But blacks and whites in poverty are in the same boat, because once you reach poverty, the chances of economic recovery are poor -- for anyone. It's just very hard to rebuild a life after you have been ratcheted down. For instance, well educated people who commit crimes and go to prison, usually have a very difficult time gaining employment (any job, not just the kind of job they used to have) once they leave prison. Felony convictions and prison are the kiss of economic death.
All right, but the very act of challenging foundational assumptions takes place in the present by someone in particular, — Bitter Crank
This sounds a lot like Leftist Post-structuralist philosophy like you find in:
Gilles Deleuze
Jacques Derrida
Michel Foucault
Julia Kristeva
Judith Butler
Edward Said
Jean-Francois Lyotard
Louis Althusser. — Thanatos Sand
The lack of philosophy of politicians in general is dire. — Andrew4Handel
Profit can be a side-effect rather than raison d'etre, if the economy is managed. The fact is nobody is going to efficiently organize the development sale and distribution of say, roofing materials, unless there is an incentive to do so. Private enterprise and fair competition is a pretty efficient mechanism of delivering many types of product. Of course, without proper governmental/national international management it can easily become bloated, exploitative and overall inefficient.I still think it is dead wrong to organize production for profit. — Bitter Crank
I thought Sartre was someone who was seen more with the public living amongst the issues.
You have just given a list of names can you give some indication of what they were saying and doing? I think academic philosophers have a cosy Job and salary and can be provocative but without really campaigning for change.
The lack of philosophy of politicians in general is dire. — Andrew4Handel
Agreed. In fact, the situation is so bad that I feel sure that a good humanist philosopher with some PR savvy determined to change the world could do so. — Jake Tarragon
I think some of the aforementioned philosophers etc are too abstract and technical to make a quick impact.
To me philosophy should be focused around logic so that any position can be attacked for it's logical coherency. That way there shouldn't be a dogmatic philosophy but a constant scrutiny of claims.]
your premise that people in power being more philosophically sharp would lead to greater good is highly questionable. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
Judith Butler was famously awarded a bad writing prize and other criticism for this piece of writing.
To me a radical philosopher should say things that are logical and coherent and approachable to be of real value or motivation.
Why is the world so dysfunctional? I think bad individual and social philosophy is a big cause
There are few things less intellectual or philosophical than judging a thinker, particularly a brilliant one, on one paragraph. — Thanatos Sand
There are few things less intellectual or philosophical than judging a thinker, particularly a brilliant one, on one paragraph.
— Thanatos Sand
I was not judging her whole output I was just highlighting the problem of the inaccessibility of ideas deemed radical (or otherwise). Continental philosophers have sometimes deliberately written in a convoluted manner as a stylistic choice.
If someone is starving in a poor country or struggling on the breadline in affluent country or behaving stupidly and damaging the environment and other lives how much time have we got to decipher this prose?
I am not saying these philosophers have nothing to offer or that they cannot be be profitably adapted and adopted but that doesn't mean you can't have campaigning and immediately accessible philosophy.
It seems non philosophers have been more powerful than philosophers at causing moral change. They simply demanded change and highlighted cruelty. It is easier to ignore or dismiss a position if it is presented in an elongated over analytic style.
You have proved my point Thanatos Sand.
And indeed the use made of slaves and of tame animals is not very different; for both with their bodies minister to the needs of life.
Aristotle, Politics
It would be helpful Thanatos, if you could present an argument from one the thinkers you mentioned and show how it will or could improve life.
I appreciate some of what I have read concerning Foucault but Has he been applied in a radical way?
I am not keen on what I have read from Butler Which seems to be typical left wing bias and word games.
In the evolution thread I was challenging whether we needed the word animal at all and you were defending it's indispensability as a classification. Yet Judith Butler seems happy to dispose of the biology of gender or sex for viewing gender as a performance.
Do you support this stance in contradiction of your advocacy for a concrete definition of animal?
I defended the idea of words as power tools and constructs.
Sex and gender are openly-debated terms in the scientific community — Thanatos Sand
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