>I really don't buy the democracy makes for better philosophy line (Seneca,
>Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Epictetus, Sextus Empiricus, Moses Maimonides,
>etc.).
The thing about the philosophy of premodern times is that even there doctrine was not so finely enforced. The ancients could teach anything, pretty much. In the middle ages you had to be a theist and if you were a Christian had to navigate around the Index, but it left more room for manuever than in Soviet philosophy, and there's no reason to think that the scholastics experienced the imposition of Christianity as a requirement to lie, as Soviet philosophers did. ---------------- I say:
I wasn't objecting to the disparagement of Soviet philosophy (making some exceptions for the 20s), but to the good philosophy requires democracy assertion. Clearly, it can't survive totalitarianism (once again, making some exceptions for Heidegger's writings during the 30s and early 40s, some of which I happen to think are pretty damn good, AND NO I DON'T WANT TO GET INTO A 'DO HEIDEGGER'S POLITICS INVALIDATE HIS PHILOSOPHY? conversation). But political democracy and relative openness of intellectual discourse are different things, it seems to me.
And yeah, it's pretty clear that the Schoolmen were convinced theists, not self-conscious ideologues. Actually, I've got a soft spot for good old Bill of Occam.
Chris Doss The Russia Journal