[Wittrs] Re: "free will" versus "willing to be free"
- From: "SWM" <swmirsky@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:27:20 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, kirby urner <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> From: Kirby Urner <kurner@...>
> Date: Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 1:32 AM
> Subject: Re: wittgenstein stuff
> To: kirby urner <kirby.urner@...>
>
>
> .... ongoing discussions with SWM and others re freedom of the will.
<snip>
>
> > > I take Wittgenstein's methods to give strong encouragement to *not*
> > > carving the turkey so carefully, but deliberately reconnecting these
> > > concepts ("freedom" "will" "liberty") to their roots in real life.
> > >
> >
> > If we don't carve carefully, we end up with a sloppy plate come
> > Thanksgiving.
> >
>
> 'Philosophical Investigations' is full of "back to rough ground" exhibits,
> where he'll take a philosophical conundrum, such as "other minds",
> and transport us to some actual vista. Like Scrooge with some
> ghost of Xmas past, present or future, LW grabs his philosopher by
> the arm and escorts him to a Real World where people still use
> Ordinary Language....
>
This isn't in dispute though.
> "Am I free?"
>
Precisely and there we have to investigate the various ways we use a word like
"free" -- and recognize that merely because we apply the same word in different
cases doesn't mean that we have in mind the same thing. That "freedom" and
"free-will" both contain "free" doesn't mean that we are talking about the same
sense of free in both cases. Yet we are often led astray by the recurrence of
such a term and may think that its recurrence is evidence of some underlying
single notion. THAT is what Wittgenstein taught us to attend to -- and avoid.
> That's a real question with real meaning, and thoughts of prison, chains,
> freedoms from search and seizure, all have a role. We could really
> use some philosophy, nay even some wisdom, in this consequential
> domain.
Sure, but it's not about "free-will" which is what this discussion was
initially addressing. Are there relations between the terms "freedom" and
"free-will"? Sure. But that doesn't mean the one can be explained or understood
in terms of the other.
> People suffer a lot of frustration when their wills are ignored.
> Perhaps they're just spoiled brats with an overblown sense of
> entitlement? That's something to investigate -- at least now we're
> getting somewhere.
>
> "Do I have Free Will?"
>
> That tends to be an insipid not-question entertained by nerds with
> too much free time on their hands, thinkers of no consequence
> who had enough money and privilege to stay out of harm's way
> in some cloistered environment (Wittgenstein very purposely gave
> up this kind of shielding for himself, as a matter of personal
> integrity).
>
Perhaps it is a bit unfair to denigrate those who ask such a question or
concern themselves with seeking an answer. You and I may agree that "free-will"
is a shaky notion at best, finding its only traction on a metaphysical level
from which philosophy should recuse itself a la Wittgenstein. But it is at
least an issue of longstanding interest to many philosophically inclined folk
and should, perhaps, not be so cavalierly dismissed.
> I think this latter question is more for immature, larval stage thinkers
> to bat about, till the cows come home and then some. It's a sport,
> it's fun, and it's of little consequence. I'll engage myself, when
> taking a break from more serious philosophy. It's like a videogame,
> an excuse to talk about quantum stuff, maybe throw in a little
> dynamical systems (butterfly effects, indeterminisms).
>
That may be but it isn't resolved by converting it into a political question as
in 'what counts as freedom?'.
> > > In the practical world, the juries care very much about intention, and
> > > if she drugged him first, well that matters, as some may empathize
> > > with that sense of having "no volition" when "brainwashed" or, worse,
> > > put under tortuous conditions (e.g. with the lives of loved ones
> > > threatened -- or simply their jobs (livelihoods)).
> > >
> >
> > Questions of coercion, which are relevant in cases before the law or where
> > moral
> > judgment is applied, do not abrogate questions of causality and supposed
> > determinism. As long as we have a choice, to be coerced or to resist
> > coerscion,
>
> They don't abrogate these questions, but they may eclipse them when
> it comes to dealing with substantive philosophical problems.
Or political or political philosophy perhaps.
> Two
> million people in prisons in North America is a way deeper problem
> than some silly ethnicity's concerns about "free will" in some
> abstract / esoteric Ivory Tower debate no one else much cares about.
>
And still it's a different question.
> I'd like a poster campaign showing a 13 year old boy behind bars,
> tried in Georgia State as an adult (name: Little B), with the caption:
> "Free Will? Not if You're Him".
This only uses "free-will" in a way philosophers concerned with that notion
don't mean it, in which case it is only to fudge the issue, not add clarity.
> (c) Americans for the Advancement
> of Philosophy (sounds like astroturf -- the domain names appear
> free).
>
> Then we might have some other posters, like these perhaps:
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157315@N00/5193527381/in/photostream/
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157315@N00/5194125962/in/photostream/
>
> Remember, I'm the guy who applies Wittgenstein's PI to
> advertising. I never really appreciated what 'Pepsi' could
> mean until I plumbed the depths of the PI.
>
That seems pretty strange to me. I am familiar with your advertising meme (as
with your propagandizing meme) from our past discussions. As you may recall, I
think that's mistaken. Not, that is, that one cannot approach philosophy in a
way that applies that analogy but in the sense that one cannot simply replace
philosophy with either propaganda or advertisements.
> Richard Stallman was drinking one (a Pepsi), very overtly,
> in his appearance at the tribal center the other day. RS
> is one of our greatest living philosophers, up there with
> Bertie Russell and Frege, in terms of getting symbolic
> logic out there to the masses (GNU / LISP / C / C++ etc.)
> Free software has proved a real game changer.
>
> http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2011/04/richard-stallman-at-psu.html
>
I count great philosophers a bit differently. I think the concept has nothing
(or at least very little) to do with reaching the masses and almost everything
to do with producing new and powerful ways of understanding things, new
insights. On that score I think Wittgenstein qualifies as one of the great
ones. Bertrand Russell? Not so much.
> > then free will is implied. The question of whether free will exists at all
> > or is
> > real goes beyond such issues however (or perhaps, as Sean suggests,
> > really goes nowhere at all).
>
> Yeah, nowhere. So let's rescue "Free Will" from the larvae
> (the nerds) and restore it to adult use.
>
It's a different concept from "freedom" and if we want to say "free-will" is a
false idea or a misleading one or a nonsensical one, we cannot do it by
collapsing it into a term that it isn't.
> We want to fight for real freedom, not on-paper freedom,
"Free-will" is a different concept entirely from "freedom". Perhaps the latter
is more interesting to many of us than the former. So be it. But that doesn't
mean we can explain the former in terms of the latter.
> and we
> can't afford to let our language get dumbed down by these
> Ivory Towerites of such limited tunnel vision and ability, just
> because they call themselves "philosophers". Sure, let them
> prattle, but don't lets surrender the word "philosophy" to
> them exclusively. We have ethics to think about and issues
> of our own.
>
As you know I have long wrestled over ethical questions myself. I have recently
come to the conclusion that there is little of philosophical benefit to be had
there though. It seems to me that ethical judgment is mostly a matter of our
sensibilities which are the product of our genetic makeup, our training and
life experiences. There's not much more to it than that even if there is room
for the philosopher to try to clarify what aspects are part of what determining
factor(s). I once thought ethics could be deconstructed into a set of reasons
for choosing one action or type of action over another and you and I argued
over that extensively. I now think you were more right than I was. There isn't
much room for philosophy in making the case for this or that set of actions.
> >
> > > What means "Free Will" when the airplane monitor screens the
> > > list of "not welcome countries" (rough translation) and they say it's
> > > OK to sniff you with dogs, look at you through a clothes-penetrating
> > > spy glass?
> > >
> >
> > Coercion vs. free will again. Being free to choose doesn't mean having all
> > possible choices we can imagine at our disposal. It only means being able to
> > make the best choice (or what seems to us to be the best) given the options
> > before us.
> >
>
> Or perhaps it's a random choice or we have no time to ponder what's
> best, in light of other more pressing matters.
>
Life is complicated as you note below.
> It's complicated, this game of life. Lots of constraints, as you've said,
> way more than just death and taxes.
>
> But to what degree are we constrained artificially, by bogus expectations
> for example?
>
> What if there's a special test of citizenship, or a poll tax or... so many
> ways to inhibit freedoms.
>
There is explicit coercion and the kind that's implicit in the societal norms
within which we operate and in the notional conditioning we receive as we pass
through life (including what we are explicity taught and what we are implicitly
taught by example and guidance). But coercion has nothing to do with
"free-will" and explicit coercion is the dominant form of political limitation
on freedom while the implicit sort influences our private and political lives
and may, itself, be influenced by political factors (all governments explicitly
follow a policy of implicitly constraining choices of individuals within
varying degrees -- that, after all, is what public education amounts to, among
other things).
> One could build an entire philosophy studying the design patterns, how
> it's done. Wouldn't that be useful?
>
I don't think so but then I am much more interested in the discipline of formal
philosophy than you are.
> This *could* be a valid philosophical concern could it not? Even if it
> uses "free" and "will" in a somewhat different way, divorced from tired
> debates between so-called "determinists" and their droopy foes?
>
> > > You never signed anything explicitly surrendering your freedoms, yet
> > > this, you are told, is the price of admission. How is it that these costs
> > > were affixed, and by whom?
> > >
> >
> > Does it matter? One can always choose not to seek admission.
> >
>
> Lets say it matters.
>
Why?
> >
> > > You have a USA passport. Doesn't that count for something, even
> > > in your "own" (?) country.
> > >
> >
> > As with everything else, the world and all that's in it are full of
> > constraints.
> >
>
> The devil is in the details.
>
> > > The phrase "the case would have to be made" suggests some higher court
> > > of appeal,
> >
> >
> > Any discussion, such as this one, implies a court of appeal, i.e., the
> > opinions
> > of the interlocutors, the audience, etc. Nothing "higher" than these are
> > needed.
> >
>
> Is "playing chess" a discussion? It's certainly an interaction.
>
> Sometimes it's not about debate, it's about winning by secret ballot
> and appointing your own people to key positions. Or one company
> takes over another and makes changes in management. Countless
> scenarios. These things happen in philosophy too, not just in
> the sciences.
>
Here again I think you are just running a lot of unlike things together. Wasn't
it Wittgenstein who said "I will show you differences"?
> Like in Thomas Kuhn's book, Structure of Scientific Revolutions,
> it's not always that the old school and the new school retreat to
> some Camp David and bicker, hammer out an agreement.
> No, it's more that the two schools talk past one another, fail
> to have meaningful conversation, because the world views
> are too different.
That's typical of most conversations I can think of. Perhaps it's because even
translation within the same language between two or more parties is somewhat
indefinite. I think that's to do with the way meaning is established
(semantics) but that is a debate, perhaps, for another day and another thread.
<snip>
> >
> > > when the premise is the likely abrogation of the social contract
> > > and the growth of a core Unfree State in the heart of North America.
> > >
> >
> > That strikes me as an ideological claim which is separate from the
> > philosophical
> > issue of what "free" means in its different uses.
> >
>
> Compartmentalizing the word "free" per its many meanings may
> be an interesting game that helps clear the air.
>
Clarity is always to be sought, I think. (Or, at least, I can't think of any
game of serious discourse that benefits from obscurantizing.)
> Richard Stallman is always making that all-important distinction
> between "free as in freedom" and "free as in beer".
>
Another good distinction!
> The free software movement has little to do with price and everything
> to do with not surrendering intellectual property rights to
> non-engineers who think theirs is to own and control by dint of
> pedigree or family connections. This is about workers retaining
> control over the means of production, while recruiting new workers
> to the field on the basis of having these new freedoms.
>
More power to 'em if they can successfully compete that way.
> Sean was asking what it would mean to read in the paper that
> Free Will had been proved. Indeed, it's hard to think what
> it would mean, for us to have "victors" in such a narrow and
> esoteric discussion.
>
I happen to agree with Sean's assessment. It seems to me that questions about
"free-will" are finally pseudo questions.
> Stallman's four freedoms, on the other hand, are pretty concrete.
> When one or more has been abrogated, by an Apple or IBM, it's
> easy to spot that and talk about it. He asserts his positions are
> primarily ethical, not technical in nature. He knows he's a
> philosopher and enjoys being more relevant than Quine and the
> grand scheme of things.
>
> That got me thinking though: Free Will could be conceived more
> as a relative term and indeed that's where the concept of "will"
> got its legs. It's intimately and irreducibly tied up with concepts
> of volition, self-determination, acting with purpose, acting with
> intent, acting according to a plan, pre-meditation, under-the-influence,
> coerced-by, commanded to, and so on.
>
> That got me thinking of a Free Will Index that could be graphed
> by nation or group or company. Perhaps we could have a survey
> or set of surveys asking, in many different ways: how free is
> your will?
>
Might be useful as long as the distinction between free societies, free beer
and free will can be maintained. If it fails to keep these notions adequately
separate, then confusion will push out whatever clarity is to be hoped for.
> You may remember that Kierkegaard said that to will freely
> was to will the good, as otherwise one suffers from a divided
> will and suffers ambivalence, perhaps even self loathing.
>
I think Kant thought somewhat along those lines as well.
> A strong will was an undivided will and only "the good" could
> be willed without reservation.
Not my position, of course. But here the question of "free" slides into the
moral/ethical sphere, an area I no longer think philosophy can contribute much
to.
> So we could perhaps measure
> how divided a nation appears against itself as a measure of
> its lack of freedom.
What has THAT to do with "lack of freedom"?
> Obviously, a high ratio of incarcerated,
> perhaps in part because of policies towards the "undocumented",
> would be empirically indicative of an Unfree State.
>
A free society (one with a high degree of political freedom available to its
populace) may still be one with many violators of its laws.
> Now that I've given this back story, I'm seeing how "Free Will"
> *could* mean something in newspaper terms (there'd be
> this index, akin to Bhutan's happiness index).
?
> So in a way
> I'm simply responding the Sean's challenge: yes, there's
> Free Will, and no, there's not as much of it in the USA these
> days, given USans live in war time, and everyone knows that
> during war time, patriots must curtail their freedoms and bite
> the bullet, postponing liposuction and cosmetic surgery
> until Terror is beaten back.
>
So you still haven't given up your decision to mix "free will" with "freedom"
after all this?
> >
> > > Instead of making some case, one might instead form fringe political
> > > party that sounds the SOS,
> >
> > Every party or faction thinks it is sounding the alarm as it were. Some may
> > be
> > right. Others wrong. Just being such a group, however, does not imply
> > rightness
> > and so forming one is not an answer to the question of what is correct and
> > what
> > isn't.
> >
>
> Agreed. I'm just saying that philosophical movements, like
> movements in music, art, religion, aren't always about "discussing".
>
Probably true though I don't know what else a philosophical group can
legitimately be about (even if sometimes discussing or open discussion at least
are not the marching orders of the day).
> Sometimes you need poster art, TV commercials, a look and
> feel, in order to develop the position you wish to defend.
Yes, your propaganda meme again. I agree that it is a factor in human discourse
and, therefore, in philosophical discourse, too. But I don't agree that it has
a legitimate role to play in philosophical discourse. Just being a factor
doesn't mean it belongs in the mix.
> I'm
> not closing the door on discussion, but when it comes to
> getting ahead with one's philosophy, sometimes the thing to
> do is to finish that play and/or music album and/or documentary.
>
> Like, with all these resources and volunteers flooding in (new
> recruits) who has the time to just sit around and talk turkey?
>
> I remember Wittgenstein saying the freedom his philosophy
> offers is the freedom to just walk away from philosophy (which
> in turn leaves everything as it is). That's because his philosophy
> is about seeing the machinery clearly, and you take that with
> you, even when you stop investigating this or that piece of it.
>
The point is that by investigating the pieces you see how you have been led
astray and the problems that you were chewing over no longer appear to need
further chewing. What you get is a settled understanding, and the ability to
not continue the endless inquiry, because the problem no longer has the look of
being a problem at all. The freedom entailed by this is a freedom FROM
obsession, a freedom FROM worry, a freedom FROM a psychological state that
keeps one otherwise tied up in a knot of worry and befuddlement. It's freedom
by liberation, as in the absence of a burden previously carried.
> >
> > > asks national guard units to return from
> > > overseas pronto and start protecting Americans (yes, we're all friends).
> > >
> >
> > Protecting Americans from what? From their government? Themselves? The
> > factions
> > or parties that don't think as we do?
> >
>
> Well, like from Katrina or other natural disasters. If you watch
> Guard commercials in theaters (where they're recruiting), you'll
> see lots of heroics against what look to be floods, storms,
> earthquakes. Since the earthquake in Japan, people think a
> lot about disasters and disaster preparedness.
Even before that I'd say! There was Haiti and Chile and New Zealand and China
and Pakistan and Iran and there was that tsunami in the Pacific that killed
hundreds of thousands and there was 9/11. We live in an age of great disasters
and they seem to be getting worse as we go.
> Having the
> Guard overseas under NATO is hardly what the States
> envisioned. It's like the USA has been conquered and
> commandeered by some Unfree State, some prison-industrial
> complex (a psychological complex, the focus of many a
> Jungian these days).
>
I don't see this connection at all. I suppose it's a function of your
particular political thinking but it doesn't seem to be an issue to me.
> It's clear to Oregonians, in the aftermath of the Japanese tsunami,
> that we're *not* prepared.
Are we ever prepared enough for the big ones? Can we ever hope to be? Or to
correctly anticipate the next Black Swan event (a nod to Popper here).
> Disaster relief is something of a
> niche industry around here (Mercy Corps, Northwest Medical
> Teams etc.) and yet budget for training and equipment, planning,
> has taken a distant back seat to prisons and expensive killing
> fields in Arabia (more of a sport than a war, like a videogame,
> in the case of Afghanistan -- why they call it "the great game"
> I guess).
>
No amount of money can ever be enough anymore than we can ever hope to be
prepared for the next unforeseen disaster (because if it is that then obviously
bey definition we cannot anticipate it). Sure we know (or think we know) there
will be a major quake on the west coast at some point in the future but who
knows when or how major such a major quake will be. When I was a boy I remember
reading that the highest earthquake on the Richter Scale was 7.0. Obviously
either what I was reading was wrong or I misunderstood, given the recent quakes
at the 8.0 level and the fact that the Japanese quake was scaled at 9.0. Might
we someday see a 10.0? Something higher? Given that the Richter Scale is
logorithmic that's really scary. What would a 10.0 quake looke like? They say
the 9.0 off Japan's coast actually shifted the earth's axis and moved the poles
several feet. Would a 10.0 put California (and maybe Oregon) under the sea?
> > > Another part of the campaign platform: a free open source suite of
> > > voting machines (including back office counters) in every public high
> > > school, for civics class dissection and examination, not to mention
> > > frequent use (kids like to get polled).
> > >
> >
> > Fascinating. Imagine the mess if everyone (and every faction) could meddle
> > with
> > the voting machines! And you thought we had trouble now!
> >
>
> Having the source code transparent doesn't mean everyone messing
> with the moving parts right when a vote is happening.
>
> One saves the data from the election run (poll, survey), along with
> a snapshot of the version of the code. Future scholars can basically
> recreate the election in quite a bit of detail.
>
And contemporary programmers and partisans could make mincemeat of every
election. We'd never get a working government that way!
> Including the voting machine code in the postmortem archive is not
> possible today, though under FOIA I'm pretty sure the USG is going
> to release whatever voting software it may have, just as it did through
> the VA when it came to Vista (M-language medical records stuff,
> competes with OpenEMR etc.).
>
<snip>
>
> > > So yes, the case would have to be made, but before what court of
> > > appeal? Obviously the good people of Cyberspace will be invited to
> > > attend.
> > >
> >
> > I suspect you imagine a different "court of appeal" here than I do. And
> > also,
> > perhaps, a different case to be made. You seem to be arguing for a
> > particular
> > ideological position while I am only addressing the question of whether it's
> > wise or effective to mix different terms containing the word "free"
> > together on
> > the grounds that they have that word in common.
>
> I'm into bypassing the "court of appeals" and continuing with maneuvers,
> consolidating, tipping scales, tilting odds in our favor.
Sounds like a recipe for endless argument to me! How can a society hope to get
anything done in that kind of environment?
> I'm not required
> to "drop everything" and while away the hours in idle discussion with
> the Free Willers (either the yay or the nay sayers). As a Wittgensteinian,
> I like to think I have a more mature outlook than that. Philosophy is not
> just the toy of the country club set.
>
No one is required to enter into any discussion that doesn't interest them as
far as I can tell.
<snip>
>
> I'm more saying questions of free will *could* be made relevant if we
> allowed meanings to shift back into gear, such that our focus became
> more engaged, had some real traction ("back to rough ground!").
>
> Do people have the *option* to segregate and compartmentalize their
> thinking such that "free will" becomes an essentially meaningless
> theological debate? Sure they do. We see them exercising that
> option every day. Doesn't mean we need to follow their sorry example
> though.
>
And my point is that we don't gain anything intellectually by fudging meanings
in order to subtly shift the subject of the debate. Perhaps it's best to just
step away from debates that don't speak to us rather than redirecting onto
pathways that are alien to the original issue(s)?
> > My answer to that is they aren't and that mixing them, as you seem to be
> > doing,
> > amounts to a kind of confusion, even if intentionally and rationally
> > deployed in
> > support of a political viewpoint. That is, the support provided by this
> > move is
> > mainly rhetorical rather than logical, useful in the game of propagandizing
> > (as
> > you once put it) but not in the game of producing reasons we should
> > logically
> > choose one course of action over another. Thus, if free will is invoked as
> > part
>
> On the contrary, I think empty wheezing about "free will versus determinism"
> in the abstract is what gets us nowhere in terms of choosing one course of
> action over the other.
>
You're probably right on that. I tend to agree that "free-will" is something of
meaningless notion. The only thing that matters is that it looks to us like we
are capable of acting autonomously according to our own dictates (within
certain recognizable parameters). So why should it matter whether at some
superduper theoretical level the universe is all predictable (or not) down to
the itty-bittiest little particle or wave fluctuation? What's that to us?
Unless one can discover the causal laws that may exist at that level and use
them to unerringly predict occurrences on the level of human choice, then
whether it's all just a matter of incredible complexity or indeterminateness
hardly matters. And there seems to be no reason to ever expect such discoveries
or predictions, short of achieving God like status!
> If it's mature televised policy discussions you want to hear, with people of
> vast experience talking about their preferred futures, which might likely
> include reducing the incarceration rate, then I'd think you'd want to join
> me in rescuing "freedom of will", as a topic, from those who'd dumb
> it down so severely.
>
I just think "freedom of will" is not the same as "political freedom" or
"personal freedom" and therefore there's no point in mixing the terms.
> Acknowledging that tools of rhetoric and propaganda are involved is
> to say no more than that Cicero made some good points.
He was a good rhetoritician and Roman intellectual but he was a second rate
philosopher at best.
> Yes, here's
> a way of seeing philosophy as a kind of "meme war" with the various
> parties putting a spin on their memes, adding meaning. One may
> either own up to that fact (the fact of spin doctoring), or pretend
> those kinds of manipulations are just "cheap and dirty tricks" done
> by others. I prefer to work among grownups, who don't get bent
> out of shape when they see others using the same tricks and tools
> they are.
>
I don't view philosophy as a game of tricks ("cheap and dirty" or otherwise).
Therefore a move that intentionally conflates meanings to redirect a discussion
to one's preferred path or conclusion strikes me as stepping outside the bounds
of philosophical rectitude. If you meant to do that, I would have to say we are
on very different wavelengths. If you did it without intending to redirect
(because, say, you didn't notice the conflation) then I should think that
calling it to your attention should be enough.
> > of the game of choosing, your move which aims to turn "free will" into
> > "freedom", actually subverts the free will issue as it masks rather than
> > clarifies the choices before us. In this way, one's actions are determined
> > by
> > factors like emotional resonance rather than reasoned selection.
> >
>
> You say it "subverts the free will issue" yet you seemed to tentatively
> agree with Sean above that, in its technical esoteric sense, this
> scholastic debate may well lead precisely nowhere.
>
I do. I just don't think we throw light on it by changing what the term means.
What we need to do is notice the differences in meaning to see how those affect
what we are moved to say about one term or the other.
> If so (if it's a dead end), then I think I'm more heroic in my role,
> stepping in to say: look, here's a way you could take all that
> brain power and actually put it to work, versus spinning your
> wheels in the philosophers' version of Donkey Island (that
> place in Pinocchio, where people just bray all day).
>
When you are that explicit I'm okay with it. I just recoil at the idea of
subverting the discussion by shifting the meanings in mid-discourse. However, I
would also not consider the meaning you favor as one likely to yield much from
a philosophical inquiry.
> > Is not freedom undermined as much by such appeals (whether subliminally
> > delivered or otherwise cunningly injected into the discourse) as by the
> > coercive
> > factors you decry?
> >
> > SWM
>
> The choice to waste one's time, to fiddle while Rome burns,
> is certainly challenged. We should examine our respective
> consciences and see how we want to be remembered. Did
> we burn the midnight oil trying to prove that Man has Free
> Will? Or were we up late trying to get more people like
> Little B out of prison? I'd say this is not "philosophy versus
> politics" debate but "philosophy versus philosophy". So
> what else is new, right?
>
> Kirby
I think we see philosophy somewhat differently -- as we always have, even back
on the Wittgenstein-dialognet list.
SWM
Other related posts:
