What philosophers throughout the years (and contemporary ones) do you think promoted libertarianism through their thought, and what philosophers do you think were the most...anti-libertarian? I can think of some anti-libertarian thinkers (Marx, Hegel, Owen, Sartre, Zizek, blah blah blah).
In my humble opinion...
The most libertarian philosopher: Lao Tzu
The least libertarian philosopher: Plato
Of the ancient Greeks, the most libertarian are the Epicureans, Cyrenaics, and Stoics. Hume, Schopenhauer, Stirner, and Nietzsche are probably the most interesting modern philosophers for the libertarian.
Sounds like Epicureanism and Idealism are the big two libertarian philosophies.
Sartre wasn't anti-libertarian. His whole work is about individual freedom. He dabbled with Marxism for a time, but it was really a mistake. I think he was closer to anarchism.
Really, the only anti-libertarian philosophers are Hobbes, Hegel, Machiavelli, Plato, and Aquinas. Marx is not a philosopher, and even said so.
My concern with philosophy has never been directly towards political views. Often times I pick up concepts in philosophers who are not necessarily political, but their ideas are useful nonetheless. Often times there is a depth to certain thinkers that isn't available in sound bites.
For instance, one might pick up a certain theory of mind from one, or a theory of epistemology from another, or some ideas on ethics from yet another. And these are useful. Because philosophy has the tendency, I think, towards liberty. Even if certain thinkers have not thought through always to the conclusion.
This is kind of a weird question. I mean, really no philosopher's promoted libertarianism before the 20th (arguably the 19th) century becuase it didn't exist. Calling out Plato for being anti-libertarian is like calling out Abraham for not being Christian.
The other thing is, a philosopher could have a decidedly anti-liberal or apolitical viewpoint, but still put forth some really important ideas. For example, I'm not sure what exactly Wittgenstein's political views were, though I know he was friends with Keynes. Either way, he certainly wasn't writing about the NAP. But I think Wittgenstein made incredibly important contributions which libertarians would find interesting, such as the rule following paradox, which parallels the way libertarians understand things like laws and constitutions.
Anyway, the quintessential modern example of pro-libertarian and anti-libertarian philosophers would be Nozick and Rawls, respectively.
Also, Barry Smith wrote a book called "Austrian Philosophy: the Legacy of Franz Brentano" which examines the philosophical tradition which gave rise to Menger and the Austrian School of Economics. Brentano is SOOOOO important in my opinion, especially when you see who his students (and their students were), Husserl, Meinong and Freud being the most famous. Adolf Reinach was a student of Husserl and developed an a priori theory of law (which is strikingly similar to what Menger and Mises were doing with economics). Freud was also doing a priori stuff with psychology, though it seems like he might have ultimately failed. And I believe Mises was directly influenced by Husserl.
He also traces the entire Austrian tradition back to Aristotle, but I think we can trace plenty of thinkers to Aristotle (Marx is a clear example). This brings me to another point -- its really funny how libertarians will point to Stirner as a good thinker, and Hegel as a bad, even though Stirner was a student of Hegel. Obviously their conclusions were quite different, but Stirner's work was taking Hegel's philosophy to what he saw as its logical conclusion. You can't really oppose Hegel at his core without also opposing Stirner.
Annnndddd.... just to finish up -- I think Frege was pretty important. If you read Mises argue against polylogicism and Frege against psychologism in math, it's eerily similar. I'm also getting into Nagel recently, and I'm getting the feeling that there is a serious shift in philosophy to return to Aristotle, which has the interesting implication of affirming moral realism.
/end rant
they said we would have an unfair fun advantage
@OP: are you talking aboyut political theorists and not a metaphysical framework? "Philosophy" is a pretty overwhelming topic.
However, to be criminally superficial, but hopefully be speaking on the same page as the OP:
If one is trying to think of work in metaphysics that go with an "Austrian" conception of the social sciences I think any of the "German subjectivists / Idealists" can be profitable, as well as Aristotle.
Mikka spoke of Frege, who I can comment little on - I do have the impression that Husserl may be the best butress for something of an Austrian framework (I think this goes with the anti-psychologism).
Also, as John pointed out:
It becomes really really hard to pin "philosophers" in sound bites, particularly the "continental" ones - it's a tough labor to really get down and think about a metaphysical framework. There isn't really an easy way to do it.
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
Also, I think to paraphrase a Rothbard point on economics(?):
It's not criminal to not know "philosophy". Any philosopher, or amature enthusist ought know this is the nature of the subject. If you don't like it, or understand it, or just enjoy it as literature - it's no big deal.
This thread looks like a compendium of David Gordon Roderick Long.
Libertarians adopting Wittgenstein on rules will not be profitable in the philosophical world. Roderick Long does some interesting research, but ultimately I think he is trying to add mainstream analytic philsophy's stature to a few Austrian adherents. Particularly, I think, he wants Mises to be involved in the Frege/Wittgenstein conversation
Think about the categorical and highly definitional metaphysical systems that economics creates (economics is the building of grand metaphysical systems), in what world does Wittgenstein's rule following paradox (spoon? tire; plus/quus; there is no spoon) fit with supporting Mises when he refers to any category, or even object, within the economic order?
Views on psychologism and polylogism (which stems from the former), yes, they had in common as have virtually every major philosopher after Frege. Long finds two things: (i) The fact that Wittgenstein though that all "thought" was logical due to it being carried out by an agent and (ii) that Mises thought all action was "rational."
In regards to Wittgenstein,
...the term “thought” is simply not applicable to anything that deviates from logic. (Long, p.21)
In regards to Mises,
But whenever we are thinking, we are thinking logically. But Mises’ concern is with action. If all action is thoughtful, then all action is logical. (22)
This is what Long uses to link Mises to Wittgenstein. My objection doesn't lie there, it lies where Mises starts defining metaphysical concepts and uses them to base furthe logical propositions off of. You cannot reliably interpret abstract concepts through natural language - and symbolic language is of little use in concepts get complex (which economics does). This is one of the main things Wittgenstein talks about and the main reason why Long avoids tackling that issue.
Long points it out, but brings the concept of rationality into it to describe their seemingly irrational bevaior (page 23 - a lengthy quote from Wittgenstein) of the actors in the example quoted. There is only one true logic, but people understand words differently and thus some behavior seems irrational (who is right? who is to say?). And what kind of exampe is it? A non-metaphysical one where people put price and value preferences on their perceptions of layout of the products. Long tries to say that the preferences are incoherent, but they are not. I think Wittgenstein demonstrates correctly that while true logical inference is unilateral, perception of the world is infinite. Therefore, perception of logic is subjective and scope of possible understanding of anything is also infinite even with the words defined and every single correct proposition made available to people.
His manuscript gets more interesting when he starts linking money with the syncategorematic. I have to poop so, I might add to this later if any discussion continues.
Sometimes I wonder how much Kant Mises knew he was employing when Mises was criticisng him.
Interesting stuff Aristophanes, and good call on Mises own explaination of metaphysics.
Do you have any online links about Witt's work you can bring up on what your expressing? Are you refererring to the Kripke (Cripke, sp?) view on Witt? About a year ago a friend of mine, who is a philosophy prof at Chicago brought up that paradox when we were talking about Wittgenstien, and mentioned Kripke. I don't know / remember much about the view, other than pieces of that conversation - but it sounds like what you're driving at.
Anyway, if this goes on any longer - I wonder if this should be it's own thread?
On Misinterpreting Kripke's Wittgenstein (only one view)
An electronic companion to Saul Kripke's classic text, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language
I have a few more resources, but they aren't in links...gimme a bit and I'll try to post them.
I think Kripke is the most popular interpretation of Wittgenstein's PI to date. (Kripkenstein) "There is no meaning."
It is a tough paradox to work around for sure and it comes down to guidance of thought to 'some kind of expression or application of knowledge' (or possibly to action itself) that allows for a syntactic chassis (a rule of some type) to form around what it means to know. Math, logic, and language all fall under this category. Anything that can be known a priori can be known to anyone in any way imaginable - still rationalized by the agent according to what the agent is said to "know," possibly even performed by an agent who has no idea at all. But all still, for the most part, empirically verifiable.
Lol. In my defense, I threw a whole bunch of Barry Smith in there as well.
Anyway, regarding the rule following paradox, I wasn't tying it to Mises (it wasn't from that paper). Here's the passage I was thinking of:
Long:The opponent of anarchy has thus fallen into the same error as the one Wittgenstein diagnoses in his rule-following paradox: the error of supposing the possibility, and/or the necessity, of a self-applying rule. Just as one may initially be thrown into intellectual vertigo by the failure to locate some mental item that all by itself guarantees its own meaning regardless of how one goes about applying it in practice, so the opponent of anarchy is thrown into vertigo at the thought of a legal system lacking any component that all by itself guarantees social order regardless of how it is applied by human agents. Just as it’s tempting to think that my grasp of a rule is something independent of my actions, something that makes me behave in a certain way, so it’s equally tempting to think that a society’s legal system is something external to that society that makes it orderly. But as the rule-following paradox shows, there couldn’t be any such self-applying entity; and since individuals do manage to follow rules pretty well most of the time – and since societies do likewise manage to maintain order pretty well most of the time – the absence of such a self-applying entity is no problem at all.
Just as it’s tempting to think that my grasp of a rule is something independent of my actions, something that makes me behave in a certain way, so it’s equally tempting to think that a society’s legal system is something external to that society that makes it orderly. But as the rule-following paradox shows, there couldn’t be any such self-applying entity; and since individuals do manage to follow rules pretty well most of the time – and since societies do likewise manage to maintain order pretty well most of the time – the absence of such a self-applying entity is no problem at all.
The opponent of anarchy has thus fallen into the same error as the one Wittgenstein diagnoses in his rule-following paradox: the error of supposing the possibility, and/or the necessity, of a self-applying rule.
Is nature a self-applying rule?
the error of supposing the possibility, and/or the necessity, of a self-applying rule.
This is the cowards way out!! haha. (http://mit.edu/abyrne/www/kripkeswittgenstein.pdf - page 5 of this describes that solution. Byrne says that the "right perpective" is necessary to understand that meaning doesn't need to consist of anything. But, as you will read below (if you do), the "right prespective" is exactly what guidance is. So, his soultion to the paradox is that guided meaning requires the "right perspective." It doesn't really "solve" the paradox or avoid it, but instead gives us a suggestion. That suggestion: objective perception in the form of subjective perception.
But, seriously, Kripke calls this the Platonic solution and it avoids delving into the problem. "Numbers are numbers" type of argument. Frankfurt rules out etiology as causal explanation for action because of the temporal inconsistencies that follow this sentence.
The necessity of the "intellectualist" rule comes not from the philosophy of mind/language (as Wittgenstein is in), but from that of action (which Mises is in). When we act, we can narrow it down to certain states of mind (desired goal, belief of how to obtain the goal, intention to act in that manner, act), but when we act, to what extent are we in control of our bodily movements. When you strike a match, when you focus your eyes to different depths, how in control of the movement are you during the process? We know why you wanted to strike the match and understand how you came to do so, but are you guiding your arm and fingers during the process, or do you just setup the event and then it happens?
This is where the question of guidance becomes important. What process leads you to act is clear. Wittgenstein (and Kripke) is (are) trying to find out how much guidance we do during our action. It gets narrowed down to mental process that involves understanding things as they change through temporal circumstances. This is why Kripke says (paraphrasing) "the sceptic has no reason to believe I mean 'plus' instead of 'quus' if I use '+' in circumstances that I have never used it before."
His example is 57+68=125. If you have never added ('+'-ed) numbers together that total more than say 55, then how can you know what '+' means in a context beyond that which you can recall. (The point of the simple math problem is to reduce complicated meta-information down to colloquial terminology - everybody gets "57" and "68.") For the math that mankind has not figured out yet, there must be a rule that we can follow on no uncertain terms that will lead us there. 'Addition', '+', 'plus', and 'quus' (the meta-operator) are just operators with criteria for applying. Language and logic must have them also because we can understand other people, but how can we verify them without somekind of rule?
since individuals do manage to follow rules pretty well most of the time – and since societies do likewise manage to maintain order pretty well most of the time
"most of the time"
What about the rest of the time? Are they just ne'er-do-wells, invalids, skeptics, poorly informed actor? Ultimately, and this is what frustrates me about libertarians (not all), people say "subjective perception" and the game is over. People don't follow rules some of the time due to incorrect information, misperception, etc. But there is never anything deeper philosophically that comes from that kind of workaround.
How do people add incorrectly? Or use a word incorrectly, or misread a sign, or screw up propositional directions in general? If you teach someone (vibing Gilbert Ryle) to play chess with all of the complex maneuvers and tactics and make sure that they know them, i.e. they can recite them, but they still fail to apply them in practice, what is it that is needed to understand how to apply things that you know? It has to be some mechanism of which fosters a higher aptitude for analyzing mental propositions about the real world that people of merit are able to apply correctly in action.
_____________
Further,
What about someone with amnesia (this might be Searle's example or Stroud or Railton, I cannot remember) who is lost in a library and who has a book about the library in which he is lost and a biography of himself. Both books contain every proposition for him to be able to find his way out of the library. How can a man with amnesia understand propositional knowledge about himself? Self-locating knowledge or indexicals, Frege says (or rather, his system cannot answer for), cannot be successfully transmitted from one mind to another. The thoughts that people will have surrounding the word "that" or "today" or "himself" lack the proper objects to form coherent Truth, according the Frege, again (essentially, therre is a refernce, but no sense - only one object when two are needed). There must be some mechanism of guidance that can be established that allows us to self-locate knowledge about events happening at a specific time versus in the past or future.
Also, I vote this go to a thread of its own.
Another thought on guidance (not my thought), it cannot fall into regress. If you need to understand a proposition and we say then that a mental process is need to understand how you understand the proposition, then you might still need a form of mental process that understands how to understand how to understand. This, obviously, must be avoided. Guidance, then, becomes a "necessary last step" kind of thing.
If we could figure out a good definition for guidance in this fashion that is a simple modus ponendo ponens away from the axioms that Long points out, then we could bring Mises, or at least his form of praxeology, into the forefront of modern action theory.
thanks for the links, this is going to take some time to digest.