Filozofski fragmenti

Indy wrote:[size=38]"We don't need a big brain, we need big and strong connections between brains. We need something to keep us together." - Brian Eno[/size]


[size=38]( [/size][size=38]http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-have-our-brains-started-to-shrink/ )[/size]

See this wide society of laboring men and women. We allow ourselves to be served by them, we live apart from them, and meet them without a salute in the streets. We do not greet their talents, nor rejoice in their good fortune, nor foster their hopes, nor in the assembly of the people vote for what is dear to them. Thus we enact the part of the selfish noble and king from the foundation of the world. See, this tree always bears one fruit. In every household, the peace of a pair is poisoned by the malice, slyness, indolence, and alienation of domestics. Let any two matrons meet, and observe how soon their conversation turns on the troubles from their "_help_," as our phrase is. In every knot of laborers, the rich man does not feel himself among his friends, — and at the polls he finds them arrayed in a mass in distinct opposition to him. We complain that the politics of masses of the people are controlled by designing men, and led in opposition to manifest justice and the common weal, and to their own interest. But the people do not wish to be represented or ruled by the ignorant and base. They only vote for these, because they were asked with the voice and semblance of kindness.

To ti je primer onog zanatlije iz Platonovih dijaloga na koji si me onomad podsetio.

"The Fallacy of the Artisans"

Socrates found that men who did know things that he did not know -- various artisans [craftsmen] -- and who "to that extent were wiser than I was", also on that basis -- i.e. on the basis that they knew some things -- imagined that they also knew things that they did not know. And so Socrates asked himself "whether I would rather be as I was -- neither wise with their wisdom nor foolish with their foolishness [i.e. their presumption that they know what they don't know] -- or to possess both qualities [i.e. both wisdom and foolishness] as they did", and he answered that "it was best for me to be as I was". (ibid. 22d-e)
All tradesmen and professionals are prey to the foolishness of the artisans Socrates questioned -- i.e. of presuming that, because they know one thing, they also know other things that they do not know. That is "The Fallacy of the Artisans", and why philosophy seeks and requires humility (or, self-knowledge).
An Internet search query from this site's server logs:

Query: failure of self-knowledge in the Apology.

That is I imagine an allusion to Plato's Apology 21d. But there may be a clearer statement apropos in Xenophon, followed below by two statements in the Socratic tradition.

He did not identify ignorance with madness, but not to know oneself and to presume one knows what one doesn't know, he put next to madness. (Xenophon, Memories of Socrates iii, 9, 6, tr. Marchant)
He only errs who thinks he knows what he does not know. (Augustine)
The difficulty in philosophy is to say no more than you know. (Wittgenstein, The Blue Book [1969] p. 45)

At last I went to the artisans; I was conscious that I knew nothing at all, as I may say, and I was sure that they knew many fine things; and here I was not mistaken, for they did know many things of which I was ignorant, and in this they certainly were wiser than I was. But I observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets;, because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom; and therefore I asked myself on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like to be as I was, neither having their knowledge nor their ignorance, or like them in both; and I made answer to myself and to the oracle that I was better off as I was.

...pro­gress­ively, all the polit­ic­al olig­archy, all the polit­ic­al class, becomes the same group, at the level of the world itself. A group of people which is only abstractly divided: Repub­lic­ans and Demo­crats, Social­ists and Lib­er­als, Left and Right, and so on. All that sort of divi­sion today is purely abstract and not real, because all that lies in the same eco­nom­ic and polit­ic­al back­ground. This polit­ic­al olig­archy today in the West­ern world, is pro­gress­ively los­ing con­trol of the cap­it­al­ist machinery — that is the real­ity. Across crises, false solu­tions, all clas­sic­al polit­ic­al gov­ern­ments cre­ate, on a big scale, in their people, frus­tra­tion, mis­un­der­stand­ing, anger, and obscure revolt. All that again­st what is the unique way pro­posed by all mem­bers of the polit­ic­al class today, with some dif­fer­ences, but some small dif­fer­ences. The exer­cise of polit­ics today is the exer­cise of very small dif­fer­ences inside the same glob­al way. But all that has many effects on people in gen­er­al; effects of dis­or­i­ent­a­tion, total absence of ori­ent­a­tion or dir­ec­tion of life, no stra­tegic vis­ion of the future of human­ity, and in that sort of situ­ation a big part of the people search in obscur­ity on the side of false nov­el­ties, irra­tion­al vis­ions, and return to dead tra­di­tions, and so on. So, in front of polit­ic­al olig­archy, we have the appar­i­tion of new sort of act­iv­ists, new sup­ports of viol­ent and vul­gar dem­agogy, and these guys are much more on the side of gang­sters and mafia than on the side of edu­cated politi­cians. And so the choice here has been the choice between that sort of guy and the rest of the edu­cated politi­cians, and the res­ult has been the leg­al choice of the new form of polit­ic­al vul­gar­ity and some­thing sub­ject­ively viol­ent in the polit­ic­al pro­pos­i­tion.

So, in front of polit­ic­al olig­archy, we have the appar­i­tion of new sort of act­iv­ists, new sup­ports of viol­ent and vul­gar dem­agogy, and these guys are much more on the side of gang­sters and mafia than on the side of edu­cated politi­cians. And so the choice here has been the choice between that sort of guy and the rest of the edu­cated politi­cians, and the res­ult has been the leg­al choice of the new form of polit­ic­al vul­gar­ity and some­thing sub­ject­ively viol­ent in the polit­ic­al pro­pos­i­tion.