Curt Doolittle

Theme: Education

  • (My waitress speaks Estonian, Russian, English, German, Italian, Spanish, French

    (My waitress speaks Estonian, Russian, English, German, Italian, Spanish, French, and Czech. Damn. And she’s a waitress. I can fake my way through travel german, french, Spanish, and Italian with a week or two of exposure. I can pretty much read German but I have to look up a bunch of the words, and I get the gist of Russian well enough to read newspapers. I guess learning curt-speak has taken all my efforts. But I am humbled by these people with four or more languages. Yesterday another waitress went from table to table and it was funny to watch that she could switch between languages easily, except switching away from Russian made her get stuck. So to mess with her, I switched between Russian and English. She laughed.)

    Source date (UTC): 2015-08-08 04:12:00 UTC

  • Newbies: Choosing from and Learning the different philosophical systems. #tcot #

    Newbies: Choosing from and Learning the different philosophical systems. http://www.propertarianism.com/VwVE3 #tcot #tlot #nrx

    Source date (UTC): 2015-08-07 12:05:32 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/629624412262825984

  • Q: “How Do I Learn Philosophy”

    (really good piece) [Q]: “CURT, HOW DO I LEARN PHILOSOPHY?” A: WELL THAT REQUIRES DEFINING PHILOSOPHY AND CHOOSING WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN FROM IT. QUESTION

    —“Hey curt, since you mentioned newbies. If an individual was beginning planning a self taught curriculum in philosophy, what would you recommend for sources? And does eastern philosophy like the teachings of the Tao hold any significance in your paradigm?”—

    ANSWER First, we need to define Philosophy. Which I think I can successfully do by stating it’s a set of ideas that assist us in forming a framework of understanding, whether by imitation of others – whether real or mythical (virtue), rules of conduct and decision making(deontological), or understanding of the mechanics of the universe(teleological), with which we can use limited human knowledge and reason for the purposes of acting to achieve needs, satisfactions, and fulfillments, by cooperating successfully in a world of others doing the same.THE OPTIONS This hierarchy of philosophies is important: imitation of virtue, dedication to rules, and understanding of cause and effect producing outcomes, place different demands on the individual. -One’s Experience- i – children and primitive cultures rely on virtue (religion) ii – adults in developing cultures rely on rules (law) iii – the wise in mature cultures rely on outcomes (science) This is the usual progression of one’s personal philosophy through life. As children, adults and at our maturity we make use of virtue, rule, and outcome ethics because that is the best we can manage at every stage of our development. This progression also remains useful, and is why wise me resort to “what would jesus do” or “what would such and such a great man do?”. Because that virtuous wisdom is, at times, the only possible means of decision making with sparse information. Just as we fall back upon rules when we are unsure of outcomes. Just as we rely upon our knowledge of outcomes to make decisions when we have accumulated the knowledge and experience to do so. So it is not a matter of choosing virtue, rule, or outcome ethics. It is a matter of acquiring each so that one can apply each in the circumstances where one possesses the information to do so – and conversely: one can judge the ethics of others by the rules they apply in each circumstance. A child who errs by virtue ethics is forgivable. An adult who errs by rules is forgivable. An wise man who errs despite his vast knowledge of a subject is forgivable. Yet the inverse is not true: a wise man who relies upon rules when he is masterful is suspect, an adult who relies upon virtue is suspect. A child who relies upon anything other than virtue is suspect. -One’s Abilities- There is a reason why women and people of lower IQ favor religion, why people in the liberal arts favor philosophy and pseudoscience, and why men and people of higher IQ favor history and science. That is because they possess the means by which to acquire and use those systems of of thought given their experience and ability. Furthermore, the acquisition of virtue, rule and outcome knowledge is costly to the individual. Not all can afford the investment, and not all have access to the literature or teachers from whom they can learn it. We do not expect feral children to demonstrate any of the ethical frameworks, and it is very difficult not to expect a first world child not to posses at least virtue ethics, if not rule ethics, and we attempt (possibly, if not probably, foolishly) to teach our children outcome ethics in the present era. -One’s control over one’s actions in life- Different philosophies whether virtuous, rational, or scientific are more or less use in different circumstances. We can break philosophies into: 1-religions, 2-disciplines 3-rationalisms(philosophies), 4-laws, and 5-sciences. It is very hard to classify any one of the bodies of thought below because all philosophical systems contain attributes of each category. I’ve organized them the best that I can. -Religions- (faith) — Christianity provides a body of myth and ritual with but one purpose: the extension of kinship love to non kin, as a means of generating universal inclusiveness. It is a religion of benevolent pacification cured only by it’s opposite in the martial nobility. Islam provides rules and virtues for people with limited intelligence to observe and daily rituals to enforce them – although this is a false promise since it achieves the opposite. I am uncomfortable commending on Hinduism since I am not sure I really understand it sufficiently (I see it through buddha’s eyes, as needing reformation), and all other ‘religions’ that I know of have been unsuccessful, or are obviously detrimental. Japan’s Shintoism combines both monarchy, ancestor worship and buddhism to produce fealty to family, clan, tribe and nation, as well as self control. For an homogenous people the combination of history, nature worship, and self control is hard to criticize other than the people are often frustrated and emotionally repressed. –Disciplines– (training) —Buddhism provides a means of achieving personal satisfaction for those who live in worlds where they have few resources, few options, little control over their circumstances. It focuses on the self. Combined with Yoga it is extremely attractive to women. Stoicism provides a means of achieving personal happiness for those who live in civilized worlds but who have little control over their environments. Stoicism is the opposite of buddhism in that buddhism achieves satisfaction by escapism and internal discipline, while stoicism achieves satisfaction by means of creating many small successes in daily life, accumulating in your achievement of virtue independent of the opinions of others. Combined with Sport it is extremely attractive to men. I tend to have a favorable view of both buddhism and stoicism. –Rationalisms— (reasoning) —Confucianism provides a means of obtaining satisfaction by conformity to fixed roles in society and providing us with wisdom for operating within those roles. Unfortunately Confucianism is paired with Sun Tzu: the philosophy of deception, and Lao Tzu: the philosophy of the poor within a hierarchical system. Together they advocate submission to authority as a means of avoiding conflict. Ancient Greco-Roman Philosophy – prior to Aristotle is interesting for the breadth of experiment that occurred in seeking a solution. I recommend The Ethics and the Politics. That’s all. Christian Natural Law Philosophy – Aquinas is interesting, but I would recommend skipping him, reading the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries on Natural Law instead. Anglo Empirical (Moral) Philosophy – Locke, Smith and Hume constitute the enlightenment philosophers of necessity. Continental Philosophy – is reactionary in order to compensate for the disorder produced by the errors in anglo empirical philosophy’s assumption of an aristocracy of everyone. So Continental is little more than an attempt to create a rational rather than supernatural justification of existing moral orders. There is plenty of wisdom in that philosophy, and great aspiration to it. Especially Nietzsche, who is the point of demarcation between christian mysticism and naturalistic philosophy. but it is also the source pseudoscience and lies. Cosmopolitan Philosophy (Pseudoscience, Loading, framing and overloading) Marx, Freud, Cantor, Mises, Rothbard. The only cosmopolitan I recommend is Popper and while he is most definitely a cosmopolitan, he adopted Hayek’s information theory. (When I criticize rationalism it is the incremental development of pseudoscience and deceit by justificationism, loading, framing, and overloading that I am trying to reverse with Testimonialism. The anglos philosophers were wrong in their assumptions of man, but right in their method of argument. The continentals were right in their assumptions of man but wrong in their method of argument. The cosmopolitans were dishonest in their articulation of man, and dishonest in their method of argument.) Anglo Ratio-Scientific (Legal) Philosophy – Anglo Common Law, Machiavelli, Jefferson, Pareto, Durkheim, (Popper), Hayek, (Doolittle). Science: The discovery of general rules by repeated observation resulting in accumulated wisdom. Virtue, Rules, Wisdom, where wisdom feeds back to virtue and rules. This is an inter-generational process of empirical refinement. –Laws– (captured rules) —Judaism provides a means for not only exiting their incompetent classes but an entire body of law to master, and overwhelming pressure to remain within the polity which is ensured by the hostility to outsiders and therefore outsider hostility to insiders. Judaism is perhaps the ultimate synthesis of rule based systems and history even if it is a failed system because it lacks the moral content necessary to hold land. It originated with pastoralists and remains a pastorialist (unlanded) doctrine. It lacks intertemporal moral content. That is why the jews cannot hold land. Anglo Constitutionalism expresses philosophy as law and very much under natural law, presumably as logically and scientifically constructed as is possible. Most americans are legalists – the law as religious order. Legalism can be thought of as the struggle to understand the laws of cooperation, just as we understand the laws of the physical universe. All anglo legal theory is an empirical attempt to discover and codify natural law in the absence of human discretion. This is a scientific experiment unique to anglo civilization. It is flawed only by the assumption that it is in the interests of the lower classes to compete meritocratic-ally. The fact is that only with eugenic manorialism or a substitute can such a system function. This is why no other groups use it. They are too weighted down with the lower classes who are incapable of competition and cooperation by moral means. (I tend to view law as the ultimate expression of any philosophy (which as an anglo american I would). But then I am action oriented, from the martial and commercial class, and arguably a member of the lesser aristocracy.) –Science– (investigation) —Aristotelianism (what we call science) is demanding and at times forces us to confront uncomfortable truths, but at least when large numbers of us adopt it, we are able to master reality better than all other philosophies combined. The problem is that it is an aristocratic philosophy because it requires great effort and ability to learn and apply. Which is why we invest so heavily in education: we must. Secondly, science is the study of cause and effect. But scientific analysis implies the ability to act with discretion. At the same time, rule of law exists to prevent discretion, and thereby create rules that prevent others from using discretion to manipulate us. Third, it is contentious open question whether at any scale discretionary action does more harm than good, or whether rule based action prohibits discretion when it may be beneficial. To no small degree this debate between the purpose of social science being the development of rules (conservatism) or the development of discretion (progressivism) is the cause of the political conflict of visions. Hence Sowell’s criticism of the progressive “vision of the anointed’. And it is the source of conflict between the Austrian (do nothing or naturalistic/german), Freshwater (develop rules/anglo) and Saltwater(discretionary/jewish) schools of economics – which is the discipline has evolved into our only social science. RECOMMENDATIONS So when you ask me “Where should I start in philosophy” the above understanding provides us with a framework for answering that question. You can seek to learn virtue, seek to learn wisdom, seek to learn scientific laws. You can seek personal fulfillment independent of the world at the lower end of the spectrum, or you can seek personal fulfillment within the rich competition of the world. Or you can seek comprehension of all – politics – even if you choose to pursue only personal of familial happiness. If you cause no harm by externality then I suppose that I don’t care which you choose. I would recommend that you know the truth first, and then read the ancient texts for insight into the wisdom of each age. But this is mere entertainment. These were old technologies that have been replaced with new technologies. it is sometimes entertaining to study watchmaking in an era of computer science, but it is merely entertainment, not necessary information. I cannot give counsel on that choice. I can give you counsel if you choose law and science. This is partly because I was born naturally analytical and less affected by signals and emotions than most. If you are, as are many women, the opposite, then you may need to choose a different method of achieving happiness. But, if by some chance, if you want to know the truth, regardless of the burden it places upon you then I will recommend that you start here: START WITH THE GOAL 1) The Meditations of Aurelius. Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics. In that order. THEN THE THEORY 1) Popper’s Knowledge and Ignorance and Hayek’s Use of Knowledge in Society. and Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson which will teach you the basic principle of costs in equilibrium. A brief introduction to Popper’s Critical Rationalism online, even if it is the few paragraphs on my site, In which you will be introduced to the darwinian approach to the evolution of knowledge. At which point you will understand that in the physical, social, and cognitive sciences, we speak in terms of information causing changes in state. Which is, as far as I know, the present, if not final, model of all human understanding about any domain. NEXT THE EVOLUTION OF THE LAWS 2) The Magna Carta, The Declaration, Constitution, Bill of rights. The Milsom’s history of the common law. Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty, and Law, Legislation and Liberty. THEN GO FOR WISDOM : THE SHORT LIST Ricardo Duchesne: The Uniqueness of Western Civilization JP Mallory: In Search of Indo Europeans John Keegan: A History Of Warfare Joseph Campbell : The Hero’s Journey Karen Armstrong : The Great Transformation Bryan Ward-Perkins: The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization William Tucker: Marriage and Civilization Emmanuel Todd: The Explanation of Ideology Emmanuel Todd: The Invention of Europe David Hackett Fischer: Albion‘s Seed: Four British Folkways in America Daniel Hannan: Inventing Freedom Alan MacFarlane : Origins of English Individualism Gregory Clark: A Farewell to Alms Matt Ridley: The Red Queen Dale Petersen: Demonic Males Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast and Slow Francis Fukuyama: Trust Jonathan Haidt: The Righteous Mind Stephen Hicks : Explaining Postmodernism Hans Hoppe: Democracy The God That Failed Doolittle: Propertarianism. THE LONGER LIST If you read those works you will be able to both (a) understand testimonialism, propertarianism, and (b) work through the rest of my reading list at www.propertarianism.com/reading-list/ which is, as far as I know, the sum of works worth investment given our current knowledge of the technology of cooperation. And after that it’s just experience and wisdom. And in gaining it, sorting the scarce kernels of wisdom from the vast chaff of human intellectual history. Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine (Tallinn, Estonia)

  • Q: “How Do I Learn Philosophy”

    (really good piece) [Q]: “CURT, HOW DO I LEARN PHILOSOPHY?” A: WELL THAT REQUIRES DEFINING PHILOSOPHY AND CHOOSING WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN FROM IT. QUESTION

    —“Hey curt, since you mentioned newbies. If an individual was beginning planning a self taught curriculum in philosophy, what would you recommend for sources? And does eastern philosophy like the teachings of the Tao hold any significance in your paradigm?”—

    ANSWER First, we need to define Philosophy. Which I think I can successfully do by stating it’s a set of ideas that assist us in forming a framework of understanding, whether by imitation of others – whether real or mythical (virtue), rules of conduct and decision making(deontological), or understanding of the mechanics of the universe(teleological), with which we can use limited human knowledge and reason for the purposes of acting to achieve needs, satisfactions, and fulfillments, by cooperating successfully in a world of others doing the same.THE OPTIONS This hierarchy of philosophies is important: imitation of virtue, dedication to rules, and understanding of cause and effect producing outcomes, place different demands on the individual. -One’s Experience- i – children and primitive cultures rely on virtue (religion) ii – adults in developing cultures rely on rules (law) iii – the wise in mature cultures rely on outcomes (science) This is the usual progression of one’s personal philosophy through life. As children, adults and at our maturity we make use of virtue, rule, and outcome ethics because that is the best we can manage at every stage of our development. This progression also remains useful, and is why wise me resort to “what would jesus do” or “what would such and such a great man do?”. Because that virtuous wisdom is, at times, the only possible means of decision making with sparse information. Just as we fall back upon rules when we are unsure of outcomes. Just as we rely upon our knowledge of outcomes to make decisions when we have accumulated the knowledge and experience to do so. So it is not a matter of choosing virtue, rule, or outcome ethics. It is a matter of acquiring each so that one can apply each in the circumstances where one possesses the information to do so – and conversely: one can judge the ethics of others by the rules they apply in each circumstance. A child who errs by virtue ethics is forgivable. An adult who errs by rules is forgivable. An wise man who errs despite his vast knowledge of a subject is forgivable. Yet the inverse is not true: a wise man who relies upon rules when he is masterful is suspect, an adult who relies upon virtue is suspect. A child who relies upon anything other than virtue is suspect. -One’s Abilities- There is a reason why women and people of lower IQ favor religion, why people in the liberal arts favor philosophy and pseudoscience, and why men and people of higher IQ favor history and science. That is because they possess the means by which to acquire and use those systems of of thought given their experience and ability. Furthermore, the acquisition of virtue, rule and outcome knowledge is costly to the individual. Not all can afford the investment, and not all have access to the literature or teachers from whom they can learn it. We do not expect feral children to demonstrate any of the ethical frameworks, and it is very difficult not to expect a first world child not to posses at least virtue ethics, if not rule ethics, and we attempt (possibly, if not probably, foolishly) to teach our children outcome ethics in the present era. -One’s control over one’s actions in life- Different philosophies whether virtuous, rational, or scientific are more or less use in different circumstances. We can break philosophies into: 1-religions, 2-disciplines 3-rationalisms(philosophies), 4-laws, and 5-sciences. It is very hard to classify any one of the bodies of thought below because all philosophical systems contain attributes of each category. I’ve organized them the best that I can. -Religions- (faith) — Christianity provides a body of myth and ritual with but one purpose: the extension of kinship love to non kin, as a means of generating universal inclusiveness. It is a religion of benevolent pacification cured only by it’s opposite in the martial nobility. Islam provides rules and virtues for people with limited intelligence to observe and daily rituals to enforce them – although this is a false promise since it achieves the opposite. I am uncomfortable commending on Hinduism since I am not sure I really understand it sufficiently (I see it through buddha’s eyes, as needing reformation), and all other ‘religions’ that I know of have been unsuccessful, or are obviously detrimental. Japan’s Shintoism combines both monarchy, ancestor worship and buddhism to produce fealty to family, clan, tribe and nation, as well as self control. For an homogenous people the combination of history, nature worship, and self control is hard to criticize other than the people are often frustrated and emotionally repressed. –Disciplines– (training) —Buddhism provides a means of achieving personal satisfaction for those who live in worlds where they have few resources, few options, little control over their circumstances. It focuses on the self. Combined with Yoga it is extremely attractive to women. Stoicism provides a means of achieving personal happiness for those who live in civilized worlds but who have little control over their environments. Stoicism is the opposite of buddhism in that buddhism achieves satisfaction by escapism and internal discipline, while stoicism achieves satisfaction by means of creating many small successes in daily life, accumulating in your achievement of virtue independent of the opinions of others. Combined with Sport it is extremely attractive to men. I tend to have a favorable view of both buddhism and stoicism. –Rationalisms— (reasoning) —Confucianism provides a means of obtaining satisfaction by conformity to fixed roles in society and providing us with wisdom for operating within those roles. Unfortunately Confucianism is paired with Sun Tzu: the philosophy of deception, and Lao Tzu: the philosophy of the poor within a hierarchical system. Together they advocate submission to authority as a means of avoiding conflict. Ancient Greco-Roman Philosophy – prior to Aristotle is interesting for the breadth of experiment that occurred in seeking a solution. I recommend The Ethics and the Politics. That’s all. Christian Natural Law Philosophy – Aquinas is interesting, but I would recommend skipping him, reading the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries on Natural Law instead. Anglo Empirical (Moral) Philosophy – Locke, Smith and Hume constitute the enlightenment philosophers of necessity. Continental Philosophy – is reactionary in order to compensate for the disorder produced by the errors in anglo empirical philosophy’s assumption of an aristocracy of everyone. So Continental is little more than an attempt to create a rational rather than supernatural justification of existing moral orders. There is plenty of wisdom in that philosophy, and great aspiration to it. Especially Nietzsche, who is the point of demarcation between christian mysticism and naturalistic philosophy. but it is also the source pseudoscience and lies. Cosmopolitan Philosophy (Pseudoscience, Loading, framing and overloading) Marx, Freud, Cantor, Mises, Rothbard. The only cosmopolitan I recommend is Popper and while he is most definitely a cosmopolitan, he adopted Hayek’s information theory. (When I criticize rationalism it is the incremental development of pseudoscience and deceit by justificationism, loading, framing, and overloading that I am trying to reverse with Testimonialism. The anglos philosophers were wrong in their assumptions of man, but right in their method of argument. The continentals were right in their assumptions of man but wrong in their method of argument. The cosmopolitans were dishonest in their articulation of man, and dishonest in their method of argument.) Anglo Ratio-Scientific (Legal) Philosophy – Anglo Common Law, Machiavelli, Jefferson, Pareto, Durkheim, (Popper), Hayek, (Doolittle). Science: The discovery of general rules by repeated observation resulting in accumulated wisdom. Virtue, Rules, Wisdom, where wisdom feeds back to virtue and rules. This is an inter-generational process of empirical refinement. –Laws– (captured rules) —Judaism provides a means for not only exiting their incompetent classes but an entire body of law to master, and overwhelming pressure to remain within the polity which is ensured by the hostility to outsiders and therefore outsider hostility to insiders. Judaism is perhaps the ultimate synthesis of rule based systems and history even if it is a failed system because it lacks the moral content necessary to hold land. It originated with pastoralists and remains a pastorialist (unlanded) doctrine. It lacks intertemporal moral content. That is why the jews cannot hold land. Anglo Constitutionalism expresses philosophy as law and very much under natural law, presumably as logically and scientifically constructed as is possible. Most americans are legalists – the law as religious order. Legalism can be thought of as the struggle to understand the laws of cooperation, just as we understand the laws of the physical universe. All anglo legal theory is an empirical attempt to discover and codify natural law in the absence of human discretion. This is a scientific experiment unique to anglo civilization. It is flawed only by the assumption that it is in the interests of the lower classes to compete meritocratic-ally. The fact is that only with eugenic manorialism or a substitute can such a system function. This is why no other groups use it. They are too weighted down with the lower classes who are incapable of competition and cooperation by moral means. (I tend to view law as the ultimate expression of any philosophy (which as an anglo american I would). But then I am action oriented, from the martial and commercial class, and arguably a member of the lesser aristocracy.) –Science– (investigation) —Aristotelianism (what we call science) is demanding and at times forces us to confront uncomfortable truths, but at least when large numbers of us adopt it, we are able to master reality better than all other philosophies combined. The problem is that it is an aristocratic philosophy because it requires great effort and ability to learn and apply. Which is why we invest so heavily in education: we must. Secondly, science is the study of cause and effect. But scientific analysis implies the ability to act with discretion. At the same time, rule of law exists to prevent discretion, and thereby create rules that prevent others from using discretion to manipulate us. Third, it is contentious open question whether at any scale discretionary action does more harm than good, or whether rule based action prohibits discretion when it may be beneficial. To no small degree this debate between the purpose of social science being the development of rules (conservatism) or the development of discretion (progressivism) is the cause of the political conflict of visions. Hence Sowell’s criticism of the progressive “vision of the anointed’. And it is the source of conflict between the Austrian (do nothing or naturalistic/german), Freshwater (develop rules/anglo) and Saltwater(discretionary/jewish) schools of economics – which is the discipline has evolved into our only social science. RECOMMENDATIONS So when you ask me “Where should I start in philosophy” the above understanding provides us with a framework for answering that question. You can seek to learn virtue, seek to learn wisdom, seek to learn scientific laws. You can seek personal fulfillment independent of the world at the lower end of the spectrum, or you can seek personal fulfillment within the rich competition of the world. Or you can seek comprehension of all – politics – even if you choose to pursue only personal of familial happiness. If you cause no harm by externality then I suppose that I don’t care which you choose. I would recommend that you know the truth first, and then read the ancient texts for insight into the wisdom of each age. But this is mere entertainment. These were old technologies that have been replaced with new technologies. it is sometimes entertaining to study watchmaking in an era of computer science, but it is merely entertainment, not necessary information. I cannot give counsel on that choice. I can give you counsel if you choose law and science. This is partly because I was born naturally analytical and less affected by signals and emotions than most. If you are, as are many women, the opposite, then you may need to choose a different method of achieving happiness. But, if by some chance, if you want to know the truth, regardless of the burden it places upon you then I will recommend that you start here: START WITH THE GOAL 1) The Meditations of Aurelius. Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics. In that order. THEN THE THEORY 1) Popper’s Knowledge and Ignorance and Hayek’s Use of Knowledge in Society. and Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson which will teach you the basic principle of costs in equilibrium. A brief introduction to Popper’s Critical Rationalism online, even if it is the few paragraphs on my site, In which you will be introduced to the darwinian approach to the evolution of knowledge. At which point you will understand that in the physical, social, and cognitive sciences, we speak in terms of information causing changes in state. Which is, as far as I know, the present, if not final, model of all human understanding about any domain. NEXT THE EVOLUTION OF THE LAWS 2) The Magna Carta, The Declaration, Constitution, Bill of rights. The Milsom’s history of the common law. Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty, and Law, Legislation and Liberty. THEN GO FOR WISDOM : THE SHORT LIST Ricardo Duchesne: The Uniqueness of Western Civilization JP Mallory: In Search of Indo Europeans John Keegan: A History Of Warfare Joseph Campbell : The Hero’s Journey Karen Armstrong : The Great Transformation Bryan Ward-Perkins: The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization William Tucker: Marriage and Civilization Emmanuel Todd: The Explanation of Ideology Emmanuel Todd: The Invention of Europe David Hackett Fischer: Albion‘s Seed: Four British Folkways in America Daniel Hannan: Inventing Freedom Alan MacFarlane : Origins of English Individualism Gregory Clark: A Farewell to Alms Matt Ridley: The Red Queen Dale Petersen: Demonic Males Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast and Slow Francis Fukuyama: Trust Jonathan Haidt: The Righteous Mind Stephen Hicks : Explaining Postmodernism Hans Hoppe: Democracy The God That Failed Doolittle: Propertarianism. THE LONGER LIST If you read those works you will be able to both (a) understand testimonialism, propertarianism, and (b) work through the rest of my reading list at www.propertarianism.com/reading-list/ which is, as far as I know, the sum of works worth investment given our current knowledge of the technology of cooperation. And after that it’s just experience and wisdom. And in gaining it, sorting the scarce kernels of wisdom from the vast chaff of human intellectual history. Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine (Tallinn, Estonia)

  • “CURT, HOW DO I LEARN PHILOSOPHY?” A: WELL THAT REQUIRES DEFINING PHILOSOPHY AND

    http://www.propertarianism.com/Q: “CURT, HOW DO I LEARN PHILOSOPHY?” A: WELL THAT REQUIRES DEFINING PHILOSOPHY AND CHOOSING WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN FROM IT.

    (really good piece)

    QUESTION

    —“Hey curt, since you mentioned newbies. If an individual was beginning planning a self taught curriculum in philosophy, what would you recommend for sources? And does eastern philosophy like the teachings of the Tao hold any significance in your paradigm?”—

    ANSWER

    First, we need to define Philosophy. Which I think I can successfully do by stating it’s a set of ideas that assist us in forming a framework of understanding, whether by imitation of others – whether real or mythical (virtue), rules of conduct and decision making(deontological), or understanding of the mechanics of the universe(teleological), with which we can use limited human knowledge and reason for the purposes of acting to achieve needs, satisfactions, and fulfillments, by cooperating successfully in a world of others doing the same.

    THE OPTIONS

    This hierarchy of philosophies is important: imitation of virtue, dedication to rules, and understanding of cause and effect producing outcomes, place different demands on the individual.

    -One’s Experience-

    i – children and primitive cultures rely on virtue (religion)

    ii – adults in developing cultures rely on rules (law)

    iii – the wise in mature cultures rely on outcomes (science)

    This is the usual progression of one’s personal philosophy through life. As children, adults and at our maturity we make use of virtue, rule, and outcome ethics because that is the best we can manage at every stage of our development.

    This progression also remains useful, and is why wise me resort to “what would jesus do” or “what would such and such a great man do?”. Because that virtuous wisdom is, at times, the only possible means of decision making with sparse information. Just as we fall back upon rules when we are unsure of outcomes. Just as we rely upon our knowledge of outcomes to make decisions when we have accumulated the knowledge and experience to do so.

    So it is not a matter of choosing virtue, rule, or outcome ethics. It is a matter of acquiring each so that one can apply each in the circumstances where one possesses the information to do so – and conversely: one can judge the ethics of others by the rules they apply in each circumstance. A child who errs by virtue ethics is forgivable. An adult who errs by rules is forgivable. An wise man who errs despite his vast knowledge of a subject is forgivable. Yet the inverse is not true: a wise man who relies upon rules when he is masterful is suspect, an adult who relies upon virtue is suspect. A child who relies upon anything other than virtue is suspect.

    -One’s Abilities-

    There is a reason why women and people of lower IQ favor religion, why people in the liberal arts favor philosophy and pseudoscience, and why men and people of higher IQ favor history and science. That is because they possess the means by which to acquire and use those systems of of thought given their experience and ability.

    Furthermore, the acquisition of virtue, rule and outcome knowledge is costly to the individual. Not all can afford the investment, and not all have access to the literature or teachers from whom they can learn it. We do not expect feral children to demonstrate any of the ethical frameworks, and it is very difficult not to expect a first world child not to posses at least virtue ethics, if not rule ethics, and we attempt (possibly, if not probably, foolishly) to teach our children outcome ethics in the present era.

    -One’s control over one’s actions in life-

    Different philosophies whether virtuous, rational, or scientific are more or less use in different circumstances. We can break philosophies into:

    1-religions,

    2-disciplines

    3-rationalisms(philosophies),

    4-laws, and

    5-sciences.

    It is very hard to classify any one of the bodies of thought below because all philosophical systems contain attributes of each category. I’ve organized them the best that I can.

    -Religions- (faith) —

    Christianity provides a body of myth and ritual with but one purpose: the extension of kinship love to non kin, as a means of generating universal inclusiveness. It is a religion of benevolent pacification cured only by it’s opposite in the martial nobility.

    Islam provides rules and virtues for people with limited intelligence to observe and daily rituals to enforce them – although this is a false promise since it achieves the opposite.

    I am uncomfortable commending on Hinduism since I am not sure I really understand it sufficiently (I see it through buddha’s eyes, as needing reformation), and all other ‘religions’ that I know of have been unsuccessful, or are obviously detrimental.

    Japan’s Shintoism combines both monarchy, ancestor worship and buddhism to produce fealty to family, clan, tribe and nation, as well as self control. For an homogenous people the combination of history, nature worship, and self control is hard to criticize other than the people are often frustrated and emotionally repressed.

    –Disciplines– (training) —

    Buddhism provides a means of achieving personal satisfaction for those who live in worlds where they have few resources, few options, little control over their circumstances. It focuses on the self. Combined with Yoga it is extremely attractive to women.

    Stoicism provides a means of achieving personal happiness for those who live in civilized worlds but who have little control over their environments. Stoicism is the opposite of buddhism in that buddhism achieves satisfaction by escapism and internal discipline, while stoicism achieves satisfaction by means of creating many small successes in daily life, accumulating in your achievement of virtue independent of the opinions of others. Combined with Sport it is extremely attractive to men.

    I tend to have a favorable view of both buddhism and stoicism.

    –Rationalisms— (reasoning) —

    Confucianism provides a means of obtaining satisfaction by conformity to fixed roles in society and providing us with wisdom for operating within those roles. Unfortunately Confucianism is paired with Sun Tzu: the philosophy of deception, and Lao Tzu: the philosophy of the poor within a hierarchical system. Together they advocate submission to authority as a means of avoiding conflict.

    Ancient Greco-Roman Philosophy – prior to Aristotle is interesting for the breadth of experiment that occurred in seeking a solution. I recommend The Ethics and the Politics. That’s all.

    Christian Natural Law Philosophy – Aquinas is interesting, but I would recommend skipping him, reading the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries on Natural Law instead.

    Anglo Empirical (Moral) Philosophy – Locke, Smith and Hume constitute the enlightenment philosophers of necessity.

    Continental Philosophy – is reactionary in order to compensate for the disorder produced by the errors in anglo empirical philosophy’s assumption of an aristocracy of everyone. So Continental is little more than an attempt to create a rational rather than supernatural justification of existing moral orders. There is plenty of wisdom in that philosophy, and great aspiration to it. Especially Nietzsche, who is the point of demarcation between christian mysticism and naturalistic philosophy. but it is also the source pseudoscience and lies.

    Cosmopolitan Philosophy (Pseudoscience, Loading, framing and overloading) Marx, Freud, Cantor, Mises, Rothbard. The only cosmopolitan I recommend is Popper and while he is most definitely a cosmopolitan, he adopted Hayek’s information theory.

    (When I criticize rationalism it is the incremental development of pseudoscience and deceit by justificationism, loading, framing, and overloading that I am trying to reverse with Testimonialism. The anglos philosophers were wrong in their assumptions of man, but right in their method of argument. The continentals were right in their assumptions of man but wrong in their method of argument. The cosmopolitans were dishonest in their articulation of man, and dishonest in their method of argument.)

    Anglo Ratio-Scientific (Legal) Philosophy – Anglo Common Law, Machiavelli, Jefferson, Pareto, Durkheim, (Popper), Hayek, (Doolittle).

    Science: The discovery of general rules by repeated observation resulting in accumulated wisdom. Virtue, Rules, Wisdom, where wisdom feeds back to virtue and rules. This is an inter-generational process of empirical refinement.

    –Laws– (captured rules) —

    Judaism provides a means for not only exiting their incompetent classes but an entire body of law to master, and overwhelming pressure to remain within the polity which is ensured by the hostility to outsiders and therefore outsider hostility to insiders. Judaism is perhaps the ultimate synthesis of rule based systems and history even if it is a failed system because it lacks the moral content necessary to hold land. It originated with pastoralists and remains a pastorialist (unlanded) doctrine. It lacks intertemporal moral content. That is why the jews cannot hold land.

    Anglo Constitutionalism expresses philosophy as law and very much under natural law, presumably as logically and scientifically constructed as is possible. Most americans are legalists – the law as religious order. Legalism can be thought of as the struggle to understand the laws of cooperation, just as we understand the laws of the physical universe. All anglo legal theory is an empirical attempt to discover and codify natural law in the absence of human discretion. This is a scientific experiment unique to anglo civilization. It is flawed only by the assumption that it is in the interests of the lower classes to compete meritocratic-ally. The fact is that only with eugenic manorialism or a substitute can such a system function. This is why no other groups use it. They are too weighted down with the lower classes who are incapable of competition and cooperation by moral means.

    (I tend to view law as the ultimate expression of any philosophy (which as an anglo american I would). But then I am action oriented, from the martial and commercial class, and arguably a member of the lesser aristocracy.)

    –Science– (investigation) —

    Aristotelianism (what we call science) is demanding and at times forces us to confront uncomfortable truths, but at least when large numbers of us adopt it, we are able to master reality better than all other philosophies combined. The problem is that it is an aristocratic philosophy because it requires great effort and ability to learn and apply. Which is why we invest so heavily in education: we must.

    Secondly, science is the study of cause and effect. But scientific analysis implies the ability to act with discretion. At the same time, rule of law exists to prevent discretion, and thereby create rules that prevent others from using discretion to manipulate us.

    Third, it is contentious open question whether at any scale discretionary action does more harm than good, or whether rule based action prohibits discretion when it may be beneficial.

    To no small degree this debate between the purpose of social science being the development of rules (conservatism) or the development of discretion (progressivism) is the cause of the political conflict of visions. Hence Sowell’s criticism of the progressive “vision of the anointed’.

    And it is the source of conflict between the Austrian (do nothing or naturalistic/german), Freshwater (develop rules/anglo) and Saltwater(discretionary/jewish) schools of economics – which is the discipline has evolved into our only social science.

    RECOMMENDATIONS

    So when you ask me “Where should I start in philosophy” the above understanding provides us with a framework for answering that question. You can seek to learn virtue, seek to learn wisdom, seek to learn scientific laws.

    You can seek personal fulfillment independent of the world at the lower end of the spectrum, or you can seek personal fulfillment within the rich competition of the world. Or you can seek comprehension of all – politics – even if you choose to pursue only personal of familial happiness.

    If you cause no harm by externality then I suppose that I don’t care which you choose. I would recommend that you know the truth first, and then read the ancient texts for insight into the wisdom of each age. But this is mere entertainment. These were old technologies that have been replaced with new technologies. it is sometimes entertaining to study watchmaking in an era of computer science, but it is merely entertainment, not necessary information.

    I cannot give counsel on that choice. I can give you counsel if you choose law and science. This is partly because I was born naturally analytical and less affected by signals and emotions than most. If you are, as are many women, the opposite, then you may need to choose a different method of achieving happiness.

    But, if by some chance, if you want to know the truth, regardless of the burden it places upon you then I will recommend that you start here:

    START WITH THE GOAL

    1) The Meditations of Aurelius. Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics. In that order.

    THEN THE THEORY

    1) Popper’s Knowledge and Ignorance and Hayek’s Use of Knowledge in Society. and Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson which will teach you the basic principle of costs in equilibrium. A brief introduction to Popper’s Critical Rationalism online, even if it is the few paragraphs on my site, In which you will be introduced to the darwinian approach to the evolution of knowledge. At which point you will understand that in the physical, social, and cognitive sciences, we speak in terms of information causing changes in state. Which is, as far as I know, the present, if not final, model of all human understanding about any domain.

    NEXT THE EVOLUTION OF THE LAWS

    2) The Magna Carta, The Declaration, Constitution, Bill of rights. The Milsom’s history of the common law. Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty, and Law, Legislation and Liberty.

    THEN GO FOR WISDOM : THE SHORT LIST

    Ricardo Duchesne: The Uniqueness of Western Civilization

    JP Mallory: In Search of Indo Europeans

    John Keegan: A History Of Warfare

    Joseph Campbell : The Hero’s Journey

    Karen Armstrong : The Great Transformation

    Bryan Ward-Perkins: The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization

    William Tucker: Marriage and Civilization

    Emmanuel Todd: The Explanation of Ideology

    Emmanuel Todd: The Invention of Europe

    David Hackett Fischer: Albion‘s Seed: Four British Folkways in America

    Daniel Hannan: Inventing Freedom

    Alan MacFarlane : Origins of English Individualism

    Gregory Clark: A Farewell to Alms

    Matt Ridley: The Red Queen

    Dale Petersen: Demonic Males

    Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast and Slow

    Francis Fukuyama: Trust

    Jonathan Haidt: The Righteous Mind

    Stephen Hicks : Explaining Postmodernism

    Hans Hoppe: Democracy The God That Failed

    Doolittle: Propertarianism.

    THE LONGER LIST

    If you read those works you will be able to both (a) understand testimonialism, propertarianism, and (b) work through the rest of my reading list at www.propertarianism.com/reading-list/ which is, as far as I know, the sum of works worth investment given our current knowledge of the technology of cooperation.

    And after that it’s just experience and wisdom. And in gaining it, sorting the scarce kernels of wisdom from the vast chaff of human intellectual history.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Philosophy of Aristocracy

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine (Tallinn, Estonia)

    Source date (UTC): 2015-08-07 06:22:00 UTC

  • Education: We Do It Wrong.

    [W]e do it wrong. 1) Reading and writing. 2) Testimony( witness, grammar, rhetoric, logic, moral law, contract). 3) History(technical,organizational,economic,artistic). 4) Arithmetic( arithmetic, checkbooks, accounting, credit and interest, banking), 5) Mathematics(algebra, trigonometry, statistics, calculus), 6) Economics (micro-economics, institutions of cooperation, macro-economics). 7) Physics(physics, chemistry, biology). Note the absence of politics and indoctrination.

    Get a job as young as you can. Youth employment not immigrant employment. Elderly employment, not immigrant employment. Travel for a year or two in your late teens. Borrowing to travel is the best investment you can make in your youth. Parochialism is the greatest liability you can most easily overcome. ( Look at the Mormons ) Or do two years in military service learning emergency skills, crowd control, civil defense, and the basics of weapons, fire, movement, communication and fitness. Then go to college. If you go to college you can learn a skill: a quantitative discipline. Or you can seek entertainment: non-quantitative fields. College is a *shitty* filter with not enough variation in filtration. Little of it is useful. And universities teach and distribute cathedral ignorance. Learning selflessness, cooperation, variation, emergency and fighting teaches you to be successful regardless of what technical skill you possess. Then learn a technical skill: the hardest that you can manage and feel confident in using.

  • Education: We Do It Wrong.

    [W]e do it wrong. 1) Reading and writing. 2) Testimony( witness, grammar, rhetoric, logic, moral law, contract). 3) History(technical,organizational,economic,artistic). 4) Arithmetic( arithmetic, checkbooks, accounting, credit and interest, banking), 5) Mathematics(algebra, trigonometry, statistics, calculus), 6) Economics (micro-economics, institutions of cooperation, macro-economics). 7) Physics(physics, chemistry, biology). Note the absence of politics and indoctrination.

    Get a job as young as you can. Youth employment not immigrant employment. Elderly employment, not immigrant employment. Travel for a year or two in your late teens. Borrowing to travel is the best investment you can make in your youth. Parochialism is the greatest liability you can most easily overcome. ( Look at the Mormons ) Or do two years in military service learning emergency skills, crowd control, civil defense, and the basics of weapons, fire, movement, communication and fitness. Then go to college. If you go to college you can learn a skill: a quantitative discipline. Or you can seek entertainment: non-quantitative fields. College is a *shitty* filter with not enough variation in filtration. Little of it is useful. And universities teach and distribute cathedral ignorance. Learning selflessness, cooperation, variation, emergency and fighting teaches you to be successful regardless of what technical skill you possess. Then learn a technical skill: the hardest that you can manage and feel confident in using.

  • A Hierarchy of Argumentative Structures

    (useful) (learning propertarianism)

    [T]he next ten arguments you make, try to determine which form of argument the person is relying upon. (Not with me. I have enough to do. Test your cunning elsewhere.) If you do this a few times you will begin to intuit it in every argument.

    1) EXPRESSIVE (emotional): a type of argument where a person expresses a positive or negative opinion based upon his emotional response to the subject.

    2) SENTIMENTAL (biological): a type of argument that relies upon one of the five (or six) human sentiments, and their artifacts as captured in human traditions, morals, or other unarticulated, but nevertheless consistently and universally demonstrated preferences and behaviors.

    3) MORAL (normative) : a type of argument that relies upon a set of assumedly normative rules of whose origin is either (a)socially contractual, (b)biologically natural, (c) economically necessary, or even (d)divine. (Also: RELIGIOUS)

    4) RATIONAL (logical) – Most philosophical arguments rely upon contradiction and internal consistency rather than external correspondence.

    5) HISTORICAL (analogical): A spectrum of analogical arguments – from Historical to Anecdotal — that rely upon a relationship between a historical sequence of events, and a present sequence events, in order to suggest that the current events will come to the same conclusion as did the past events, or can be used to invalidate or validate assumptions about the current period.

    6) SCIENTIFIC (directly empirical): The use of a set of measurements that produce data that can be used to prove or disprove an hypothesis, but which are subject to human cognitive biases and preferences. ie: ‘Bottom up analysis”

    7) ECONOMIC: (indirectly empirical): The use of a set of measures consisting of uncontrolled variables, for the purpose of circumventing the problems of direct human inquiry into human preferences, by the process of capturing demonstrated preferences, as expressed by human exchanges, usually in the form of money. ie: “Top Down Analysis”. The weakness of economic arguments is caused by the elimination of properties and causes that are necessary for the process of aggregation.

    8) RATIO-EMPIRICAL (Comprehensive: Using all above): A rationally articulated argument that makes use of economic, scientific, historical, normative and sentimental information to comprehensively prove that a position is defensible under all objections. NOTE: See “Styles of Argument” below.

    9) TRUTHFUL: categorically consistent, Internally consistent (logical), Externally Correspondent (Instrumentally observable), Operationally articulated (Possible), Fully Accounted, Moral (free of imposed costs).

    10) THE TAUTOLOGICAL TRUTH – Not so much an argument but the most parsimonious verbal statement is possible.

    Curt Doolittle’s “Degrees Of Political Argument”*1, from least to most substantive: *1[capitalismv3.com 2011]

  • A Hierarchy of Argumentative Structures

    (useful) (learning propertarianism)

    [T]he next ten arguments you make, try to determine which form of argument the person is relying upon. (Not with me. I have enough to do. Test your cunning elsewhere.) If you do this a few times you will begin to intuit it in every argument.

    1) EXPRESSIVE (emotional): a type of argument where a person expresses a positive or negative opinion based upon his emotional response to the subject.

    2) SENTIMENTAL (biological): a type of argument that relies upon one of the five (or six) human sentiments, and their artifacts as captured in human traditions, morals, or other unarticulated, but nevertheless consistently and universally demonstrated preferences and behaviors.

    3) MORAL (normative) : a type of argument that relies upon a set of assumedly normative rules of whose origin is either (a)socially contractual, (b)biologically natural, (c) economically necessary, or even (d)divine. (Also: RELIGIOUS)

    4) RATIONAL (logical) – Most philosophical arguments rely upon contradiction and internal consistency rather than external correspondence.

    5) HISTORICAL (analogical): A spectrum of analogical arguments – from Historical to Anecdotal — that rely upon a relationship between a historical sequence of events, and a present sequence events, in order to suggest that the current events will come to the same conclusion as did the past events, or can be used to invalidate or validate assumptions about the current period.

    6) SCIENTIFIC (directly empirical): The use of a set of measurements that produce data that can be used to prove or disprove an hypothesis, but which are subject to human cognitive biases and preferences. ie: ‘Bottom up analysis”

    7) ECONOMIC: (indirectly empirical): The use of a set of measures consisting of uncontrolled variables, for the purpose of circumventing the problems of direct human inquiry into human preferences, by the process of capturing demonstrated preferences, as expressed by human exchanges, usually in the form of money. ie: “Top Down Analysis”. The weakness of economic arguments is caused by the elimination of properties and causes that are necessary for the process of aggregation.

    8) RATIO-EMPIRICAL (Comprehensive: Using all above): A rationally articulated argument that makes use of economic, scientific, historical, normative and sentimental information to comprehensively prove that a position is defensible under all objections. NOTE: See “Styles of Argument” below.

    9) TRUTHFUL: categorically consistent, Internally consistent (logical), Externally Correspondent (Instrumentally observable), Operationally articulated (Possible), Fully Accounted, Moral (free of imposed costs).

    10) THE TAUTOLOGICAL TRUTH – Not so much an argument but the most parsimonious verbal statement is possible.

    Curt Doolittle’s “Degrees Of Political Argument”*1, from least to most substantive: *1[capitalismv3.com 2011]

  • EDUCATION We do it wrong. 1) Reading and writing. 2) Testimony( witness, grammar

    EDUCATION

    We do it wrong.

    1) Reading and writing.

    2) Testimony( witness, grammar, rhetoric, logic, moral law, contract). 3) History(technical,organizational,economic,artistic).

    4) Arithmetic( arithmetic, checkbooks, accounting, credit and interest, banking),

    5) Mathematics(algebra, trigonometry, statistics, calculus),

    6) Economics (micro-economics, institutions of cooperation, macro-economics).

    7) Physics(physics, chemistry, biology).

    Note the absence of politics and indoctrination.

    Get a job as young as you can. Youth employment not immigrant employment. Elderly employment, not immigrant employment.

    Travel for a year or two in your late teens. Borrowing to travel is the best investment you can make in your youth. Parochialism is the greatest liability you can most easily overcome. ( Look at the Mormons )

    Or do two years in military service learning emergency skills, crowd control, civil defense, and the basics of weapons, fire, movement, communication and fitness.

    Then go to college. If you go to college you can learn a skill: a quantitative discipline. Or you can seek entertainment: non-quantitative fields.

    College is a *shitty* filter with not enough variation in filtration. Little of it is useful. And universities teach and distribute cathedral ignorance. Learning selflessness, cooperation, variation, emergency and fighting teaches you to be successful regardless of what technical skill you possess.

    Then learn a technical skill: the hardest that you can manage and feel confident in using.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-07-27 03:12:00 UTC