The history of philosophy can be reduced to the five struggles:
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First, between man’s primary desire to retreat into the limits of his senses in the face of evolving complexity, and his reluctant acknowledgement that he must learn and employ the tools of reason and calculation in order to extend those limited senses, despite the discomfort these unintuitive abstract tools subject him to.
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Second, the conflict between his preference for the material ease of the division of labor and his emotional discomfort at the consequential alienation caused by post-tribal, post familial, and increasingly individualistic commercial society.
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Third, between the comfort of historical norms and the precious status we each achieve by adhering to them, and the opportunity of economic, technical and organizational innovation that of necessity disrupts those norms.
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Fourth, the need to develop justification of our system of norms such that we can resist or conquer the economic strategies, organizational strategies, and status signals embedded in competing systems of norms.”
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And fifth, the most disturbing: between the masculine aristocratic inter-temporal instinct to concentrate capital and to constrain the breeding and consumption of the lower classes, and the feminine communal instinct to perpetuate her genes no matter how she has bred them, and her defensive posture of granting others the same opportunity, despite that it threatens us with Malthusian fragility, and eternal poverty.
These five conflicts define the history of philosophy as an attempt to justify existing norms, or an appeal to modify them so that we may adapt to the future or regress into the past.
The Real Class Struggle is not hierarchical, it’s vertical. The proletarians are simply the tools of each. There are only three forms of human persuasion and three forms of political persuasion:
Martial
(warriors and politicians) Makers of Laws and Violence – the fast moving organizers.
vs
Public Intellectual
(priests, speakers and writers). The makers of moral arguments – the slow moving resistance.
vs
Entrepreneurial
(tradesman, commerce and banking). The pragmatic actors of change.
The Philosophical Eras:
- POST ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY 1970-> ( Abandonment of the transcendental program and complete reliance on natural sciences )
- Post Analytic Philosophy is pragmatic rather than transcendental: Post Analytic Philosophers attempt to solve real world problems.
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Postanalytic philosophy makes use of the methods of analytic philosophy, but opposes its transcendental aspirations and its assumption that we’re engage in a process discovery rather than invention.
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Postanalytic philosophy is also referred to as Postphilosophy: the notion that philosophy no longer serves its historical role in society, having been replaced by the natural sciences and the wide availability of literacy, media, and information.
Notes:
1) I have very little confidence in the symbolic system outside of using very simple diagrams. And political philosophy, by its nature, requires that we use common language in an effort to make our ideas accessible to non specialists who can then proselytize our ideas to the common man. As such, I see symbolic systems as a convenient but self-defeating shorthand that serves only to inhibit us from achieving our goals.)
2) I believe the discipline of philosophy can add value to the post-analytical era, not just in ensuring the fitness of minds, but that philosophers must reorder causal categories using empirical information so that new useful narratives can be added to the political discourse in order to assist in the evolution of norms from those that are beneficial in and older technological and organizational state to those that will be more beneficial in the new technological and organizational state.
- ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY 1900-1960 ( Incorporation of Natural Sciences, abandoning history, abandoning religion, abandoning norms, while retaining the transcendental program. )
The term “analytic philosophy” refers to a method of argument that emphasizes clarity – testable rather than normative statements. It uses:
- Formal Logic
- Linguistic Analysis
- Respect for the natural sciences.
- Specifically abandons the assumptions of Religious and Institutional ‘Norms’.
Analytic philosophy is identified with specific philosophical commitments (many of which are rejected by contemporary analytic philosophers), such as:
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The principle of Logical Positivism: that the object of philosophy is the logical clarification of our thinking. This may be contrasted with the traditional foundationalism, which considers philosophy as a special, elite science that investigates the fundamental reasons and principles of everything. As a result, many analytic philosophers have considered their work as a means of improving our interpretation of the evidence that we have obtained from the natural sciences.
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The principle that the logical clarification of thoughts can only be achieved by analysis of the logical form of propositions, often using the formal grammar and symbolism of a logical system of notation. The logical form is a way of representing a proposition in similarity with all other propositions of the same type.
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The rejection of heavily loaded and inarticulate philosophical systems in favor of attention to detail, exposing causal relations, using ordinary, clear language.
But practically speaking, the analytical program was an attempt to turn philosophy into a natural science, to retain philosophy’s historical public importance by pursuing the transcendental program. And it was a total failure outside of improving the philosophy of science.
- THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC REVOLUTION
Empiricists Adapt To Modernity
- THE CONTINENTAL COUNTER-REVOLUTION AGAINST ANGLO EMPIRICISM
( Attempts To Retain Historical Norms In The Face Of The Agricultural and Industrial Revolution, Science and Darwin )
The Germans And The French Hold On To History, Hierarchy And Privilege.
France As The Most Backward Country In Europe
The Anti-Empirical French Moralists
The Bloody Revolution As Proof Of Failure
The Third Attempt At Germanic Expansion
The Marxist Religion As A Revolt Against Modernity
- THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION III – ANGLO EMPIRICISM NORTHERN ITALIAN RATIONALISM AND GERMANIC LITERACY Empiricism, Restoration of monarchies, And The Return To Reason
The Return Of Science
The Return Of Commercial Society In Italy
The Move Of Trade From The Mediterranean to the Atlantic
The Rise Of British Empirical Pragmatism
The Downfall Of Islamic Disruption Of Trade
The Scholastic’s React To The Conquistadors
The Printing Press And Germanic Craftsmanship
The The Second Attempt At Germanic Expansion
- THE REVOLT AGAINST REASON AND MODERNITY 70AD->1400 ( Incorporation of Magianism – The Spread Of Ignorance From Augustine To William Of Ockham )
The Roman Problems Of Administering A Landed Empire Rather Than A Naval Empire
The Abrahamic Invasion and Conquest
The Surrender to Immigration and Over-expansion
The Justinian Oppression Of Northern Europe
The Augustinian Attempt At Assimilation.
The Plagues And The Shortage Of Coinage
The Jewish Revolt Against Reason
The Islamic Revolt Against Reason
The Hindu Revolt Against Reason
The Chinese Revolt Against Reason
The Arab Conquest of Mediterranean Trade
- THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION II – RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE – The First Commercial Society ( Greek Rationalism – The Emphasis On Human Actions – Empirical Pragmatism ) “We Control Our Destiny”
The Limits of Rational Pedagogy
The Twin Rivers, The Nile, and The Agean
- GREAT TRANSFORMATION I – THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION AND RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS ( The Scriptural Religions – Uniting The Tribes – The Agrarian Era )
- NATURAL RELIGION ( Rituals Staring With Sacrifice )
A Few Timelines Of Philosophy Elsewhere:
The Basic Philosophy Alternative To Wikipedia
The Thompson Wadsworth Philosophy Timeline
The Western Philosophy Movements Timeline