From: ian glendinning (psybertron@gmail.com)
Date: Tue Mar 22 2005 - 02:53:51 GMT
As a pragmatist, I can't fail to agree that philosophy is useless
without practical plans to action in the real world. That's why I'm
here.
What I still stress, is that it is worth getting your philosophical
model of the real world sorted, BEFORE choosing / designing /
justifying your political framework and policies for action. Without
that, your politics is wishful thinking.
A recurring issue I have with my philosophical investigations of the
past four years or so, is that practically everyone seems to want to
reduce everything to one issue - their current favourite issue - and a
single choice about it. Reality is more complicated than that, and
already complicated enough. The "way of truth" lies some way between
the many issues - not a binary choice between alternatives.
Lets constructively synthesise, not destructively analyse.
Ian
On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 01:00:52 +0000, Ant McWatt <antmcwatt@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
> Matt Kundert stated to Ant McWatt March 21st 2005:
>
> Of course I wasn't commenting on my own political participation in real (not
> internet) life. I was only commenting on my participation in the MD.
> Everybody makes choices on where to expend their energy and I choose not to
> expend energy on politics in the MD because it seems pretty fruitless to me.
>
> Ant McWatt comments:
>
> Matt,
>
> Your comments about your own political participation in the MOQ Discuss are
> fair enough as far as they go but are misleading in the sense that Hampday
> is referring to politics in the general "real life" context i.e. he states:
>
> "I care much less about the socio-cultural issues that consume what's left
> of the space in this forum. I'll admit this may be a shortcoming on my
> part, as several have tried to impress me with the notion that philosophy
> means nothing unless 'we can do something with it' – one even suggesting
> that it lead to a Marxist type revolution"
>
> (Hampday to Matt K March 19th 2005)
>
> Moreover, rather than your views on politics, I was critiquing Rorty's
> position regarding private and public life in "Contingency, irony and
> solidarity" though evidently he was becoming less reactionary
> (politically-wise) fifteen years later i.e.
>
> Knobe: You have criticized Foucault and others for their radical politics.
>
> Rorty: What I object to about them is that they never talk in terms of
> possible legislation, possible national economic policy, things that might
> actually be debated between political candidates and you might pass a law
> about or something like that. It seems to me to be a continuation of the
> '60s attitude that the system is so hopelessly corrupt that you don't really
> take part in the day-to-day politics. You rise above it and sneer at it.
> They don't even try to be solutions. They're radical critiques without
> radical proposals.
>
> Knobe: Should philosophers offer specific political proposals?
>
> Rorty: I don't think there's any general rule.
>
> From "A Talent for Bricolage: An Interview with Richard Rorty"
>
> by Joshua Knobe, "The Dualist", Issue 2, 1995, pp.56-71
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Anthony
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Want to block unwanted pop-ups? Download the free MSN Toolbar now!
> http://toolbar.msn.co.uk/
>
>
> MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
> Mail Archives:
> Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
> Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
> MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
>
> To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
> http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
>
>
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Mar 22 2005 - 04:59:52 GMT