Should a philosopher have authority?

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Should a philosopher have authority?

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1jahn
Redigeret: jul 13, 2009, 4:58 am

It may have been noticed by several here that authorities authorized by such is aiming to authoritatively clean the work of Friedrich Nietzsche from the pernicious influence of his sister’s pen. And whether publicly confessed or not, this aim must be thought as having at least something to do with the sometime accusation that Nietzsche’s ideas led the Germans into Nazi criminality, much as led the Pied Piper non-critical rats and children.

But what if we did exactly the opposite than the authorized cleaners? What if we cut out snippets of “Mein Kampf” and inserted these all over “Der Wille zur Macht”, and maybe added a line or two from the Bible as well? With this being clearly stated on the title page readers could perhaps be expected to be constantly aware of their own presence and responsibility?

Peirce said that thinking exists between doubt and belief (what you'd be willing to act on), and upon that you can reflect that you cannot doubt authority, authority is a guarantee that the reason for doubt has been eliminated. So maybe stupidity is merely obedience, the unwillingness to test the cohesion of a chain held up as solidly linked by people imagined as of superior knowledge or brain power? “Lack of understanding: its flight from recognition,” said Heraclitus, maybe he there pointed out that authority’s acceptance is belief arriving before any doubt could engender analysis of belief’s justification.

Which of course must lead to the question whether any valuable philosophical thinking can be taught as a curriculum in institutions authorized for authorization at all, and whether the ability to demonstrate obedience in subjecting oneself to such compulsion as a regulated study of philosophy is, and willingly be rewarded with titles of authority, like “philosopher,” can be regarded as deserving that title? (I am being intentionally provocative, but I do seriously wonder if anyone has a description of the border where the rationality in authority's acceptation ends.)

(Ps: the "Pied Piper" is a hyperbole of course, and as such would be inadmissible if the point was to attack Nietzsche and not philosophical authority, but in a bag of collected cultural explanations for Nazism containing Wagner, Blut und Boden, the Wandervogel movement, and Preussian discipline, for example, Nietzsche must certainly deserve to be brought along?)

2jjmiller50
okt 2, 2009, 11:03 am

It seems to me that each individual necessarily makes his / her own judgments as to who is to be taken as an authority, independently of the person or institution describing themselves or somebody else as an authority.

For example, suppose Harvard University awards a student a degree in philosophy. Harvard is warranting that the person has successfully shown a set of markers of achievement - courses taken, papers written and so forth. It is up to each individual to say if this makes the person a philosopher as far as they are concerned.

I think most people perform their own informal tests on a person so designated. If some problem I have seems like it requires a philosopher to solve, and somebody solves the problem to my satisfaction, then I evaluate them as "philosopher". Nobody else, including that person himself, need agree with the label - if he can do, and actually does, a philsopher's work then he his a philosopher to me

However, this may not be a public judgment. A person with a silly thesis may provoke my disrespectful laughter but a a government with the same silly thesis and also a gun is going to get different treatment. To the extent that the certifying authority has nonrational but important arguments at hand, the external effect of obedience may be obtained.

An example of middle ground is where my acceptance in some group of people is conditional on my acceptance of the certification e.g. as a philosopher. If I want to be accepted as a philosopher, I will probably be disinclined to laugh at a serious thesis by somebody else in the group - even if I think he's whacked. I will treat him as a philosopher, obedient to the group's certification.

As far as whether Nietzsche led some Germans into National Socialism, I think that if they went there it is because they wanted to go there before they read him. Poor old dead insane Nietzsche was in a poor way of making them do anything they didn't want to. I'm with Hume: reason is the slave of the passions.

3LesMiserables
nov 7, 2009, 3:25 am

Interesting discussion which brings my attention a neat little book I have just finished The Greek Philosophers by WKC Guthrie and the discussion of the Greek thinkers on Philosopher Rulers and their magnificent dedication of training in Philosophy and Mathematics and expending of all property to become the great and just dispensers of law and order.
If only.

4Mr_Wormwood
nov 9, 2009, 4:52 pm

The job of the philosopher is challenge, upset, undermine, ridicule and scorn established authority at each and every turn. This was what Socrates did and in many ways S is archetypal philosopher of our day. But the Socratic movement split early in to two camps, one, the Cynics, which contunied this tradition, and the other, Plato, which perverted it by conceiving of the 'Philosopher-King', unforutunately it is Platonic camp that is taught in undergrad classes today and not the Cynics. philosophy is not what it once was

5ChristopherLeeSalmon
aug 13, 2015, 2:01 pm

I can certainly understand the concern for incorporating certain philosophical viewpoints into curriculums, as some lessons can be misconstrued (as in Nietzsche). But I think that is a multi- faceted point: one thing to consider is the age at which these things are taught. At a college level, this is fine, but beyond that I can understand where it might be inappropriate. The other thing to consider is the philosopher in question. Nietzsche (while being misunderstood as a pessimist and Anti- Semite) is understandably a bit deep and questionable for a curriculum, but even other existentialists (such as Dostoevsky/ Dostoyevsky) speak about considerably less dark subjects.

6carusmm
maj 19, 2016, 2:04 am

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