It doesn’t follow that because someone reads something he invariably accepts it. — NOS4A2

What do you hope to gain by refuting a claim I did not make? Not everyone who has watched Tucker Carlson invariably accepts whatever he says, but the fact of the matter is this that many do.

There are countless other solutions to misinformation ... — NOS4A2

Such as? Suppose the tobacco industry launched a new campaign falsely telling people that the latest and most accurate scientific research has determined that cigarettes not only do not cause any harm but that they promote good health in children and adults. Is this a matter of "State Truth"? What are just a few of the many solutions? Or do you think no solutions are necessary because free speech should be absolute?

If someone finds your personal financial and health information, should they be allowed to make it public? What about other personal information such as your viewing and purchasing habits? What if they perpetuate lies instead if that information is not interesting enough?

Do you accept everything you read? — NOS4A2

It is not a question of what I do or do not accept, but of what is widely accepted. By putting it in these terms you have demonstrated why thinking in terms only of individuals leaves a political or social blind spot

So if me arguing that everyone should have the same right as Article 19 of the UNDHR is a blind, question begging ideology ... — NOS4A2

Article 19 says nothing about deliberate misinformation. Article 29 does say:

2. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

If misinformation leads to people acting in a way that interferes with the rights and freedoms of others then there are limits on such speech. What is blind and a question begging ideology is not the protection of free speech but the inability to see that it must have limits. The failure to set such limits can lead directly to actions that destroy the rights and freedoms of others.

. Even the juxtaposition evident in this thread between performer and audience has a corrupting influence. — Banno

Performer and audience typically occupy different positions, separated by a stage, and subject to rules of etiquette that vary with musical style. In some cases audience participation is encouraged but in others frowned upon.

A recording, especially a studio recording, separates performer from audience. In both cases they are at a distance, but some musicians feed off the energy of the audience.

I would not go so far as to say it is a perversion, but agree with the point that the division is not essential to music, and that something is lost when the practice of music making is left to specialists. On the other hand, only specialists are capable of playing some music. With few exceptions years of dedicated study and practice are necessary to play this music competently.

Writing and making music overlaps with but is not the same thing as entertainment. There may be original music we have never heard because it lacks what is regarded as entertainment value. Making music and listening to or purchasing music are not the same.

The demand for originality is a questionable value. Authenticity can suffer from the desire for originality.

Free speech is given lip-service but rarely is it followed to its logical conclusion: free speech absolutism. — NOS4A2

An extreme conclusion without exception is not a logical conclusion.

Should deliberate misinformation be accepted? Arguing that we have or should such a "right" is a blind, question begging ideology.

I haven't yet been able to clearly see the cash value, the pragmatic upshot, the real, concrete effect that embracing or rejecting historicism would have on the discipline, including how it interacts with these supposedly marginalised views. — Welkin Rogue

What is it that one is embracing or rejecting about historicism? Schuringa's claim is that:

... it is constitutionally averse [to] an examination of the social and political forces that have shaped it.

An examination of social and political forces is not historicism.

To some extent this is already going on. For example, the expanding field of 'conceptual engineering' within analytic philosophy isn't interested in eternally true conceptual analyses, but rather in the possibility, problems and principles that should guide change in our concepts and meanings. — Welkin Rogue

What is it that characterizes this as being "within analytic philosophy"?

[Edit] If the focus on concepts is what characterise analytic philosophy then Schuringa's criticism stands. Philosophy, according to the alternatives, may involve but is not limited to conceptual analysis.

Consider a thought experiment: imagine that philosophers in the analytic tradition concluded that reason is historical. How would that change what they do? — Welkin Rogue

There are several questions that must be addressed:

What presuppositions inform the conclusion that reason is historical? Does the movement of history have a direction? Does it have a logic? Do we shape history or are we shaped by it? How one answers these and other questions about history determines how analytic philosophy might have looked.

There is also the question of who is or is not an analytic philosopher. Is the early Wittgenstein within that tradition? Given that he claimed that the most important things lie beyond the logical structure of the world, what is most important is not subject to analysis. Is the later Wittgenstein with his emphasis on forms of life and seeing aspects within that tradition or outside of it attempting to untangle the knots of confusion it ties itself in? Is Rorty's use of pragmatism and continental philosophy an expansion of or a step outside the tradition?

What bearing does the conclusion that reason is historical have on the concept of truth? Does truth remain unchanging? Do the efforts of analytic philosophy move ever closer to an approximation of truth or does the concept of truth change?

I am talking about historically embedded reason. — Welkin Rogue

Do you see this as being at odds with the history of analytical philosophy? Did Moore or Russell or Frege see it this way?

I think you mean: we shouldn't pretend that we are using such reason. — Welkin Rogue

I do not wish to quibble, but it is the concept of reason that is in question, of what philosophers understand themselves to be doing and striving for when reasoning. This, as I understand it, is the reason for the disregard for history.

I still don't know why you think any of this matters. — Welkin Rogue

It is at issue for the article you cited and for your question of whether analytic philosophy needs affirmative action.

When you talk about the mathematical model of reason, I suppose you're talking about using deductive proofs. — Welkin Rogue

This is a long topic that I can only touch on. First it should be recognized that mathematics itself underwent a radical change. Jacob Klein discusses this in "Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origins of Algebra". The change has to do with the symbolic, abstract, conceptual nature of modern mathematics. The change, as can most clearly be seen in physics, is from dealing with concrete tangible things to conceptual abstractions. With Descartes mathematical reason promises to solve for any unknown, and man, a "thinking thing" moves ever closer to perfection. Reason, properly used according to Descartes, leads to indubitable, necessary certainty.

If deductive proofs work in mathematics (e.g., geometry), then I don't see why they wouldn't work in philosophy. — Welkin Rogue

What are the necessary truths in philosophy derived from deductive proofs?

I don't really care about labels here. — Welkin Rogue

If we ignore the labels your proposal seems to be that more diversity is needed in philosophy. But this is quite different than saying more diversity is needed in analytic philosophy.

(3) analytic philosophy is anti-historicist for historical reasons... — Welkin Rogue

I don't think it is anti-historicist but ahistorist, It is not analytical philosophy but its domination that is historical. The assumption that truth is timeless predates analytical philosophy. But analytic philosophy is not monolithic.

but still think that we should use the reason we have to decide which ideas to go with. — Welkin Rogue

Reason as it was understood by ancient philosophy is not the same as reason based on the modern mathematical model. Reason has not yielded the kind of agreement and certainty we find in mathematics. Yes, we should use reason, but not the timeless, abstracted, apodictic, mathematical
model of reason

How different does analytic philosophy really look if we interpret these critiques correctly... if historicism is taken seriously and even embraced? — Welkin Rogue

We run into the problem of whether the work of this or that philosopher can still be considered analytical philosophy. While I think that such labels may have some use, it is limited and ultimately counterproductive. We might argue whether someone like Rorty was simply working within and expanding analytical philosophy. How useful is it to attempt to draw clear lines between analytical, pragmatist, and continental philosophy?

My point is that we should restore the marketplace, not close it down. — Welkin Rogue

The article ends by saying:

But still, it cannot help but spew these insights back out in a strangely deformed shape: as moves in the liberal marketplace of ideas that those thinkers precisely seek to subvert and close down.

What is it that these thinkers seek to subvert and close down? As I read it, it is not the marketplace of ideas but rather the liberal marketplace, with its "self-imposed constrictions" that deform the insights of those whose philosophical work is outside the bounds of analytic philosophy.

Schuringa does not think that divergent ideas can simply be accommodated for within the framework of analytic philosophy. He points to:

... the strange convulsions that analytic philosophy is currently going through in its attempts to incorporate the insights of critical race theorists and feminists.

Rather than attempts to fit them into the mold, they call for the mold to be broken. This does not mean to put an end to an exchange of ideas but rather to break free of the idea that ideas occur in some rational space, by autonomous rational beings, in abstraction from time and place.

Like they don't understand that the job of every politician is to deceive the public. — Tzeentch

This is facile. While all statesmen are politicians not all politicians are statesmen. The job of the statesman is not to deceive, but circumstances may require deception in some form or other. This is a general remark and does not bear directly on either the case of Trump or Biden.

Tell me if I read you right... — Welkin Rogue

Schuringa is using the term liberal in the classical sense of liberalism, that is, autonomous individualism, social atomism. He argues that the dominance of analytic philosophy:

... cannot be explained by the “force of ideas” alone, but must be understood in terms of the political climate that reigned in the United States, beginning in the 1940s.

It is not as if there was a marketplace of ideas in which all are welcome to display their wares and most buyers chose analytic philosophy because they had shopped and determined that it is the best alternative. Analytic philosophy came to dominate because it was, so to speak, the only thing that was safe for sale in the marketplace.

With regard to self understanding in both the sense of human being and philosophical practice, when analytical philosophy finally began, with Rawls, to address political philosophy:

The very viability of individuals deliberating in such a power vacuum was never considered.

In other words, liberalism's understanding of individuals acting as autonomous ration agents was just assumed as established and beyond question. We are not autonomous ration beings, we are historically situated social beings.

Completeness is easy, consistency, not so much. — Banno

I think the opposite is true. In its striving for consistency analytic philosophy abstracts from the messiness of life. The idea that philosophy is a "view from nowhere" or has as its primary concern the clarification of concepts or an analysis of language, strikes me as narrow and impoverished.

As an alternative to both analytic and continental philosophy I prefer Socratic philosophy, zetetic scepticism and the examined life. Consistency exists only to the extent that life and reflection on life is consistent.

Yeah what does that mean though? I didn't get that. — Welkin Rogue

It means that the assumption that there is a free marketplace of ideas shaped by unconstrained autonomous individuals is wrong. The changes that we see are not the result of internal dialogue but of social and political pressures that exert pressure to hire "outsiders" who are accepted by some but despised by others.

It has not been my experience over a long career both inside and outside academia that members of philosophy departments are for the most part open minded. To the contrary, they stake their claim, plant their flag, and circle the horses.

Greater diversity is not the result an open exchange of ideas. Today there is a troubling increase of censorship by politicians and activists of various stripes and persuasions. Administrators call the shots and their primary interest is profit driven.

Lack of tenure track jobs plays a role as well and inflames the political infighting. When a position opens up what camp the candidate falls into is an important consideration. In addition, more and more jobs are being filled by adjuncts who have little or not control over what they teach. They don't make waves.

The liberal attitude is part of the problem. It is based on the fiction of autonomous individuals. More and more academic freedom has become a fantasy. The ivory tower is a fantasy. As Schuringa argues, analytic philosophy is not "above history and politics".

There is much to be said in response, but will limit it to a few remarks. They are not intended to argue against but to elaborate on what you said.

In contrast to the abstract nature of much of contemporary philosophy as well as Plato's own abstractions, it should be emphasized just how rooted his work is in our everyday life and concerns.

What he means by ἀνάγκης or necessity is not what we typically think of as necessity. What is by necessity is without nous or intellect. It covers such things as physical processes, contingency, chance, motion, power, and the chora. That evil is a necessity means it is without intelligible explanation.

The place of mortal men is not the place of the gods where good and evil are separate "Forms".

The passage from Theaetetus continues:

Therefore we ought to try to escape from earth to the dwelling of the gods as quickly as we can, and to escape is to become like God ...

But this is the exact opposite of what this escape is. To escape our place is to die, and to die is not to be like the immortal gods.

In contrast to the question of why Socrates did not attempt to escape death, here and elsewhere (Phaedo) he proposes we escape life "as quickly as we can". But of course this is not to be taken literally. It is evident that at age 70 he did not take this advice literally. In any case, this raises doubts about martyrdom. And in the Phaedo he raises doubts about hims motivation being suicide because he says it is prohibited.

The dialogue ends with Socrates saying he must go to answer the charges against him.

Or am I missing something in this line of criticism? — Welkin Rogue

Unless I am missing something I did not read the article as a call to action. It is descriptive and critical rather than prescriptive. The central criticism is of:

... the classical liberal idea of the autonomous rational individual as the fundamental unit of society.

Schuringa rejects analytic philosophy's self-understanding as being above history and politics, and that it operates in an imagined free marketplace of ideas.

It is the insights of those who do not operate freely within this marketplace that he points to. Those who recognize that:

... relations of power structure the marketplace before anyone has even entered it.

The result of attempts to accommodate diversity within the marketplace is that it:

spew these insights back out in a strangely deformed shape

What does it mean for those thinkers to "subvert and close down this marketplace"? As long as the assumption that there is a free marketplace of ideas is not called into question a call for affirmative action will only yield strangely deformed products of rather than real alternatives to the marketplace.

I think one question that must be asked is: where is the marketplace of ideas to be found? Will it remain primarily in academia or will media sources become increasingly influential? Will anti-liberal political and economic forced increasingly shape both academia and media?

I think Plato the puppet-master is well aware that there will always be those who fool themselves into believing that having read about the cave that they have thereby escaped it.

It should be noted that there are several stages on the road to freedom from the cave. The image of a transcendent reality outside the cave remains a shadow on the cave wall. Perhaps the best we can do is to become aware of the image-makers, those who shape our opinions, and not mistake our images of the truth for the truth itself.

@Shawn As to the question of martyrdom and guilt, escape from the cave is escape from the city. Socrates was a citizen of the city in the double sense of place or Chora.

The term chora in its original sense means the territory outside the city proper. The Phaedrus is the only Platonic dialogue in which Socrates appears outside the city. In the country he says he has nothing to learn (230d). I will leave the question of whether he could or did learn anything "from the trees" open.

Socrates is atopos, out of place. With regard to the city proper he is out of place because his thinking is cosmopolitan rather than provincial. But outside the city proper he is also out of place. On the one hand he demonstrates his allegiance to the city of Athens, but on the other his philosophical practice is transgressive. This inbetweenness is characteristic of Plato's chora.

The city in its broadest and most general sense is society, the space of human life, our place. In this sense it is not this city or that city, not Athens or Sparta, in which we might find our place. But this place is neither here nor there. At its heart is an indeterminacy. We can argue in favor of or against his choice and why he made it without coming to a clear conclusion. One thing is clear, however, he acted decisively. The ambiguity of life did not lead him to paralysis. However much they may be at odds we must both reason and act.

He did not live his life in fear of or avoidance of death. Here too, however much they are at odds with each other, it is not simply a choice of one or the other. In his jail cell as he is about to die Socrates says:

Other people may well be unaware that all who actually engage in philosophy aright are practising nothing other than dying and being dead. (Phaedo 64a)

Alongside the dyads of reason and action and life and death is the dyad of comedy and tragedy. We should not miss the comic element in the above statement to his friends about philosophy and death.

What do you think? — 180 Proof

I think Murdoch speaks for herself and not for philosophy or poetry. In the video she is quoted as saying

... the aim of philosophy is to clarify and the aim of literature is to mystify.

(3:54)

While I think it is certainly true that Plato attempts to clarify, I think it also true that part of what he attempts to clarify is the ontological and epistemological mystery. Not in order to demystify but to allow the mystery to stand. Mystikos in the Greek sense of secret, not revealed or disclosed or known. Plato plays on the double sense of hidden/revealed and uninitiated/ initiated. In the Republic the philosophers are philosophers because they have undergone a transcendent and transformative experience. But this imagined philosopher is at odds with Socrates, who knows that he does not know, as well as with the characterization of the philosopher in the Symposium as one who desires to be wise but is not. The Socratic philosopher is one who pursues but does not possess wisdom beyond the human wisdom of knowing he or she is ignorant.

Looked at from the side of poetry or literature, I think it questionable that it is to be read:

... only or principally as 'literature' – for their literary qualities. — 180 Proof

It should be kept in mind that at the Plato lived the poets were the primary source of public education. They serves not simply to entertain but to educate. A fundamental question for Plato is, who will be the educators? In terms of the cave, who are the puppet-masters? Plato took seriously what the poets said about men and gods.

Murdoch says that philosophy should develop a moral or philosophical psychology that provides the terms in which to understand and characterize the substantial self to which she gives center stage, displacing the existentialist/analytic (which she sometimes calls “existentialist-behavioristic”) freely choosing will. (SEP Iris Murdoch)

Such philosophical psychology can be found both in Plato and the Greek poets.

As I understand it, Plato's concern was not simply to draw the battle lines in the quarrel between the philosopher and the poet as to present a philosophical poiesis. To this end he made full use of the imagination and its images, including the images of the cave, the divided line, and the philosopher.

Along the same lines, he does not simply take sides in the quarrel between philosophy and sophistry. He makes use of sophistic arguments when we thinks it appropriate in order to persuade. Not in order to make the weaker argument stronger, as the sophist does, but to arrive at the argument that is on its own merits stronger. It is here, with regard to persuasion, that his suspicion of both poetry and sophistry lies.

Both poetry and sophistry are philosophy's competitors in the task of persuasion and education. In addition, he competes against the politicians and theologians, creating his own city, albeit only in speech. A city in which the philosopher rules, in which the sophist (Thrasymachus) is tamed and made an ally, in which the philosopher is the myth maker, and the gods are replaced by the Good.

As to the education of the philosopher - escape from the cave means to free oneself from all puppet-masters, all makers of images, be they poets, sophists, politicians, theologians, and even philosophers.

Reading the Dialogues as Fiction. — Amity

The Greek term is transliterated "poetry". The root of the word poiesis means to make. Here it is the making of images in words. It connotes both the image of the philosopher Socrates and the philosopher as an image maker.

In the Apology Socrates was accused of making new gods.

Lest we regard this as a quaint outmoded notion of philosophy, Wittgenstein said:

Philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry. — Culture and Value, 24

Plato indicates that even then the issue of the relationship between philosophy and poetry was old;

...there is an old quarrel between philosophy and poetry — Republic 607b

Xenophon begins his Apology by saying: "But what they didn’t make clear—and without it his boastfulness is bound to appear ill-considered—is this: he had already concluded that for him death was preferable to life."

In typical Socratic fashion, this raises more questions than it answers. Why would he consider that death was for him preferable to life? We are reminded of the Socratic claim that the unexamined life is not worth living. But exile would not have prevented him from philosophizing. So why this conclusion?

Although he was 70 years old there is no indication of poor health or diminished capacity. In fact he had a young son. So neither the conjecture that he was too old to travel or too infirm to live holds up.

Socrates was confronted with the fundamental tension between philosophy and the city. He questioned the ancient traditions of the city. Such questioning is impious. Teaching the youth to question is corruptive.

At the root of such questioning is the question of whether something is good simply because it it part of the traditional foundations of the city. To consider this question is to philosophize. Doing so is to favor philosophy over the city. And yet, Socrates demonstrated his civil piety by complying with the judgment of the jury. He does not put himself or the pursuit of philosophy above the law.

In Plato's Apology Socrates points to the comic poet Aristophanes, who in his play the Clouds accuses Socrates of the things he will at a much later date be accused of at trial. He calls on Socrates and philosophy to be responsible for what they say. Plato's response is his own comic poetry, the Republic, a play in philosophy takes full responsibility through the philosopher/kings. In other words, philosophy and public life can only be reconciled in the unlikely event that philosophers rule. They are persuaded to rule because they owe something to the city, that is, they have a responsibility to the city.

Cicero said:

Socrates was the first to call philosophy down from the heavens and to place it in cities, and even to introduce it into homes and compel it to inquire about life and standards and goods and evils.

(Tusculan Disputations V 10–11)

Socrates was the first political philosopher. His concern was how we ought to live. And this includes how we ought to die. His was not the death of a martyr but the death of a philosopher.

It was left to the youth he "corrupted" to figure out how to bring into harmony the tension between philosophy and the city. As Nietzsche says:

THE REAL PHILOSOPHERS, HOWEVER, ARE COMMANDERS AND LAW-GIVERS; they say: "Thus SHALL it be!

(BGE,211)

It is not a question of what I think but of understanding what Hegel thinks. This is why in previous posts I pointed to the development of the concept of logos.

It should be pointed out that

logic in the modern sense. — Banno

supports Hegel's insight into the importance of the recognition of historical development.

In each of these cases there is a logical development. The development is intelligible, that is, rational.

Hegel continues the philosophically formative dispute between Parmenides and Heraclitus. With Heraclitus he asserts not simply flux or change but logos.

Hegel's logic is a logic of developmental change. A logos or account of the whole.

Are the acorn and the oak tree the same thing or different things?

I can pick up an acorn and put it in my pocket, but I cannot do the same with an oak tree. In this sense an acorn is not an oak tree. But the acorn and the oak tree are stages in the development of the same thing. They are both the same and not the same.

Are subject and object the same thing or different things?

Here too there is a development. The development of knowledge through its different stages. What is to be known is not simply knowledge of things or objects but knowledge of knowledge, knowledge of the knower, self-knowledge. Here he takes a step beyond Kant, a step beyond the distinction between the phenomenal and noumenal. Subject and object are both the same and not the same.

Authority of any kind has to prove its legitimacy, especially state authority. It hasn’t. So I don’t think it has a legitimate role — NOS4A2

And yet you say that we should not do without the state. Does this mean you accept that it should have a role, albeit illegitimate?

I’m just wondering if you developed ideas, principles, and corresponding behaviors in a state that promotes war, slavery, bigotry, imperialism, you name it. — NOS4A2

Yes, the United States. But since you agree that these things would occur even without the state, and that you are not convinced we should not do without the state, then your argument seems to be not that we should not think in statist terms but that the state has a legitimate role and we should think of ways to improve it.

And there is not one single value the that it hasn’t violated. It also promotes war, racism, brigandage, robbery, you name it. — NOS4A2

Are you claiming that without the state these things would not occur?

Slaves had certain benefits. — NOS4A2

They do. But those who are not slaves often, but not always, enjoy greater benefits. In any case, it does follow that being a citizen is to be a slave.

Are we to conclude from this that whatever your hope for the future may be, you recognize the need for the state today?

You didn’t develop any ideas, principles, and corresponding behaviors as you grew up? How do you survive? — NOS4A2

I did, but did so within a state that promoted equality and the values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is evident that not everyone in this state abides by these principles, at least when it comes to how they treat others.

I’m only convinced the state should not operate like a criminal organization. — NOS4A2

So is it that you are not opposed to statism but rather to particular practices of the state?

Your position reminds me of the happy slave myth. — NOS4A2

I have not stated a position. I recognize that we enjoy certain benefits being citizens of a state, but do not accept your view that citizens are slaves.

NOS has faith in what he calls a

fully developed morality — NOS4A2

If all or even most people were self-governing then there would be no need for governments. Do you share his faith?

If one thinks through an issue it should be apparent that despite the restrictions imposed by the state we enjoy many benefits that most would not be willing to give up.

A better idea than thinking that not thinking in statist terms will lead to a "reformation" in a few centuries that will do away with the state?

Well since you are convinced we should do away with the state, thinking in terms of how to do away with it and what to replace it with. I dont see how you could do the former without thinking in terms of the state, which is not the same as your misguided, myoptic, caricature of the state, and the latter cannot be accomplished by replacing people as they are with people as you want them to be.

You position reminds me of that of a privledged child who wishes mommy and daddy would just go away so he could do whatever he wants.

Centuries of “reformation” is all it took. — NOS4A2

So is your argument that "we only need to stop thinking in statist terms and the rest will follow" in a few centuries of "reformation"?

If you lost your faith in religion would you still go to church? — NOS4A2

If you lost your faith in the state wouldn't you still live in the state? It's institutions, its laws, its power would remain as they are.

Good question! What follows from not thinking in terms of the state?

We only need to stop thinking in statist terms and the rest will follow. — NOS4A2

A fine example of magic thinking. Or it is magic not thinking?

I guess that's one approach - dialectic as rhetoric rather than logic. — Banno

Hegel maintains the unity of thinking and being. Dialectic is the movement of thought and being in time, from becoming to being, from knowledge to self-knowledge, from development to completion.

A few quick comments:

Hegel's logic is the sublation or aufheben of earlier concepts including the different senses of Greek logos - to gather together, to speak to give an account, to syllogisms, and later to John's logos, and Kant's formal logic.

The process of sublation both negates and preserves. It takes up and develops earlier incomplete concepts.

It addresses the ancient problem of change. How can what is the same thing be different over time? It is both same and other, identical and different.

The whole is both one and many. A self-realising unity through difference.

Hegel's social and political philosophy cannot be adequately addressed without discussing his Philosophy of Right.

Its own Jesus, too, I believe. — Ciceronianus

Yes. Starting from the first generation, with Paul's "Christ". Hebrew scriptures were appropriated and stories of Jesus told to fit the appropriated texts. The Arian controversy . Martin Lither's principle of interpretation. Calvin. On and on until today regarding questions of abortion and homosexuality.