The Greatest Thinker Of The Millennium

[ChamberNut]

Hegel, Schopenhauer, Carl Jung.

I'm interested in reading up more on these guys.

[Haffner]

I'm interested in reading up more on these guys.

Hegel The Philosophy of History
Carl Jung A Primer of Jungian Psychology

Schopenhauer can be even more verbose than Hegel(!), so I reccomend Bryan Magee's excellent The Philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer first.

[ChamberNut]

Hegel The Philosophy of History
Carl Jung A Primer of Jungian Psychology

Schopenhauer can be even more verbose than Hegel(!), so I reccomend Bryan Magee's excellent The Philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer first.

Thank you Andy! 

[Haffner]

I'm going to have to add Kierkegaard as well.


You're very welcome!

[Renfield]

Oh really ?   

I have to say that I've never understood why people admire capitalism  so  dogmatically...

I've never understood (so to speak) why Marx and capitalism have to be perceived as part of a bivalent system - "either", "or". Resisting the temptation to blame it on American social conditioning, I'll simply note that perhaps the world of economic theory might not actually revolve around capitalism(!), much like formal logic does not revolve around, say, the material conditional, even if the material conditional is very useful.


Edit: Re Jung, I'd highly recommend Anthony Storr's "The Essential Jung" - Storr is a psychoanalyst himself, and a formidable one.

And for Schopenhauer, there's also this lovely, eminently readable Very Short Introduction to consider, for a start.

[Dr. Dread]

Some Zen dude probably.

[Haffner]

Edit: Re Jung, I'd highly recommend Anthony Storr's "The Essential Jung" - Storr is a psychoanalyst himself, and a formidable one.

.

Hey, this looks good!

[Renfield]

Hey, this looks good!

In Abbado's latest Mahler 6th (via BPO), I recall a quote about the "high priest of Mahler" returning to Berlin.

You could call Storr the high priest of Jungian psychoanalysis.


Unfortunately, as his Wikipedia entry informs me, that should be "was", above - he died in 2001.

[karlhenning]

Some Zen dude probably.

Eight-year-olds, Dude.

[drogulus]

Resisting the temptation to blame it on American social conditioning, I'll simply note that perhaps the world of economic theory might not actually revolve around capitalism(!), much like formal logic does not revolve around, say, the material conditional, even if the material conditional is very useful.

     I don't see capitalism as a category of economic theory, but rather as the name given to the kind of economic organization that has grown up in advanced countries. I'm not sure it matters very much what economic theory revolves around. It tends to be an expression of the sort of top down apriorism you find throughout traditional philosophy. Never mind what things are, theory says, this is what they must be. If reality is so undisciplined as to fail to mirror theoretical constructs, so much the worse for the world! We can always correct things after the revolution.

[Renfield]

     I don't see capitalism as a category of economic theory, but rather as the name given to the kind of economic organization that has grown up in advanced countries. I'm not sure it matters very much what economic theory revolves around. It tends to be an expression of the sort of top down apriorism you find throughout traditional philosophy. Never mind what things are, theory says, this is what they must be. If reality is so undisciplined as to fail to mirror theoretical constructs, so much the worse for the world! We can always correct things after the revolution.

I didn't say it's a category, I said it's part of its subject matter - like formal logic deals with conditionals as well as other operators.


Also, theory doesn't dictate by definition, you have to want to apply it for that to happen (as is inevitably the case with most economic systems, because people relentlessly pursue wealth and economic stability - but that's not part of the theory's "being a theory", if you will).

There's the kind of theory that you build to do something, and the kind of theory that is there to explain how something is (or can be done) done, and the two kinds certainly do not converge as a necessity. Nor are they the only two kinds of theories, of course.

Bottom line: when I say theory, I do not mean dogma. Even if theories can become dogmas, the two terms are still highly discrete.

[drogulus]

There's the kind of theory that you build to do something, and the kind of theory that is there to explain how something is (or can be done) done, and the two kinds certainly do not converge as a necessity. Nor are they the only two kinds of theories, of course.

     I agree about the description part. In a practical sense, economic theory, to the extent it is trying to explain rather than dictate, revolves around the phenomenon called capitalism because it wouldn't be describing anything otherwise. It's just like the ant farm theory. It's a lot tougher to do if you don't observe ants in a farm.

     The kind of theory that tells you what you're supposed to want to build is the part that I have trouble with. Is this theory in the same sense? It looks like moral philosophy which might have a theoretical component, the old ought/is problem. You can have a theory of oughts, I guess, like the theories we run into here about why modernism/traditionalism in music has to be right/wrong. Here's where I think Rorty was on the right track before he overreached. Oughts are what we want and not subject to the sort of factual treatment theory usually presupposes.

     Oh, greatest thinker.....Andy Kaufman?

[Renfield]

     The kind of theory that tells you what you're supposed to want to build is the part that I have trouble with. Is this theory in the same sense? It looks like moral philosophy which might have a theoretical component, the old ought/is problem. You can have a theory of oughts, I guess, like the theories we run into here about why modernism/traditionalism in music has to be right/wrong. Here's where I think Rorty was on the right track before he overreached. Oughts are what we want and not subject to the sort of factual treatment theory usually presupposes.

What you're describing is normative theory; though there's also the simpler case of a theory being considered so good that it "should" be applied as a result, even if it inherently does not contain an "ought". Either way, though, this is still discrete from "[X] theory" in general.

Even moral theory doesn't have to be normative, after all - see: meta-ethics.

[drogulus]

    I wouldn't call the theory so good it should be applied even thought it doesn't contain an ought simple.

Even moral theory doesn't have to be normative, after all - see: meta-ethics.

    It's like being in a candy store with fake candy. I guess meta-ethics could describe how decisions are arrived at. Which of these theories tells us the most about how slavery could be right and then become wrong? Probably you need history and a recognition that morality is a dialogue between individuals and the society at large where intuitions intersect with practical realities.

    Oh...I like quasi-realism! It's correct that moral propositions do stand in for factual claims. So "murder is wrong" is treated as factual for the purpose of creating a society we want. Quasi-facts like this also align rather well with the "religion is good and therefore true" kind of thinking that is so widespread. I'm not the kind of pragmatist that can countenance truth claims derived in that way, but I see the rationale. Yes, this quasi business has promise. 

     Tony Clifton would have to be included in the Kaufman nomination, though as a lesser contributor. 

[Homo Aestheticus]

I've never understood how even the most slavish devotion to a bankrupt and discredited ideology can force someone's head so far up their fundament that they're unable to see that virtually all of the blessings of health, medicine, science, technology, public works, democratic institutions, and damned near every other modern good we take for granted are the fruits of capitalism.

O.k. thanks for reminding me. What I don't understand is WHY he is dismissed outright in the year 2009.

We're all well aware of that, Eric.  Is there any subject that you are conversant in?  Inquiring minds want to know.  

Aesthetics...

[Homo Aestheticus]

Because it's the best economic system available and is based on freedom of action.  Unfortunately, people have a tendency to fuck it up as they do with most things.

Agreed, but let's put egoism aside for a moment.. Will you concede at least one injustice of capitalism itself ?  Can you name one ?

[Homo Aestheticus]

I've never understood (so to speak) why Marx and capitalism have to be perceived as part of a bivalent system - "either", "or".

.... Yes, that was my exact thought.

Now a question:

Has anyone here actually read  Das Kapital ?  I mean a thorough study of all 3 volumes from cover to cover, along with all its complex equations ?   

[nut-job]

Hegel, Schopenhauer, Carl Jung.

There's a guy at Ford who invented in intermittent windshield wiper mechanism.  He did more for humanity than those three combined.

[Bulldog]

Agreed, but let's put egoism aside for a moment.. Will you concede at least one injustice of capitalism itself ? 

No, for capitalism is simply an economic system and not possessed of any moral or ethical considerations.  Economic systems don't perform unjust actions; people do.

[The new erato]

.... Yes, that was my exact thought.

Now a question:

Has anyone here actually read  Das Kapital ?  I mean a thorough study of all 3 volumes from cover to cover, along with all its complex equations ?   

Whether one would consider it thorough, but yes; I have 35 years ago. But volume 3 (IIRC) is heavy going, and not particularly illuminating.