> Date sent: Thu, 21 May 1998 21:14:46 +0100 > From: Mark Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [PEN-L:166] Re: Mark Jones on evaluating list members > Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Ricardo, do you mean that an unprincipled person is someone who > deliberately believes things s/he knows to be untrue? > > Wow, that's cool. > > Mark If my remark is left by itself, your question follows. So let me put a context. which is Hegel's critique of the reign of terror in France. Hegel never doubted the positive world historical significance of this revolution, but criticized the terror as "the ignominy of Robespierre's party". He, Robespierre, saw himself as the "incorruptible", a man of moral purity. R felt so certain that he, only he, was the embodiment of truth and morality, that he began to see himself as the representative of the "general will". Hence the terror: anyone who disagreed with him was not pure enough and had to be eliminated so the "general will (that is, R's will) could prevailed. So, who is the unprincipled person? He is the person who knows (yes knows) that he is not (cannot be) the embodiment of the general will. ricardo > Ricardo Duchesne wrote: > > > > > From: Carrol Cox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > Subject: [PEN-L:164] Re: Mark Jones on evaluating list members > > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > Date sent: Thu, 21 May 1998 14:47:45 -0500 (CDT) > > > Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > Carrol Cox: > > > > > Perhaps the original poster thought that "being principled" meant having > > > "correct principles." That would be a very boring world. Engels thought > > > socialism would offer rich room for disagreement, since he believed that > > > argument was one of the primary pleasures of life. > > > > > Yes, but a "principled" person is also someone who believes that the > > views s/he holds on the world are true; that something counts as > > knowledge only in terms of its consistency with those > > principles. That "principled" person will take his/her views to be > > the objective view, the "truth". ricardo > >
