Philosophical Development

[ReVoLuTiOnArY-BrOtHeR]

I would like to know what you would consider to be an accurate list describing the development of philosophical ideas. I appreciate it, thank you comrades.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

What do you mean by 'development'? Are you asking about books/articles/links that accurately outline the history of philosophy?

[ReVoLuTiOnArY-BrOtHeR]

What do you mean by 'development'? Are you asking about books/articles/links that accurately outline the history of philosophy?

Precisely so.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Ok, I presume you mean the history of philosophy from a Marxist angle?

Unfortunately, there is nothing I can recommend from a marxist angle. Much of this material has been ruined by a slavish adherence to dialecitcs, and to Engels's world-view.

However, if you can get hold of it, Studies in a Dying Culture by Christopher Caudwell is excellent in places.

Parts of it are here:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/caudwell/index.htm

The bset non-Marxist history is this:

Anthony Kenny, (2004), A New History Of Western Philosophy. Volume One: Ancient Philosophy (Oxford University Press).

--------, (2005), A New History Of Western Philosophy. Volume Two: Medieval Philosophy (Oxford University Press).

--------, (2006), A New History Of Western Philosophy. Volume Three: The Rise Of Modern Philosophy (Oxford University Press).

However, an ideal Marxist History of Philosophy would seek to show it up as the most abstract form of ruling-class ideology there is, and, moreover, that it is all based on a distortion of languge, as Marx noted:


The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life. [Marx and Engels (1970) The Geramn Ideology, p.118.]

And:


The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch....' [Ibid., pp.64-65.]

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

It's certainly entertaining, but it is, alas, highly inaccurate,

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Nice road/travel book, but the philosophy it contains is rubbish.

[ReVoLuTiOnArY-BrOtHeR]

I mean the development philosophy had to take to reach dialectical materialism.

[Belisarius]

I mean the development philosophy had to take to reach dialectical materialism.
the first dialectic is already observable in heraclitus, a greek presocratic. whther he was a materialist or not is debatable, since the distinction idealism-materialism didn't exist yet.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

In fact Heraclitus was both a mystic and an idiot. Who else would try to pass an opinion about change in the entire universe, and for all time, based on what he thought was true of his stepping into a river (the details of which he got wrong anyway)!?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RB:


I mean the development philosophy had to take to reach dialectical materialism.

It had to collapse into total mysticism (where it has remained ever since); I have very breifly outlined the course it took here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Summary_of_Essay_Fourteen_Part_One.htm

[ChrisK]

Speaking of the history of philosophy, what do you guy's think about Russell's A History of Western Philosophy?

[Belisarius]

In fact Heraclitus was both a mystic and an idiot. Who else would try to pass an opinion about change in the entire universe, and for all time, based on what he thought was true of his stepping into a river (the details of which he got wrong anyway)!?
in contemporary standards practically all greek philosophers are idiots. that doesn't mean it isn't worth studying them.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

^^^I certainly think Aristotle and the Aristotelians are worth studying, but that is about all.

And I only accused Heraclitus of being an idiot, no one else.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Chris:


Speaking of the history of philosophy, what do you guy's think about Russell's A History of Western Philosophy?

As I pointed out above, it's certainly a great read, but, alas, it's highly unreliable.

[ChrisK]

Chris:



As I pointed out above, it's certainly a great read, but, alas, it's highly unreliable.

Ah, I didn't see your above post. Thank you!