rights, rights, and still more rights, duties, obligations, powers, freedoms "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com>
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> Politics is prior to philosophy.
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>^^^^^^^
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>CB: This seems the opposite of your position in the thread on
>Russian/Soviet philosophy struggles.
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Not at all. Democratic politics needs no philosophical justification, is what I am saying here. There I was saying that if you want to know why Soviet philosophy was was bad and boring, you need only look to the fact that in undemocrtaic conditions there prevailing, philosophers were required by authoritarian constraint to say things they didn't believe in, or worse, that they did. The two points are connected by the thought that democratic politicsd also makes for better philosiohy, although it does not deoend on philosophy.
^^^^^^^
CB: Democracy is the working class as the ruling class, from the best philosophical standpoint. I guess your approach would explain why philosophy in the capitalist countries is worse and more boring than in the Soviet Union, given the lack of democracy the U.S., England , France , Germany, etc.
My impression ( from Chris Doss in part) is that the Russian and former Soviet masses are much more philosophical than the American. I don't know about France. Seems the approach in the SU was more popularization of philosophy than in the U.S. This too is evidence of a more democratic attitude to philosophy. In other the test of democratic philosophy is not in the specialized philosophy departments, but how popular is the interest in philosophy.
So , the test of philosophy is democracy. I take you to mean popular sovereignty by democracy.