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.
Et je reponds ainsi:
What a sec... I'm trying to come up with names of "great" philosophers produced under liberal democracies and am coming up with a grand total of zero. Maybe I'm suffering from amnesia. :) Or maybe it has to so with liberal democracy being a relatively late arrival on the historical center.
If anyone nominates Richard Rorty as a great philosopher I will stick my head out the window and scream in horror.
Chris Doss The Russia Journal