ChrisD(RJ):
> 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.
Chris Doss:
> 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.
> ...
A democracy could be completely totalitarian, but if one uses Justin's definition which arbitrarily incorporates personal liberties, I would think one would have to say that openness of intellectual discourse was specified. However, there's something important unspecified here, which is the measure of goodness in an instance of philosophy.
-- Gordon