Dear Santa,
Thank you very much for your presents. But I am afraid
that by studying these books I cannot make the world better but only worse.
Henk
What I got
- Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
- Carl
von Clausewitz, On War
- Sun
Tzu, The Art of
War
Dear Santa,
Thank you very much for your presents. But I am afraid
that by studying these books I cannot make the world better but only worse.
Henk
What I got
- Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
- Carl
von Clausewitz, On War
- Sun
Tzu, The Art of
War
6 comments:
Many people have problems discerning what is important, relevant and useful. I have not learned much from books on war or politics, other than an interence that others have not learned much from books on war and politics. This morning, there was an envelope taped to my apartment door. It contained two pictures of the owner's dog and contact information, should I need any help from a neighbor. That is what I got for Christmas. Good enough for me.
I am a bookish person and I think that I have learned a lot from them. But as you can see, combining these teo Christams blogs, I am not very positive about the future. That's what I want to express. See also my quote that I want to publish tomorrow. People don't learn from the past and too many want to live at the cost of others.
I think I understand. You would probably like my brother---he is not hopeful about any future, either.That said, he has participated in the online philosophy blog community. I think he enjoys it, while debunking some of the foggy thinking that is au courant.
My idea is here, among other things: To make the people think (and I think with them).
Yes. Encouraging people to think is paramount now. There is little thinking activity afoot these days. I have claimed, attorneys should not attempt to be philosophers; philosophers should not attempt to practice law.
The Linguistic Turn (emphasis added), since the twentieth century, has encouraged a host of interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary collaborations...all of that, intending to enrich collegiality, while fostering the confusions of complexity. (You may quote me, if you wish.)
Sir Bertrand Russell noticed this linguistic turn, as did Chomsky. Much of it supports what my brother, and others, have termed "word salad". Never say, in twenty-five words, what you may pontificate in one-hundred or more. Sigh.
Well, I see that linguistic turn as not bad at all, for language has a big influence on the way you think. It's not a mere instrument as Russell thought, although the influence is also not deterministic, as the Sapir-Whorf thesis stated. But it tends to push our thinking in certain directions.
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