Quote:
Originally Posted by MartinParish
I have to say my favorite philosopher (assuming you agree he should be categorized as such) was always Karl Marx with the Communist Manifesto. Strong on fire and rhetoric, weak on details...my kind of philosophy. (Reminds me of a great Napoleon Bonaparte quote: "A good constitution should be short and obscure.")
Are philosophers from past ages still relevant today? I think that's a really great question. To some degree, advances in science and our understanding of the natural world have probably made certain questions that philosophers argued for centuries virtually irrelevant; consciousness, for example, is now generally recognized to be an emergent property of the brain that has its origins in biochemistry, so the old philosophical debate over the nature of consciousness is now a moot point. Whether the philosophy of past ages remains relevant also depends on the philosopher - in some cases more so than in others. Seneca is one of the ones worth keeping IMHO, together with the other Stoics like Marcus Aurelius; unlike Plato, who spent most of his time worrying about abstract questions that seem trivial or unimportant to us today, the Stoics recognized one of the basic problems that we all face in life - how to react when circumstances are beyond your control(which may be much of the time).
Ultimately, though, I think a few of the great philosophers of the past may be worth reading regardless of whether they remain relevant or not. Reading their work can be a great way to connect with someone who, centuries apart from you though they may have been, faced some of the same kinds of problems that we all face in life and came up with their own unique solutions - a little chapter of the human experience that enriches our understanding of what it means to be human in this strange and often lonely little world.
|
Great post. Very well stated. I do not agree with your opinion on Plato, but this is like discussing of the merits and demerits of Bourgogne versus Bordeaux. virtually irrelevant (I like the expression and I declare it mine from this instant)
I often reread Aristotle chapter on virtues and vices in the second book of rhetoric. (we have it here on MR by the way, together with a wonderful contribution by our lawyer Tom). It is amazing how in large part it applies very well to my relatives, colleagues and neighbors and, if I consider only the vices, to myself.
The other day I learned a good one by De Gaulle. "All the French have at least one privilege to defend. It is this that gives them the passion for equality". or words to that effect.