A Brief History of the Totality of Western Thought
Stephen J. Marotta
Purpose of this project
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This series is here to test a proposition. Assumption: Philosophy is a conversation. It has to be done between two people. Through the course of this series we will talk about all of the major figures in philosophy, the history of the conversation as it has been recorded for us, and many of the minor figures as well. But there are any number of philosophical encyclopedias online. So we are not making another one. Instead, we are telling a story, and having a live conversation. That is the hypothesis we are going to test: There is a way to use technology to have a genuine meaningful philosophical conversation and teach and learn philosophy together. I do not know if this proposition is true or not, but I am going to incorporate any technological tools available and change the formatting of this series as we go to see if we cannot accomplish this.
It will only work if we are engaged with one another. I will make many statements in the course of this series, all of which can be argued against. I am hoping to find a few of you with the interest in this subject who will provide those arguments which will be the basis of the conversation where we will be shaping one another's views on these matters. All arguments are welcome. No rules exist or need to exist on types of contributions which can be made in these classes. Let's talk.
Intro to:
A Brief History of the Totality of Western Thought
Stephen J. Marotta
A note on style
Since this is the project, very little in this series will be written in an "academic ready-for-publication" sort of way. I will be writing all of these posts in a fast, first-draft, unedited sort of way. Once we get through it all I will probably go back and edit and refine and expand the notes; but not on the first go around.
Intro to:
A Brief History of the Totality of Western Thought
Stephen J. Marotta
The project
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It would be helpful to have some history of philosophy knowledge to put context to Zarathustra.
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Very well.
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But first. A word or two about the classes that follow:
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This is *my interpretation* of Western Philosophy. I know from experience that about 95% plus of all professors of philosophy will disagree with most of the "lenses" I use to interpret the history of philosophy in these classes.
Why is this ok with me?
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First, because, that is the *nature* of philosophy. We argue about *everything*. This is not seen as a weakness but a strength of our project. We disagree about the purpose of philosophy. We disagree about the methods we should use when doing philosophy. We disagree about every interpretation of every argument ever put forward in philosophy. We disagree about how to think about the world, what to think about the world, what thinking is, what truth is, what knowledge is... we disagree about *everything*. The nature of philosophy as continued conversation, as *live* conversation brings up an important point about philosophy.
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The history of philosophy is the record of one of the greatest conversations our species has ever had; it has been recorded, the greatest contributors to that conversation have had their contributions preserved for us so that we can have this ongoing conversation. I remember a story about an undergraduate student (I think this is Allan Bloom's) who was taking an intro to philosophy course, reading the course material, and writing an assigned paper. In the paper, the student referred to the ideas of "Mr. Aristotle"... Allan Bloom thought about this curious way of writing until it hit him... *The student thought that Aristotle was a contemporary*, that he was alive today and making his arguments in print in the last 10 years or so, and was engaging with those ideas as if someone had just walked into a room and was advocating those ideas and he/she was responding to them. This is how you should approach the ideas in philosophy. This is how you should approach the ideas.
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Plato is alive today, there are Neoplatonists whose views of the cosmos and ethics and what is real and epistemology and all of that are essentially the views of a camp of people who still think Plato got it right! There are, believe it or not, Thalesian and probably secretive adherents of the cult of Pythagoras; panpsychism and materialism and any of a host of other strange views are believed by people today, real thinkers, who have rigorous commitment to these wild and contradictory camps of thought. Welcome to a living conversation. To enter the room where we are talking, to learn our games, to develop yourself linguistically to the degree that you can engage and even contribute to this conversation... this is to join a conversation designed to answer questions like: "What is the Good?" and "How should we then live?" and "Who are we?" and "What does it mean to be a human being on a planet like ours?" and many more profound and serious questions. Welcome to the game!
The second reason why it does not bother me that my views are not the mainstream views; besides the fact that there is no consensus on the subjects on which I have developed these attitudes and views; these lenses through which to interpret what is going on in the conversation; is that I have had arguments and conversations about these things with a host of excellent thinkers, and they stand the test.
Besides the fact that I am quite comfortable, and will even welcome enthusiastically *any and every* challenge to whatever I assert in these classes... (the point of philosophy is not to have a set of settled principles, like a sheet of dogmas one signs one's name to at the bottom; but, rather *to keep the conversation going*. And so we find nothing more *agreeable* than *disagreement*.)
I have experience defending these views in front of seasoned and disciplined thinkers; philosophy professors who have spent decades of their lives thinking about these issues; and even though I know that my views are not in *fashion* right now; I also know that I have the ability to persuade those who are initially disinclined to agree with my assessments.
This helps explain why I am not ashamed to write so quickly about so large a topic as the *history of the entirety of Western Thought* in a first-draft, off-the-top-of-my-head sort of way... I even go out of my way NOT to explain certain of the more controversial positions I hold because I am *hoping* thereby to bait some overconfident adherent of the modernly fashionable views to rush in and try to tear my unprotected child apart so that we can get a conversation going. I save some of the best arguments for when the arguers arrive. Also, I am overqualified in the skills of *changing my mind*. There is no ego problem here. We are after the truth, for Heaven's sake, and I say this sincerely: If someone *were* to be able to utterly demolish a view I held dear, that I spent 20 years invested in defending and propping up... what matters that to me? The only way they can destroy such a sophisticated and carefully constructed set of notions about the world, the only way to *really* do that, is to REPLACE THEM with *BETTER* ideas... I am infinitely happy to jettison ideas I once held to be able to take on better ones, and I have a history of demonstrating my ability to do that over many years.
We have nothing to lose but our errors.
Let's Start
So, if you are curious about my understanding of Western Thought and Western Philosophy; if you want to see it through my lenses. click the links below.
What you can get from these classes:
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The equivalent of an excellent undergraduate degree in philosophy
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It should be easy enough to distinguish between the general facts I give about Socrates, and the historical context, and the philosophical context surrounding his advancement of ideas AND the interpretations of the grander story through the lenses I talk about explicitly throughout these lectures.
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If you engage a great deal and we carry the conversation on further between us in the notes and comments, you can get a master's level education in philosophy.
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There is so much that is left out of these lectures, obviously, and we will have no problem digging in deeper if you are driven to know.
Last word, keep in mind that I am attempting to put all of this together to tell a *quick* story which will provide enough context to the conversation of philosophy, and the grander cultural context in which that conversation is nested, for us to make more sense out of what it was that N was accomplishing with his Zarathustra... Eventually, I plan on going back through, adding links and references where I missed them; expanding whole sections with new illustrations and arguments; fixing spelling errors (seriously, I am writing these things all in one go basically without any editing afterword and hitting "publish".) So bare with me.
