Subject: The child and the philosopher
Date: Mon, Jun 2, 2014
Msg: 101045
Early in this list's history, Sandy expressed a hope that this list would be more about action and coordination and not so much about philosophy.
To bridge the gap between recent philosophical posts and Sandy's vision, I would like to share the old story about the child and the philosopher.
THE CHILD AND THE PHILOSOPHER
If you tell a child to stay out of the river, it will be a short conversation because everyone involved knows what a river is and for all practical purposes, they are right.
If, however, you tell a philosopher to stay out of the river, it will be a long conversation and by the end of it you might come to doubt the river's existence, the philosopher's existence and maybe even your own.
Philosophers, you see, have not yet agreed about what a river is. In this way, a child knows more about how the real world works than the most brilliant philosopher.
The moral of this story is that if we trust our child-like observation that individuals, collectives, politicians, foreign nations and future generations all clearly exist as far as politics is concerned, all have ambition, all can harm society if left to run amok without society-enforced limits and can all help society if properly incentivized, then we can reach some amazing and useful conclusions -- e.g., that freedom and fairness can be friends via cap-and-prioritize.
If, on the other hand, we look at the world as philosophers, this story suggests that we are doomed.
Yet philosophers clearly have something to add. Modern society would not be what it is if not for philosophers.
The middle path, I believe, is to be logical like philosophers, but to live in the real world. Let's go forward, then, with the confidence of a child, knowing that we can, indeed, know useful things about the world, and build our future accordingly.?
- Rick Raddatz, IncentiveReform.org
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