![The Beginning and End of Philosophy - [The Existential Comics]](https://static.existentialcomics.com/comics/TheBeginningandEndofPhilosophy.png){kind=link}
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/27000971
Source: https://existentialcomics.com/comic/593
Alt-Text:
The problem with believing society always progresses is that you must also believe that reason always wins the power struggle, which I’m too sure is true these days.
Yes but that’s just it. The concept of accumulated knowledge transforming humanity is full of myths and fallacies.
Language fails. Why, and by whom, would this leader be considered stupid or smart at all? What is the difference? Why refer to intelligence?
It is only deployed to support the reasoning that stupidity is not (essentially) meaningfully accumulated. But yet, imperial positions are the result of accumulated wealth and power, which are very stupid things to do even according to ancient epistemologies. The teleogy of accumulated knowledge is a fallacy and with observation it is clear that what is considered wise or foolish is determined by the same processes that accumulate wealth and power. With that foundation, the philosopher may only reason from their prison cell, forced to imagine futures for accumulated power and to wage a spiritual war against the ancients that successfully prevented such accumulation and were not compelled to rationize accumulation of knowledge as our salvation.
True, “stupid” is a vague term.
If we go for the idea of knowledge in ancient Greece (that’s where these characters are from), the greeks philosophers though there is no “bad” people, only people who are misinformed. “Good” and “Truth” are one and the same for the Greek philosophy. Someone acting in an evil way is only doing it because they don’t realize that what they are doing has repercussions that ultimately are against their own interests. So in this view, it’s only lack of knowledge what leads to bad decisions.
Something to consider is the people who are actually mentally sick and their brain does not function in a healthy way (eg. psychopathy, masochism, etc)… but again, what this would mean for the greeks is that these people might have trouble seeing truth, it’s not that they are fundamentally “bad” but rather that they have issues that cause trouble acquiring knowledge that would let them see their actions as wrong. They might only be able to see things in the short term, for example, instead of thinking if the action is in their interest long term.
What the ancient greeks would say about accumulating wealth and power being the main guiding principle is that this is a “stupid” thing to do. Socrates and Plato would likely argue that the pursuit of wealth and power should be subordinate to the pursuit of virtue and wisdom and that if you accumulate things without first thinking of the consequences that means you have not acquired enough knowledge to understand the consequences of your actions.