prowsej
Ottawa
Why I want to consume this — 3 years ago
Interesting ideas in this work:
- Bertrand Russell argues that one mistake that begins with Socrates and continues until the Renaissance is an over-emphasis on human beings and an under-emphasis on gleaning knowledge irrespective of its relation to humanity. We get scepticism, focusing on how we learn, but not the learning itself. We get Aristotle’s emphasis on telos. We get Plato’s emphasis on ethics. But we don’t have the modern emphasis on apersonal learning.
- During the decline of Pericles (of the golden age of Athens fame) trumped-up charges of corruption dogged his friends
- On pragmatics: The philosophy that triumphs is that which is most useful, not necessarily that which is certainly true. There will always be cavils that can be volleyed at any theory. The philosophy that has triumphed (liberalism, for instance) is not necessarily the most intellectually sound (it has holes like anything else) but instead the most useful, prompting people to ignore the holes. We will not find the perfect theory through unassisted reason, but only with the world in mind. For example, Parmenides argued that nothing changes. His argument is patently ridiculous because of its obvious empirical falsifiability. However, even though we can show his particular formulation of the argument to be fallacious, a defender of the position would just be able to produce more elaborate and more difficult-to-disprove formulations of the argument. People reject the argument not because it has been soundly defeated in everybody’s minds, but instead because the alternative hypothesis is more useful. The same is true with theories of time.
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