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On July 26 2017 12:07 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 12:06 Plansix wrote:On July 26 2017 11:58 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Yeah, I will say that even by P6 phone standards that one was something special. I have a hard time taking this discussion serious when the barrier to entry is a founding father cited on a philosopher from that culture. I'm willing to accept Aristotles writings were core of the Declaration of Independence. Can't speak for IgnE, but I was personally laughing at the grammar from that post.
That is what I get for posting on this thing.
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On July 26 2017 11:54 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Were there seriously 4 pages in this thread dedicated to arguing how a "culture" spanning thousands of years and multitudes of civilizations is in danger because of...I dunno, immigrants and regressive liberals or something?
But whose ideology gets stuck with the bad things in history? And which one gets the good? This is the fight that never ends.
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On July 26 2017 12:08 xDaunt wrote:
I'm seriously confused. Has anyone other than Igne and me ever taken a college-level introduction to Western philosophy course (and actually paid attention)?
That and a degree in US history. I did not enjoy philosophy that much. But the history degree has made this entire discussion super comical. It is like a highlight reel of all the justifications for British and European imperialism, but used to justify closing boarders. It is Western European Superiority with an inferiority complex.
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On July 26 2017 11:51 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 11:43 IgnE wrote:On July 26 2017 11:35 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 11:20 IgnE wrote:On July 26 2017 11:11 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 11:06 IgnE wrote:On July 26 2017 10:53 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 10:44 mozoku wrote:On July 26 2017 10:29 KwarK wrote:
mozuku, that's mostly a foundation myth from the 18th and 19th century who knew very little about the classics but knew that an old idea rediscovered sounded way more legitimate than a new idea. For example Greek democracy is a misnomer, a poor understanding of the citizen-soldier dynamic of the polis city state structure, specifically that found in just one polis which was an unusual example of a fundamentally oligarchic system. I can go into more detail if you wish.
The ideas that were subsequently assigned to the classical world would have been unthinkable to them. Even within the classical world these concepts don't have a stable basis. For example Roman citizenship as Marius would have understood it had absolutely no relationship with the Roman citizenship of the Roman Empire, and far more in common with, say, Theban citizenship. What it meant to be a citizen, what rights one had within the state and so forth are not ideas that one can easily pin on the classical world and declare continuity because they lack even internal consistency within their own frame of reference. The question of whether the Socii were Roman was controversial, the Constitutio Antoniniana unthinkable.
The culture that emerged in western Europe was pretty much new. It took the word senate from Rome in the same way the Russian Tsars took the word Caesar, and with about as much understanding of what it meant. It's all rather absurd. Fetishism of classics from a time before historians had learned how to do real history. If the Greeks and Romans (with huge contributions from Enlightenment thinkers) didn't inspire the Founding Fathers, why didn't China or India even consider establishing anything resembling a democracy until the imperial powers colonized them? Or any other Eastern culture that I'm aware of? Why did democracy, rule of law, and individualism only rise in the West? I'm talking about the time before imperial powers arrived in Asia. Socioeconomic factors. You have to understand that no democrat would have been inspired by the extremely narrow oligarchies of the classical Mediterranean polis structures. The idea of Greek democracy is a misunderstanding of a three decade period in a single Greek city where constant naval warfare made the landless urban rower the foundation of military force. And even then it was simply a wider oligarchy than usual, and indeed was at the head of a repressive empire. The founding fathers had their own ideas which were spawned by their own unique place and time in history. They made the fundamental mistake of reading history backwards and projected their ideas onto the past and as a result I'm here two centuries later trying to correct that. Also it's interesting that you mention India. Significant parts of the near East, going as far as Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent were Hellenistic kingdoms. If your premise was correct then they would be prime candidates for becoming democracies. Definitely Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean. Places like the Netherlands and England were extremely remote, essentially barbarian backwaters, in the classical era and yet it is these places who insist upon their classical roots. If we accept the argument that the classical world spawned the modern world then we have to address the issue of the modern world appearing in the areas least impacted by the classical world. Imagine if in two thousand years time organized criminals were insisting that they had their roots in the ancient United States, a land founded by Italians wielding tommy guns, fighting the ruthless untouchables in an endless war for control of society and the right to drive fast cars in a circle. That's "Greek democracy". It's possible, just possible, that when someone like xDaunt says "Greeks" he means Plato and Aristotle, and possibly some pre-Socratics. I don't think anyone here believes that the Greek peninsula was a democratic paradise with inalienable rights. Augustine and Aquinas and every Enlightenment thinker were reading Homer, Plato, and Aristotle, not going on archaelogical digs to reconstruct daily life in Boeotia. And yet you've gone on a multi-page rant about how heterogeneous "the Greeks" really were. I just don't think that was an issue until you decided to try and embarrass someone who wasn't really even talking about that. Wouldn't that be making my point, not his, then? That if Augustine, Aquinas, and xDaunt are all fundamentally failing to understand the context and content of what they're reading then we surely cannot conclude that their ideas are Greek, rather than their own. No more than we would conclude that the ideas of someone in two millennia built on the struggle between the matha and the untouchables were a continuation of American culture. But I don't think that's what is happening either way. I don't think that xDaunt is referring to an incredibly specific section. I think xDaunt has simply fallen victim to the myth and genuinely doesn't know that he's repeating nonsense. Uhhhh what? Do you think Homer really means only one thing? Something that can be reconstructed with enough historical digging? What kind of idiotic statement would it be to say that the US Constitution is identical with Greek democracy? Are not flowering interpretations connected to their root? And are the root and stem not "Greek?" If your whole point is to say, "No, Aquinas really misinterpreted Aristotle there. The real Aristotle is in no way connected to his thought," you have completely ahistoricized Western culture. Every moment in time is radically different from that which came before and which came after. That might be the stupidest thing I've ever read by you, which is a high bar. You can't claim that western culture is a product of classical cultures and then, when challenged to demonstrate the links, insist that the reason the two look nothing alike and have no direct links is because one is a "flowering interpretation" of the other. If I were to claim to a child that a butterfly is a flowering interpretation of a caterpillar they'd demand to see a chrysalis. Show me the chrysalis or go home. Ditto. Flowers aren't "products" of seeds. Got it. Wasn't a complex point but whatever, I'll try and explain it on a level that you'll understand. I know that flowers are products of seeds because I have been shown the mechanism from which you get from one to the other. Absent the showing part all you're doing is waving colourful petals on green stems in one hand and tiny black shells in the other and saying "LOOK, THEY'RE THE SAME, CAN'T YOU SEE!". So again, show the mechanism. It's not complex. If western culture is a flower and classical "Greece" is a seed then show me how one grows from the other. If you're feeling really clever then go ahead and explain all the seeds that never sprouted too, given the millennia between the two and the distinct geographic gap.
NATURAL LAW! Here, I'll even give you a link to learn about it this time.
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United States42780 Posts
On July 26 2017 11:56 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 11:51 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 11:43 IgnE wrote:On July 26 2017 11:35 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 11:20 IgnE wrote:On July 26 2017 11:11 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 11:06 IgnE wrote:On July 26 2017 10:53 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 10:44 mozoku wrote:On July 26 2017 10:29 KwarK wrote:
mozuku, that's mostly a foundation myth from the 18th and 19th century who knew very little about the classics but knew that an old idea rediscovered sounded way more legitimate than a new idea. For example Greek democracy is a misnomer, a poor understanding of the citizen-soldier dynamic of the polis city state structure, specifically that found in just one polis which was an unusual example of a fundamentally oligarchic system. I can go into more detail if you wish.
The ideas that were subsequently assigned to the classical world would have been unthinkable to them. Even within the classical world these concepts don't have a stable basis. For example Roman citizenship as Marius would have understood it had absolutely no relationship with the Roman citizenship of the Roman Empire, and far more in common with, say, Theban citizenship. What it meant to be a citizen, what rights one had within the state and so forth are not ideas that one can easily pin on the classical world and declare continuity because they lack even internal consistency within their own frame of reference. The question of whether the Socii were Roman was controversial, the Constitutio Antoniniana unthinkable.
The culture that emerged in western Europe was pretty much new. It took the word senate from Rome in the same way the Russian Tsars took the word Caesar, and with about as much understanding of what it meant. It's all rather absurd. Fetishism of classics from a time before historians had learned how to do real history. If the Greeks and Romans (with huge contributions from Enlightenment thinkers) didn't inspire the Founding Fathers, why didn't China or India even consider establishing anything resembling a democracy until the imperial powers colonized them? Or any other Eastern culture that I'm aware of? Why did democracy, rule of law, and individualism only rise in the West? I'm talking about the time before imperial powers arrived in Asia. Socioeconomic factors. You have to understand that no democrat would have been inspired by the extremely narrow oligarchies of the classical Mediterranean polis structures. The idea of Greek democracy is a misunderstanding of a three decade period in a single Greek city where constant naval warfare made the landless urban rower the foundation of military force. And even then it was simply a wider oligarchy than usual, and indeed was at the head of a repressive empire. The founding fathers had their own ideas which were spawned by their own unique place and time in history. They made the fundamental mistake of reading history backwards and projected their ideas onto the past and as a result I'm here two centuries later trying to correct that. Also it's interesting that you mention India. Significant parts of the near East, going as far as Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent were Hellenistic kingdoms. If your premise was correct then they would be prime candidates for becoming democracies. Definitely Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean. Places like the Netherlands and England were extremely remote, essentially barbarian backwaters, in the classical era and yet it is these places who insist upon their classical roots. If we accept the argument that the classical world spawned the modern world then we have to address the issue of the modern world appearing in the areas least impacted by the classical world. Imagine if in two thousand years time organized criminals were insisting that they had their roots in the ancient United States, a land founded by Italians wielding tommy guns, fighting the ruthless untouchables in an endless war for control of society and the right to drive fast cars in a circle. That's "Greek democracy". It's possible, just possible, that when someone like xDaunt says "Greeks" he means Plato and Aristotle, and possibly some pre-Socratics. I don't think anyone here believes that the Greek peninsula was a democratic paradise with inalienable rights. Augustine and Aquinas and every Enlightenment thinker were reading Homer, Plato, and Aristotle, not going on archaelogical digs to reconstruct daily life in Boeotia. And yet you've gone on a multi-page rant about how heterogeneous "the Greeks" really were. I just don't think that was an issue until you decided to try and embarrass someone who wasn't really even talking about that. Wouldn't that be making my point, not his, then? That if Augustine, Aquinas, and xDaunt are all fundamentally failing to understand the context and content of what they're reading then we surely cannot conclude that their ideas are Greek, rather than their own. No more than we would conclude that the ideas of someone in two millennia built on the struggle between the matha and the untouchables were a continuation of American culture. But I don't think that's what is happening either way. I don't think that xDaunt is referring to an incredibly specific section. I think xDaunt has simply fallen victim to the myth and genuinely doesn't know that he's repeating nonsense. Uhhhh what? Do you think Homer really means only one thing? Something that can be reconstructed with enough historical digging? What kind of idiotic statement would it be to say that the US Constitution is identical with Greek democracy? Are not flowering interpretations connected to their root? And are the root and stem not "Greek?" If your whole point is to say, "No, Aquinas really misinterpreted Aristotle there. The real Aristotle is in no way connected to his thought," you have completely ahistoricized Western culture. Every moment in time is radically different from that which came before and which came after. That might be the stupidest thing I've ever read by you, which is a high bar. You can't claim that western culture is a product of classical cultures and then, when challenged to demonstrate the links, insist that the reason the two look nothing alike and have no direct links is because one is a "flowering interpretation" of the other. If I were to claim to a child that a butterfly is a flowering interpretation of a caterpillar they'd demand to see a chrysalis. Show me the chrysalis or go home. Ditto. Flowers aren't "products" of seeds. Got it. Wasn't a complex point but whatever, I'll try and explain it on a level that you'll understand. I know that flowers are products of seeds because I have been shown the mechanism from which you get from one to the other. Absent the showing part all you're doing is waving colourful petals on green stems in one hand and tiny black shells in the other and saying "LOOK, THEY'RE THE SAME, CAN'T YOU SEE!". So again, show the mechanism. It's not complex. If western culture is a flower and classical "Greece" is a seed then show me how one grows from the other. When asked once what was the philosophy underlying the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson replied that: “All its authority rests … on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, &c.”-Jefferson, Letter to Henry Lee, May 8, 1825.
“Why should a few received authors stand up like Hercules’s columns, beyond which there should be no sailing or discovery?” –To Aristotle, more than to any other writer, either ancient or modern, this expostulation is strictly applicable. Hear what the learned Grotius says on this subject. “Among philosophers, Aristotle deservedly holds the chief place, whether you consider his method of treating subjects, or the acuteness of his distinctions, or the weight of his reasons.”-Wilson, Of the General Principles of Law and Obligation, I.ii.2266. I DONT READ ANCIENT GREEKS IM GLAD I HVE KWARK TO EXPLAIN BOTANY TO ME
And yet for two millennia the works of Aristotle existed and no Declarations of Independence were written. But when a number of rich landowners want to govern themselves then it turns out that rich landowners have always had rights, just check the old books. Obviously not literally but "a flowering interpretation" of the stuff in the books, if you ignore the actual things the books describe.
Aristotle didn't cause Jefferson. Five hundred years of English struggle against kings, popes, barons, and bishops caused Jefferson. The works of Aristotle did not pass from reader to reader leaving natural law wherever they passed in a two millennia long chain through history like some kind of literary cursed rabbit foot. Had they been lost to history Jefferson would have still believed that men are born with rights simply because he was a man who wanted rights.
To use your metaphor, the seed failed to grow in every soil at every time until it happened upon a grown flower, at which point you declare success and insist we ignore the failures. It did not take Aristotle to compel King John to sign the Magna Carta, nor Cicero to behead Charles I. The American Revolution, and subsequent founding of a state governed by rich empowered landowners, would have happened had all record of the classics been lost. The flower was grown long before Jefferson was born, let alone his reading of Aristotle.
My premise is simple. As education, wealth and power become more diffused the hierarchies that place men above other men will be destroyed. Because men don't like having people above them. Jefferson wrote about the separation of church and state because he lived in a world where religious tyranny was a real threat. Had he lived in a world where tyrants claimed their power based upon the size of their dicks then the first amendment would be the anti-Harambe amendment. Western culture, as xDaunt describes it, mostly consists of how to enshrine the rights of individuals within a society. Secularism, political plurality, free trials, democracy and so forth. It's a very modern product of a very old struggle, and one that continues through emancipation of the slaves, civil rights, gay marriage and so forth.
The founders were replacing a very old order, in the case of denying the authority of the Pope, a lineage that stretched back to Rome. How convenient for them that they found their own authority to be a little older still.
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On July 26 2017 12:08 xDaunt wrote:
I'm seriously confused. Has anyone other than Igne and me ever taken a college-level introduction to Western philosophy course (and actually paid attention)?
I have. Now, granted, I couldn't tell you the structure of my course compared to yours. But we spent a lot of time navel-gazing and applying thought and argument to concepts of the world.
And yes, Aristotle and Plato were mentioned. Hardly enshrined in the education, though.
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On July 26 2017 12:08 xDaunt wrote:
I'm seriously confused. Has anyone other than Igne and me ever taken a college-level introduction to Western philosophy course (and actually paid attention)?
KwarK has, obviously. I might have but it's been years since then, so I'm rusty (thank you google). But for the sake of wrapping this up, which aspects are under attack? Maybe we can answer that question?
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On July 26 2017 12:08 xDaunt wrote:
I'm seriously confused. Has anyone other than Igne and me ever taken a college-level introduction to Western philosophy course (and actually paid attention)?
So is "Western culture" the concepts espoused by select Western philosophers? And when we're contrasting it, we're contrasting it with the concepts espoused by select Middle Eastern/Far East philosophers? But not the ones who rescued Aristotle's teachings, presumably.
Because when you talk about "Arab/Muslim culture" you seem to be talking about "what life and the cultural milieu is currently like in Middle Eastern countries" most of the time, which seems like a poor referent for comparison with idealized version of societies. Hence why you ask things along the lines of "where would you rather live?" and talk about things being attacked. Unless I've been misinterpreting.
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On July 26 2017 12:12 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 11:56 IgnE wrote:On July 26 2017 11:51 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 11:43 IgnE wrote:On July 26 2017 11:35 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 11:20 IgnE wrote:On July 26 2017 11:11 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 11:06 IgnE wrote:On July 26 2017 10:53 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 10:44 mozoku wrote:
[quote]
If the Greeks and Romans (with huge contributions from Enlightenment thinkers) didn't inspire the Founding Fathers, why didn't China or India even consider establishing anything resembling a democracy until the imperial powers colonized them? Or any other Eastern culture that I'm aware of? Why did democracy, rule of law, and individualism only rise in the West? I'm talking about the time before imperial powers arrived in Asia. Socioeconomic factors. You have to understand that no democrat would have been inspired by the extremely narrow oligarchies of the classical Mediterranean polis structures. The idea of Greek democracy is a misunderstanding of a three decade period in a single Greek city where constant naval warfare made the landless urban rower the foundation of military force. And even then it was simply a wider oligarchy than usual, and indeed was at the head of a repressive empire. The founding fathers had their own ideas which were spawned by their own unique place and time in history. They made the fundamental mistake of reading history backwards and projected their ideas onto the past and as a result I'm here two centuries later trying to correct that. Also it's interesting that you mention India. Significant parts of the near East, going as far as Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent were Hellenistic kingdoms. If your premise was correct then they would be prime candidates for becoming democracies. Definitely Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean. Places like the Netherlands and England were extremely remote, essentially barbarian backwaters, in the classical era and yet it is these places who insist upon their classical roots. If we accept the argument that the classical world spawned the modern world then we have to address the issue of the modern world appearing in the areas least impacted by the classical world. Imagine if in two thousand years time organized criminals were insisting that they had their roots in the ancient United States, a land founded by Italians wielding tommy guns, fighting the ruthless untouchables in an endless war for control of society and the right to drive fast cars in a circle. That's "Greek democracy". It's possible, just possible, that when someone like xDaunt says "Greeks" he means Plato and Aristotle, and possibly some pre-Socratics. I don't think anyone here believes that the Greek peninsula was a democratic paradise with inalienable rights. Augustine and Aquinas and every Enlightenment thinker were reading Homer, Plato, and Aristotle, not going on archaelogical digs to reconstruct daily life in Boeotia. And yet you've gone on a multi-page rant about how heterogeneous "the Greeks" really were. I just don't think that was an issue until you decided to try and embarrass someone who wasn't really even talking about that. Wouldn't that be making my point, not his, then? That if Augustine, Aquinas, and xDaunt are all fundamentally failing to understand the context and content of what they're reading then we surely cannot conclude that their ideas are Greek, rather than their own. No more than we would conclude that the ideas of someone in two millennia built on the struggle between the matha and the untouchables were a continuation of American culture. But I don't think that's what is happening either way. I don't think that xDaunt is referring to an incredibly specific section. I think xDaunt has simply fallen victim to the myth and genuinely doesn't know that he's repeating nonsense. Uhhhh what? Do you think Homer really means only one thing? Something that can be reconstructed with enough historical digging? What kind of idiotic statement would it be to say that the US Constitution is identical with Greek democracy? Are not flowering interpretations connected to their root? And are the root and stem not "Greek?" If your whole point is to say, "No, Aquinas really misinterpreted Aristotle there. The real Aristotle is in no way connected to his thought," you have completely ahistoricized Western culture. Every moment in time is radically different from that which came before and which came after. That might be the stupidest thing I've ever read by you, which is a high bar. You can't claim that western culture is a product of classical cultures and then, when challenged to demonstrate the links, insist that the reason the two look nothing alike and have no direct links is because one is a "flowering interpretation" of the other. If I were to claim to a child that a butterfly is a flowering interpretation of a caterpillar they'd demand to see a chrysalis. Show me the chrysalis or go home. Ditto. Flowers aren't "products" of seeds. Got it. Wasn't a complex point but whatever, I'll try and explain it on a level that you'll understand. I know that flowers are products of seeds because I have been shown the mechanism from which you get from one to the other. Absent the showing part all you're doing is waving colourful petals on green stems in one hand and tiny black shells in the other and saying "LOOK, THEY'RE THE SAME, CAN'T YOU SEE!". So again, show the mechanism. It's not complex. If western culture is a flower and classical "Greece" is a seed then show me how one grows from the other. When asked once what was the philosophy underlying the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson replied that: “All its authority rests … on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, &c.”-Jefferson, Letter to Henry Lee, May 8, 1825.
“Why should a few received authors stand up like Hercules’s columns, beyond which there should be no sailing or discovery?” –To Aristotle, more than to any other writer, either ancient or modern, this expostulation is strictly applicable. Hear what the learned Grotius says on this subject. “Among philosophers, Aristotle deservedly holds the chief place, whether you consider his method of treating subjects, or the acuteness of his distinctions, or the weight of his reasons.”-Wilson, Of the General Principles of Law and Obligation, I.ii.2266. I DONT READ ANCIENT GREEKS IM GLAD I HVE KWARK TO EXPLAIN BOTANY TO ME And yet for two millennia the works of Aristotle existed and no Declarations of Independence were written. But when a number of rich landowners want to govern themselves then it turns out that rich landowners have always had rights, just check the old books. Obviously not literally but "a flowering interpretation" of the stuff in the books, if you ignore the actual things the books describe. Aristotle didn't cause Jefferson. Five hundred years of English struggle against kings, popes, barons, and bishops caused Jefferson. The works of Aristotle did not pass from reader to reader leaving natural law wherever they passed in a two millennia long chain through history like some kind of literary cursed rabbit foot. Had they been lost to history Jefferson would have still believed that men are born with rights simply because he was a man who wanted rights. To use your metaphor, the seed failed to grow in every soil at every time until it happened upon a grown flower, at which point you declare success and insist we ignore the failures. It did not take Aristotle to compel King John to sign the Magna Carta, nor Cicero to behead Charles I. The American Revolution, and subsequent founding of a state governed by rich empowered landowners, would have happened had all record of the classics been lost. The flower was grown long before Jefferson was born, let alone his reading of Aristotle.
nothing causes anything. causalism is a myth. read more Nietzsche you philistine
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I'm still waiting for proof that US culture is the same as Western European culture.
In other, more ridiculous news, Louise Mensch is no longer even sticking to vaguely plausible conspiracies.
There are plenty of people who believe this woman, but if even 1/15 of her stories turn out to be true I'll be wildly surprised.
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On July 26 2017 12:12 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 12:08 xDaunt wrote:
I'm seriously confused. Has anyone other than Igne and me ever taken a college-level introduction to Western philosophy course (and actually paid attention)? That and a degree in US history. I did not enjoy philosophy that much. But the history degree has made this entire discussion super comical. It is like a highlight reel of all the justifications for British and European imperialism, but used to justify closing boarders. It is Western European Superiority with an inferiority complex.
I'm genuinely curious what your philosophy courses looked like. Ours was spent, more or less, "being philosophers". Historical figures like Plato were brought up in the context of their more famous arguments (Plato's Cave, etc.), on concepts such as omniscience and omnipotence in regards to predestination (including the Greek Fates, God, Oedipus).
Was really more of a critical thinking course.
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seriously kwark, if you think anyone is arguing that "aristotle caused jefferson" then you are as impoverished a thinker as P6.
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I'm still waiting for this all to be tied back to concerns about present day culture clashes, but I may be left waiting for a while.
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On July 26 2017 12:27 WolfintheSheep wrote:
I'm still waiting for this all to be tied back to concerns about present day culture clashes, but I may be left waiting for a while.
I brought it up. I'm waiting as well. I just want to know what's under attack by regressive leftists.
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United States42780 Posts
On July 26 2017 12:24 IgnE wrote:
seriously kwark, if you think anyone is arguing that "aristotle caused jefferson" then you are as impoverished a thinker as P6.
In my defence xDaunt has staunchly refused to make an argument beyond saying the words Cicero and Aristotle to prove that western civilization is a product of Greece and Rome. "Aristotle caused Jefferson" would actually be an improvement upon his current argument of "I'm a busy man. Cicero".
And it's not for lack of my asking him to show his causal links either.
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On July 26 2017 12:16 TheTenthDoc wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 12:08 xDaunt wrote:
I'm seriously confused. Has anyone other than Igne and me ever taken a college-level introduction to Western philosophy course (and actually paid attention)? So is "Western culture" the concepts espoused by select Western philosophers? And when we're contrasting it, we're contrasting it with the concepts espoused by select Middle Eastern/Far East philosophers? But not the ones who rescued Aristotle's teachings, presumably. Because when you talk about "Arab/Muslim culture" you seem to be talking about "what life and the cultural milieu is currently like in Middle Eastern countries" most of the time, which seems like a poor referent for comparison with idealized version of societies. Hence why you ask things along the lines of "where would you rather live?" and talk about things being attacked. Unless I've been misinterpreting.
No, culture clearly isn't limited to philosophy. It encompasses everything from the philosophical to the religious to the artistic. It is the sum of a way of life. In defining Western culture, I purposefully took a very broad approach to create a starting point for the discussion. Most aspects of culture flow downhill from values and traditions, so why not start there?
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United States42780 Posts
On July 26 2017 12:28 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 12:27 WolfintheSheep wrote:
I'm still waiting for this all to be tied back to concerns about present day culture clashes, but I may be left waiting for a while. I brought it up. I'm waiting as well. I just want to know what's under attack by regressive leftists.
Christmas?
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On July 26 2017 12:28 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 12:27 WolfintheSheep wrote:
I'm still waiting for this all to be tied back to concerns about present day culture clashes, but I may be left waiting for a while. I brought it up. I'm waiting as well. I just want to know what's under attack by regressive leftists.
Christ, you people are lazy. Start with Igne's post here and read the responses to it and the article that he's referencing.
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On July 26 2017 12:24 IgnE wrote:
seriously kwark, if you think anyone is arguing that "aristotle caused jefferson" then you are as impoverished a thinker as P6.
Are you really going to lean into the quote from Jefferson in 1825 as proof of something? 15 years after he was president and the only person left to say he was full of himself was his buddy John Adams? I understand the worship of Jefferson, but can we not take his bragging as anything but what it was. He was one of 5 people who wrote that thing.
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I just provided a nice source showing how Greek, Roman, and Christian thought all helped shape modern Western concepts of law, rights, and liberties. Why the fuck are you people still arguing about it? It's one thing to not know due to poor education. It's another to stick your head in the sand like an ostrich. We're reaching flat earth society levels of willful ignorance. This thread has hit some lows before, but this might be a new record.
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EPT
