Your Second LEAST favorite philosopher (sort of)

'Organized' religion? show a non-organized one - even the lesser pagan ones had structure of rituals etc...

Post 21

Sunday, March 15, 2009 - 12:07am

Peter,

... but none of the entries I looked at claimed that Hobbes was out to justify Machiavelli or that he was even aware of him.

And he didn't have to have the intention or awareness in order to accomplish the job. That's how you're misreading me. I'm talking about what people actually did, what they actually wrote (and precisely how it helps or hurts humans). I'm not talking about psycho-analyzing their intentions from the future, centuries later.

I'm thinking in generalities -- which I assumed was obvious -- not the fine detail of "who came first", or "what was on so-and-so's mind when he wrote such-and-such", or "how did his personal life mirror or contrast against the sense of life depicted in his writings", etc.

#17 is simply inaccurate. The theocracy of ancient Egypt is one counter-example that comes to mind. Even if organized religion had started post Plato that wouldn't show that it got started propter Plato.

Okay, but Ancient Greece is an example of when and where religion wasn't powerful -- until Plato paved the way for the later "intellectuals" (e.g., Aquinas, Kant) to adopt it.

Ed

Post 22

Sunday, March 15, 2009 - 6:10am

True enough... quoting Durant -

Plato believes that a nation cannot be strong unless it believes in god. A mere cosmic force or first cause, or elan vital, that was not a person, could hardly inspire hope, or devotion, or sacrifice; it could not offer comfort to the hearts of the distressed, nor courage to embattled souls. But a living God can do all this, and can stir or frighten the self-seeking individualist into some moderation of his greed, some control of his passion. All the more so if to belief in God is added belief in personal immortality: the hope of another life gives us courage to meet our own death, and to bear with the death of our loved ones: we are twice armed if we fight with faith. Granted that none of the beliefs can be demonstrated; that God may be after all only the personified ideal of our love and our hope, and that the soul is like the music of the lyre, and dies with the instrument that gave it form: yet surely (so runs the argument, Pascal-like, of the Phaedo) it will do us no harm to believe, and it may do us and our children immeasurable good.
(Edited by robert malcom on 3/15, 6:12am)

Post 23

Sunday, March 15, 2009 - 1:07pm

Yes, I misread you. I thought you were making some historical point about Hobbes and Machiavelli with evidence to back it up. I cheerfully withdraw my objections.

Post 24

Sunday, March 15, 2009 - 6:09pm

But, Robert, religion, for Plato, was a tactic, the opium of the controlled masses. It was a tool of Plato's political organization, rather than a self-organized entity. (Or have I missed something?)

Post 25

Monday, March 16, 2009 - 7:21am

As long as the bus is rolling, make sure to dig up Jacques Derrida(The MidWife of Modern Nonsense)and throw him under it.

...deconstructionism cannot be defined, except by negatives, and yet, only 'community and society' is undeconstructable, because it exists prior to conceptualization' blah-blah-blah...

Totally political tactical nonsense; deconstructionism is what lefties use to take down liberal capitalism, period. It is nothing more or less. It is a left over artifact of the Cold War, a deliberate attack on the liberal West, and it infests most modern English departments in Western universities, they are to this day totally overrun with this nonsense.

regards,
Fred

Post 26

Monday, March 16, 2009 - 8:07am