (did he?) Plato did.

So if we can blitz any philosopher with the stupidity of their followers, have we just made a case for outlawing philosophy?

Think I'v actually missed the point of the initial post in all previous posts. Laughing

I will therefore make a new answer.

We shouldn't outlaw philosophy as a whole, just because a few minor accidents of wrong thinking happens along the road, such things will always happen no matter what, when freedom is allowed.

The freedom will outweigh the bad.

@Arjuna,

Arjuna;142216 wrote:

Thomas Aquinas wrote that faith should be legislated. Those without it should be persuaded. If persuasion doesn't work, we should kill them.

Is that so? Where did he write that?

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;145293 wrote:

Is that so? Where did he write that?

It's in the Summa Theologica... Question 11, Articles 3 and 4.

SUMMA THEOLOGICA: Heresy (Secunda Secundae Partis, Q. 11)

"I answer that, With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."

The preceding articles explain how you tell if someone is a heretic. I read a biography of Jung recently. The whole book seemed to be an explanation for why we shouldn't make a saint out of him. I never idolized Jung, so that stuff went passed me. But then I was reading a critique of religion and.... guess what? We shouldn't idolize Thomas Aquinas. Actually I didn't. But I started thinking about what it means to attack the character of a philosopher... as if that's attacking what he produced.

Who's left standing? My favorite philosopher is Kierkegaard. His first name became an insult in Denmark. Danes stopped naming their sons Soren. Wow. And by the way: the entire Summa Theologica is available on the internet? What the hay? That's pretty amazing.

@Arjuna,

Interesting - thanks. The whole question of authority in religion is a great collective shadow in the cultural history of the West, in my view. Learning how to live a spiritual life without relying on someone to tell you what to think is one of the most important things to learn. I think I got a lot of that out of reading Krishnamurti from 1979 - 1990. Thank heavens for the winding down of religious authority, I know for sure my views are heretical, had I held them 500 years ago I would have been excommunicated.

---------- Post added 03-29-2010 at 10:30 AM ----------

.........or worse.

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;145316 wrote:

Interesting - thanks. The whole question of authority in religion is a great collective shadow in the cultural history of the West, in my view. Learning how to live a spiritual life without relying on someone to tell you what to think is one of the most important things to learn. I think I got a lot of that out of reading Krishnamurti from 1979 - 1990. Thank heavens for the winding down of religious authority, I know for sure my views are heretical, had I held them 500 years ago I would have been excommunicated.

---------- Post added 03-29-2010 at 10:30 AM ----------

.........or worse.

/rubs hands
Yes my son, come a little closer, I mean you no harm!

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;145316 wrote:

Interesting - thanks. The whole question of authority in religion is a great collective shadow in the cultural history of the West, in my view. Learning how to live a spiritual life without relying on someone to tell you what to think is one of the most important things to learn. I think I got a lot of that out of reading Krishnamurti from 1979 - 1990. Thank heavens for the winding down of religious authority, I know for sure my views are heretical, had I held them 500 years ago I would have been excommunicated.

---------- Post added 03-29-2010 at 10:30 AM ----------

.........or worse.

Yes, I've always thought I wouldn't have lived very long back then: dead from an inquisition or dead from the stress of living a lie. Um.... assuming I survived infancy.

But that brings up a question I see asked: is the present generation weaker because we have these bits of good luck... like the freedom to be yourself? I realize a Holocaust survivor might be dumfounded by my question. What do you think? What have we become?

@Arjuna,

well...a subversive thought I often have is that 'the purpose of a liberal democracy is to make the world safe for the ignorant'. Of course this is an outrageously politically incorrect thing to say, I realize. But the situation in liberal democracies is such that they are basically set up to cater to...well...me. The whole worldview is built around the primacy of the individual person as the sole arbiter of what is right, and so on.

Now I would never advocate winding back of these rights - they are supremely important. You only have to look at the absence of human rights in Communist republics to imagine how awful life would be if they were taken away.

But on the other hand, in a bourgeois liberal democracy such as ours, what is the purpose assigned to our vaunted 'human rights'? Too often it is simply conspicuous consumption and meaningless pleasure.

I think democratic and individual freedom is actually a real challenge, much more so than many realize. We feel liberated from the restrictions of the past...into what?

---------- Post added 03-29-2010 at 11:27 AM ----------

Incidentally, 'holocaust survivor' reminds me of the excellent book Mankind's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl which discusses questions of this type.

@HexHammer,

Quote:
Originally Posted by north

http://www.philosophyforum.com/images/PHBlue/buttons/viewpost.gif

lets say its not ...

what is your point ?

HexHammer;145102 wrote:

With outdated philosophy there are no consequenses for speaking nonsens, beliveing in a flat world ..it's harmless.

With outdated medical sience, you will produce very disasterous results, because such outdated knowledge has direct consequenses.

People don't realize that outdated philosophy is outdated, because they never see any end result, only by observing a direct endresult they can better understand, else they will forever live in their naive world of babbeling thoughts.

agreed

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