Re: Other schools of science

[zinov@xxxxxxxxxx]

> > I have a hard time believing that ancient Rome was
> > especially free compared to modern Western societies.
>
> The US government was based on Rome. [...]
>
> The name Republic comes from Latin Res Publica.

The fact that a relatively free society took inspiration from ancient Rome
does not show that ancient Rome was free.

The Latin etymology of 'republic' does not show that Rome was free. Nor does
it even show direct influence on the Founding Fathers. The term 'republic' had
already been in use to refer to a certain type of government before the
founding of the US. For example, in _The Spirit of the Laws_ by Montesquieu.

> > Some of the most influential philosophers from the 20th century are even
> > American. For example, Saul Kripke, David Lewis, Thomas Kuhn, John Rawls,
> > and Robert Nozick.
>
> What did they do that makes them influential?

I have not read the works of those philosophers, but I have heard of some of
their contributions.

I believe that Kripke is responsible for possible world semantics. When
talking about possibility, philosophers will talk about 'possible worlds'.
For example, 'There is no possible world such that God exists' means 'It is
impossible that God exists', or 'God exists in all possible worlds' means 'It
is necessary that God exists'. Also, I think that Kripke originated the
concept of necessary a posteriori knowledge, such as the supposed case of
'Water is H_2O'.

David Lewis was a metaphysician, but I am not that familiar with Lewis'
contributions. I know that Lewis came up with the view that the 'possible
worlds' are concretely existing worlds and that actuality is merely
indexical, but that is all I can attribute to Lewis without further research.

Thomas Kuhn wrote an influential work in philosophy of science, _The Structure
of Scientific Revolutions_. I believe that it argues that there has been
paradigm shifts in science rather than linear progress.

Rawls is responsible for the view that a just society is one that one would
choose behind a hypothetical 'veil of ignorance', where one knows nothing
about what role one will play in society. Nozick wrote a book responding to
Rawls from a libertarian perspective. I think that Nozick also originated the
'experience machine' thought experiment which criticises hedonism.

> In what sense can 19th-20th century Britain be considered free? It still
> had an unelected, heriditary monarch; 95% of British subjects were unable to
> vote for their representatives (eg British India); Parliament gave
> unequal representation to a house of unelected lords and nobles;
> and certain religions remained illegal (Roman Catholicism was illegal
> until 1829)

John Stuart Mill wrote in _On Liberty_ that Britain largely had freedom of
speech (there is a footnote about how a bill recently passed banning speech
that endorses tyrannicide, but I imagine that its freedom of speech was still
much greater than most societies historically). Mill was openly non-religious,
so irreligion must have been legal at that point.

> Rome had few philosophers. Greece had far more philosophers, but for the
> most part, Ancient Greece was not free. Except for a few brief periods
> of chaotic democracy, most of Ancient Greece was ruled by dictators or
> monarchs.

Were not the Greek philosophers most active during the periods of democracy?
Not that democracy equates to freedom, however; it was under democracy that
Socrates was executed.


Anyway, I think that we need to distinguish between the question of whether
philosophy leads to more freedom, and whether freedom leads to more
philosophy. I think that the former is true. I also think that a lack of
freedom can hinder philosophy, the most obvious case being where some
philosophy is outright banned. However, it is not as though freedom is
sufficient. If a society has freedom but the culture disvalues philosophy,
there might be less philosophy than one that values it more but has less
freedom. Or if a society is free but poor, there might not be many people in a
position to do much philosophy, since they must do other sorts of labour.

Obviously political repression of philosophy can lead to less philosophy, as
you yourself suggested:

> It's a bit hard to trace their legacy because around 100BC, the Emperor of
> China burned all the competing schools of philosophy besides Legalism (the
> Fa school). It very well may have been these and similar political events
> in history prevented revolutions in science in India and China.


The more interesting claim to discuss is whether philosophy might lead to
social/political progress. I assume that you would agree that modern Western
societies like the US are generally better than non-Western societies or past
Western societies. If you do not think that this is at all the result of
philosophy, then what is it the result of? Why is it that people chose to
adopt constitutional republics instead of tyrannies or direct democracy? Why
is it that people are generally more opposed to restrictions on liberty than
in the past?

It seems plausible that moral/political progress in society is the result of
intellectual/philosophical progress on those questions (although in many
cases, this might not be due to the work of professional philosophers). I
doubt whether you would even disagree with that. Differences in intellectual
culture could partly explain why some societies have seen greater intellectual
progress than others. However, this could also simply be because of historical
accidents, such as a tyrant's coming into power at a time that prevented
greater progress.

Societies with a greater emphasis on demanding reasons for one's beliefs
rather than dogmatically relying on tradition are going to have more
intellectual progress. But to what extent different societies in the past or
the present compare in terms of the intellectual environment, I am less
confident.