More on "filtering up." The practice, the struggles, of the peasants and peasant-craftsmen of Attica made _techne'_ pervade the very air that Athenians of all classes breathed, and techne was the generating idea of the philosophies of the Athenian thinkers -- but it was those 'educated' (and mostly reactionary)
^^^^ CB: Maybe this is the problem. The ideas derive from predominantly physical laborers' practice, but when the practice gets formulated _as ideas_ by the predominantly mental workers, they are almost always formulated in a way to serve the ruling class. Most intellectuals through history have been servants of the ruling classes. Thus, the ruling ideas of all ages are the ideas "of" the ruling classes. Not in the sense that the ruling class practice was the main source of them , but that they were exploited from the working classes by the ruling class through its intellectual servants.
Ruling classes' advantage over ruled classes has always been higher level of class consciousness and consciousness in general, i.e. education. The dominance of education, including the academy, is critical in this. The standing state of "education" is always pro-ruling class because of the above scenario. So, workers must and should get education, but somehow they have transform the educational hegemonic philosophies and systems of ideas , as well. What a task ! Expropriate the education system.
Given this tendency of ideas finally formulated to serve the ruling class, intellectuals here might focus more on class issues. Working class consciousness (consciousness _for_ the working class) among organic intellectuals is the goal.
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thinkers who extracted techne _as an idea_. The idea did not filter 'upwards' because no one 'below' _had_ it AS AN IDEA. It was in their practice, not their heads. Parmenides, Protagoras, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle made that practice an idea.
Carrol