[Marxism-Thaxis] Social function of philosophy
Andie: I never said he said it was. He says it's ideology, a mystification arising from the conditions of social life that reflects and promotes the ruling interests in certain ways, making the social seem natural, the changeable permanent, the existing order inevitable, and it does so by virtue of overgeneralizing and inverting certain truths. This is not W at all, but a sociological analysis of why philosophy is pointless. CB: The question that occurs to me is what social classes and sectors has philosophy been aimed at in fulfilling these functions over the centuries. Religion was doing it for a large number of people. It seems that philosophy has been the provinence of only small intellectual elites for most of its existence. To whom has philosophy been promoting ruling class interests ? I've been thinking that Nietszche audience is the primarily the petit bourgeoisie, not so much the rulers themselves and the working class. The petit bourgeoisie are a new class with capitalism, too. They have some important functions for capitalism. N functions to bring them into the new situation as supporters of the Overmen class. N seems to have very little discussion of economics. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Rosa Lichtenstein on "Wittgenstein and Marxism"
andie nachgeborenen * W's philosophy actually calls out for following up with such investigation. If you want to go beyond philosophy, you have to go _somewhere_ -- maybe to political economy and political sociology, like Marx, maybe to Ideologiekritik like Adorno and the early Frankfurters (Adorno also did flat out scientific sociology or social psychology, see The Authoritarian Personality), maybe to genealogical critic and psychology like Nietzsche, maybe to mystical pragmatism like Heidegger or scientific-sociological pragmatism like Dewey -- there are a lot of possibilities. But some people, and W was one of them, are like Moses at the Jordan, they point the way to the land of Canaan but cannot cross the river. Quine was another: he wanted to "naturalize epistemology, but that meant actually doing cognitive psychology, and he wasn't suited for or able to do that. CB: If we are to get some rational kernels out of these philosophers, andie's discussion here seems worth going into further. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
