From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sat Feb 28 2004 - 17:34:12 GMT
Leland,
Leland said:
The problem with your view is, philosophy applies to politics the same way physics applies to the electronics industry. One is mainly theory and one is mainly practical. If anything will provide the framework for political improvement, it is philosophy.
Matt:
Barring the pragmatist contention that philosophy (and theory in general) is parasitic on our practices, the neo-Enlightenment point is that we probably already have had our last "framework" change, what I called the last conceptual revolution. What we are struggling with now is working out the implications of this framework of thinking. So, I would never tell anyone to stop trying to work out a new conceptual framework, a new way of thinking. The entire point of our society is for people to do what they want, and the point of America is experimentalism. But I don't think our current experiment has played out. And I don't think anyone has created a new way of thinking that has convinced anyone to drop the benefits of a liberal democratic society.
Again, not that that should stop anyone from trying. I would love for someone to be able to come up with a way of thinking that would have the benefits of Millian liberalism without some of its drawbacks. BUT, my further contention is that I bet that such an outlook will not come out of professional philosophy. The sense in which such a new outlook would obviously come out of philosophy is the sense in which anybody who takes a wide look at things and tries to rearrange our conceptual machinery counts as a philosopher. But I don't think people who reflect on free will and determinism or mind and body are going to come to any great revolutions. That's just my hunch.
Leland said:
Where did religion come into this? I thought we were talking about the relationship between philosophy and politics, as affected by Quality.
Matt:
You jumped into a conversation in which the two are taken to be almost interchangable in terms of which both are taken by neo-Millians to be private acts. I take John Rawls as having updated Jefferson's separation of church and state by extending it to philosophy as well. Rawls takes liberal society to be the kind of society in which we can all decide for ourselves what our "conception of the good" is. So when I said, "we have learned from history to make the practical agreement that, in the Capital building, making our social environment more free and equal has priority over our religious differences," I could have just as easily have said "philosophical differences" or "literary differences."
Leland said:
I think the point is that there is too much self-serving activity in politics and not enough thinking. The political environment could be, or rather WOULD be improved if there were more thought about what politicians are doing.
Matt:
I have no disagreement with this. My point is that, unless "philosophy" means "thinking," there's nothing about philosophy that makes it more important than any other discipline in helping politics, let alone giving it priority over politics. And if philosophy does mean thinking, then there's nothing at all distinctive about it and nobody could help but agree that it is important.
Matt
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