Favourite (political) philosopher you don't agree with

[durhamleft]

Right, this isn't about who you agree with, or who you you sympathise with the most, this about who you enjoy reading and think they make intelligent arguments and come across well- even if you don't agree with them.

Then, briefly explain their views so we can hopefully get a bit of a debate going about the merits of their ideology, and the problems.


Mine: Robert Nozick- Anarchy, State & Utopia.

In his book Nozick argued that the ultimate state would be a minimal nightwatchman state. It would serve three functions:

(1) National security
(2) Internal policing
(3) Uphold private sector contracts.

He argued that any other actions of the state infringe liberty. He took Kant, and his principle that 'it is wrong to use people as a means to an end' to argue that all redistributive taxation is wrong, as you are taking their hard earned money in order to achieve a wider social goal.

He argued that taxation is akin to slavery, as if you work 300 days a year, 100 of those days are worked to pay taxes which is in effect, 'forced labour', as you are not reaping the rewards of you work.

He used the 'Wilt Chamberlin' example to argue that if everyone started off equally with the same money, that people would pay more money to see him pay basketball, and thus it is only right that he ends up wealthier.

This is because, he argues, a 'just transfer will lead to just outcomes'.

He argued inequality is not wrong, if it derives naturally via the market mechanism. What is wrong is 'patterned' distributions of wealth.


I like him because I think he is very eloquent in his books, and his argument is in my opinion logical and consistent.

What I dislike about him is that
(1) I think he fails to account for the value of community
(2) He believes that people deserve the full rewards of their talents, however I think this is dubious as you don't 'deserve' to be born with a natural disposition to be incredibly intelligent etc.

So if I had to recommend a book that I didn't agree with but I found informative and interesting, this would be it.

Your turn.

[Revolution starts with U]

Almost all philosophers are just linguistic magicians, playing around with words and making illusions out of them. They all have good things to say, and they all have reactionary shit that comes along with it.

If I had to pick one... Buddha thinking the ultimate goal is to leave the material world behind forever.

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

Feurbach

[Lobotomy]

Thomas Paine was kind of a badass. he was a good writer and he was the only "founding father" that seemed to actually give a shit about the state of the lower classes and specifically wrote to them.

[Zav]

Anton LaVey would be mine. When I was a Lolbertarian I was a Satanist for a while. I disagree with his absolute Individualism and support of Capitalism. While I'm still an Individualist I recognize that a freer society, and one without the possibility of exploitation, is indeed better for the individual, and that minor sacrifices of negative freedoms can yield far greater freedoms such as the freedom from slavery.

[l'Enfermé]

Since mentioning figures from the 18th/17th century and earlier feels like cheating to me, I'd say Kropotkin would top my list. Disregarding his petty-bourgeois-ism that is tainted with liberalism, his fetishism of the old "free" Middle Ages and Novgorod/Pskov, his denial of the dialectic and acceptance of eclecticism, his militarism during WWI, etc, etc. Though if I had to list more names, I'd come up with a significant number of runner-ups.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Almost all philosophers are just linguistic magicians, playing around with words and making illusions out of them. They all have good things to say, and they all have reactionary shit that comes along with it.

If I had to pick one... Buddha thinking the ultimate goal is to leave the material world behind forever. Even Wittgenstein was a philosopher, man.

[Ready4Revolution]

Ayn Rand.
That shit is HILARIOUS!

[#FF0000]

i like nozick a lot too mostly because his name is always associated with a sentence on how his entire life's work was pretty much disproven.

[LOLseph Stalin]

I'm not hugely into philosophy, but I have always found many of Machiavelli's concepts to be interesting.

[hatzel]

I'm not hugely into philosophy, but I have always found many of Machiavelli's concepts to be interesting.

I'm not even convinced Machiavelli had any concepts. Guy strikes me as falling somewhere between opportunist and satirist...

[#FF0000]

he was actually a big fan of democracy apparently.

[Zukunftsmusik]

he was actually a big fan of democracy apparently.

I must have misunderstood the guy

[Deicide]

Rousseau.

[mew]

Descartes, Nietzsche, and Rousseau.

[hatzel]

he was actually a big fan of democracy apparently.


I must have misunderstood the guy

Pretty much. The Prince was for all intents and purposes just a job application. "Yo boy you should totally make me your adviser because I have all these great ideas! See, if I were a prince I'd do it like this and this and this (but I wouldn't actually be a prince because as you can see from what you'd have to do to be a good prince that shit is fucking beat and a downright terrible idea) so c'mon gimme the cashmoniesss!!! :drool:"

His other writings very obviously contradict what he wrote in those texts explicitly directed at the local bigwigs...

[Deicide]

I like all the bourgeois philosophers from the 18th and 19th centuries.. but they are nothing compared to the power of Marrrrxxxxxxxx!!!

[Book O'Dead]

Ayn Rand.
That shit is HILARIOUS!

Labeling Aynd Rand a 'philosopher' would be giving the horse shit she wrote more importance than it deserves.

[durhamleft]

i like nozick a lot too mostly because his name is always associated with a sentence on how his entire life's work was pretty much disproven.

Considering most of what he said is subjective it can neither be 'proved' nor 'disproved'.

[l'Enfermé]

Yeah, Il Principe was mostly Machiavelli's attempt to gain favor with the Medici family but if you read his Discorsi you'd realize that he, in the very least, had some republican sympathies, and considering that besides being a political theorist he also wrote comic plays and poems, it's not entirely unlikely that Il Principe was also a sort-of satire. Anyhow, his greatest contribution to humanity was taking a big, steaming pile of shit on the Church and Christianity, his most important legacy is how much he advanced the cause of secular politics.

[Rafiq]

I like all the bourgeois philosophers from the 18th and 19th centuries.. but they are nothing compared to the power of Marrrrxxxxxxxx!!!

Marx was never a philosopher.

Anyway, I like Hegel, Nietzche, Frankfurt school types and so on (even though they're vulgurists)
.


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[Os Cangaceiros]

he was the only "founding father" that seemed to actually give a shit about the state of the lower classes and specifically wrote to them.

hmm, not sure about that. Off the top of my head, Samuel Adams also comes to mind.

[Os Cangaceiros]

For me, probably Albert Jay Nock and HL Mencken. Both of whom hated people, especially the "common man".

I remember some Mencken quote in which he says (derisively) that all most people want to do is quit work, find a patch of sunshine to lay in, and a hand to scratch themselves with. :lol: I agree, but where he puts a minus by that statement, I put a plus!

[Crux]

Stirner.
Of course his ideology/philosophy is ultimately bourgeoisie but taken about as far as you can take it. I should re-read The Ego and it's Property.

[Bronco]

Marx was never a philosopher.



Sure he was

[ed miliband]

Stirner.
Of course his ideology/philosophy is ultimately bourgeoisie but taken about as far as you can take it. I should re-read The Ego and it's Property.

i don't know about that really, stirner says things like "man's primitive condition is not isolation or solitary existence but life in society". now that to me seems to be in conflict with the sort of bourgeois individualism that implies the individual and society are at odds with eachother.

[Revolution starts with U]

Sure he was

Please elaborate:

phi·los·o·phy/fəˈläsəfē/
Noun:
The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, esp. when considered as an academic discipline.

[Bronco]

Please elaborate:

phi·los·o·phy/fəˈläsəfē/
Noun:
The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, esp. when considered as an academic discipline.

And a philosopher is someone concerned with this study, so Marx's criticising of Idealism in favour of Materialism doesn't fall under this? Marx was very concerned with philosophy in his earlier days, and even if you dismiss this just as young Marx the claim I was responding to was that Marx was never a philosopher

[Rafiq]

Sure he was

Marx consistently criticized philosophers.

Marx's critic of Idealism was exclusive to his scientific nature of analyzing things, i.e. Social Science. It's not philosophy.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Marx consistently criticized philosophers.

Marx's critic of Idealism was exclusive to his scientific nature of analyzing things, i.e. Social Science. It's not philosophy. It's hard to link his dissertation on Epicurus with the social sciences, man.

[Crux]

i don't know about that really, stirner says things like "man's primitive condition is not isolation or solitary existence but life in society". now that to me seems to be in conflict with the sort of bourgeois individualism that implies the individual and society are at odds with eachother.
I do admit it's been a few years since I sat down and read Stirner proper. But, while there were such indications as the one you mention, my understanding at the time anyway was that ultimatly his conception of the Ego was still a bourgeosie conception. He makes a very poor role model for the ancaps who occassionally claim to sympathize with him though. Again I need to re-read the Ego and It's Own. I have it laying around here somewhere.

[Rafiq]

It's hard to link his dissertation on Epicurus with the social sciences, man.

How?

[Luís Henrique]

Marx consistently criticized philosophers.

Most philosophers do exactly that. For all their faults, they are not known for having a esprit de corps...


Marx's critic of Idealism was exclusive to his scientific nature of analyzing things, i.e. Social Science. It's not philosophy.

To the extent that Marx made a critique of idealism, he dealt in philosophy. No amount of science will disprove idealism, as I am sure the agnostics (the pernostic agnostics, maybe?) here will remind you.

What Marx made, at some point of his carreer, was to abandon the idea that discussing these things (including criticising idealism) was of utmost importance. The important thing, he said, is not to interpret the world, but to change it. Here he broke with philosophy; when he did it, criticising philosophers in their own (ie, philosophical) terms lost importance.

But until he took that step, yes, he was a "philosopher".

Luís Henrique

[o well this is ok I guess]

How? I don't quite understand your question.

[Kronsteen]

Marx was obviously a philosopher - as well as a revolutionary, organiser, journalist etc.

He asked deep questions, thought and read extensively about them, and provided some answers. What exactly is money and why are prices relatively stable? If India hadn't been occupied by the British, who else might have occupied it and with what results? Where does religion come from? What does it mean to be 'scientific'? Why does capitalism produce both palaces and hovels? How can we overthrow one power structure without merely creating a new oppressed class?

All good questions, and all good answers. Maybe not all correct, or complete, but never shallow.

My political thinker I disagree with: Plato!

In the Republic, he systematically thinks through a line of reasoning to answer the question: How can we create a state that won't become corrupt? We may not like his conclusions or assumptions, but there's no handwaving or missing stages.

[I.Drink.Your.Milkshake]

Thomas Hobbes.

[Eadweard Merten]

Carl Schmitt.

As a Conservative Libertarian I can see a time in the future when there are too many immigrants and the power of the State may be needed to maintain order before America succumbs to ethnic chaos...

[Intavas]

Crowley. Also, i am disagree with Ralph Waldo Emerson's concept of holistic self- reliance.

[Luka]

Nietzsche. I love reading his books, especially Also sprach Zarathustra, but I disagree with a lot of his ideas.

[L.A.P.]

Marx consistently criticized philosophers.

Marx's critic of Idealism was exclusive to his scientific nature of analyzing things, i.e. Social Science. It's not philosophy.

Actually, in Continental Europe, the field of social science/sociology is inseperable from the field of philosophy. This is a notion in Anglo-American academia that social science is completely exterior to philosophy, as if social science studies aren't filled with certain philosophical principles and ideological assumptions.

[eric922]

Crowley. Also, i am disagree with Ralph Waldo Emerson's concept of holistic self- reliance.
I assume you mean the occultist Aleister Crowley? I'm very interested in the occult and am planning on reading some of his works, but could he really be considered political? Granted in Liber LXXVII he writes these following rights of man, but I think that's all he ever wrote politically speaking and they seem kind of vague enough to fit pretty much most political views from libertarian socialism to libertarian capitalism:


Man has the right to live by his own law—
to live in the way that he wills to do:
to work as he will:
to play as he will:
to rest as he will:
to die when and how he will.
2. Man has the right to eat what he will:
to drink what he will:
to dwell where he will:
to move as he will on the face of the earth.
3. Man has the right to think what he will:
to speak what he will:
to write what he will:
to draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build as he will:
to dress as he will.
4. Man has the right to love as he will:—
"take your fill and will of love as ye will,
when, where, and with whom ye will." —AL. I. 51
5. Man has the right to kill those who would thwart these rights.

"the slaves shall serve." —AL. II. 58
"Love is the law, love under will." —AL. I. 57

[Eadweard Merten]

II'm very interested in the occult and am planning on reading some of his works, but could he really be considered political?

Sure.

New Zealand Far-Rightist Kerry Bolton counts Crowley as a Rightist. (when I get enough posts in to be able to post some links I will)