The problem I have run across with Kant (and to be fair, other
philosophers like Descartes) is the fact that the philosophy, which
is nice and neat and tidy, but has nothing to do with John and Jane
Doe’s life with philosophy emphasis on rationality and arguments
about free will and determinism and how do we know, what we know?
In other words, philosophy has nothing to do with life as John and Jane
Doe know it… they are about getting the kids to school and paying the
rent/mortgage or planning their vacation/retirement… what do they care
if Hume destroyed the cause and effect of science… who gives a shit…
let us look at the argument for the existence for god……
God “that then which nothing greater can be thought of”
even in the mind of one who denies the existence of god.
St. Anselm suggested the greatest possibility being exists in the mind,
it must also exist in reality…….
this argument for god from the standpoint of John/Jane Doe is
so far from what they believe as to be from here to the next galaxy………
Thoughts like the argument for god simply has no place in the life of
the average person… who is trying to get promoted or finding the money
to pay rent or wondering which Kardashian is married to which basketball
player……………philosophy as constituted has no place in the average person’s
life… it may as well be in Greek for all the good it does the average person
on Main Street…………….and that is exactly what is wrong with philosophy…
we must become engaged with what matter’s to the average person…….
the average person has no morality problem, no problems with how
do we gain knowledge, no problem with the question of identity………
it just doesn’t matter to the average person, to John Doe…
So, how do we make philosophy relevant again?
do we reduce philosophy to the “see jane run” level or do we engage
with the average person’s life by engaging in philosophy
that does matter in people’s life……………
so for example, the government takes actions, in our name,
and for example, take the torture of people to gain information
about terrorist plots… is this moral? if the government acts
in our name, then we should have some say into what our government
can or can’t do…in other words, the government doesn’t tell us what to do,
we tell the government what to do… for if the government acts in our name,
then we must have some say in its actions…so, what does this mean?
it means that we must consider more direct democracy into American
government…instead of indirect democracy, which is representational
democracy, we inject more direct democracy by allowing people
to vote on matters before congress……. in other words, if a tax vote is before
congress, before congress can vote, we have the people vote on whether
they approve or disapprove of the increase in taxes…… for a declaration
of war to pass congress, it must pass approval by the people……
this voting can be done easily enough by electronic voting on our
computer or phone……………… this type of engagement with the government
is necessary for us to bring back or to engage our fictional John and Jane Doe…
because right now, less then 50% of those who can vote, vote…
we have millions who shun their civic duty because it is too time consuming
or it doesn’t matter who we vote for, nothing ever happens… the nihilistic
idea that voting doesn’t matter because my one lone vote will make no difference……
so we begin to find engagement with people and their government by
giving the people a greater voice in government………….
we must also remove money from government… so no more
legal bribes by big corporations and lobbyist, so we overturn
citizens united and don’t allow money to corrupt our representatives…
for the basic principle of our government is simply this,
government of the people, for the people, by the people……….
so we take philosophy back to the people……
to turn a phrase…
philosophy of the people, for the people, by the people…
and in the light of philosophy of the people, for the people and by
the people, we reject such philosophy as linguistics and deconstruction for
philosophy that engages people in matters that are of concern to them…
what is the best life to live? what should be the focus of life, the pursuit
of happiness or the pursuit of truth or the pursuit of wealth/property…
and we return to Kant’s second question, what am I to do? or as we have
modified it, what am I/we to do? for all individual questions have a component
that is not just about the individual “I” but about the collective we………
what are we to do?..…………
and in our attempt to answer that question, we must have some sense of
where we stand in regard to the government… for the question of
"what are we to do? may just be a question whose answer is to
create a new government that answers my needs or perhaps the answer
is to work on a new economic system, one that doesn’t engage in
nihilism like our current economic system does…….
depending on how we answer the question as to what is our greatest
need, then we can answer the question, what are we to do?
we must have some understanding of who we are and what is possible
and what is the current state of man…………. today, our
greatest threat to our freedom doesn’t lie with or stand with
the government but with the economic system that is nihilistic…
and places profits/money over the value of human beings… that is
the classic definition of nihilism…….anything that negates human values
is nihilism………
to eliminate nihilism, we must regain our political and economic system,
to serve us, not for us to serve a political and economic system that’s
only concern is to negate us and our values…………………
this needs to be the mission of philosophy today… to make people aware of
our current situation in the world and of possible answers………
to diagnose our current situation and to find a possible cure/cures…….
we can return philosophy to the common man by making philosophy
a means to understand our current situation………… if we continue
to use philosophy as some abstract means to an abstract truth,
philosophy will continue to fade from people’s sight…
how do we make philosophy of use to John and Jane Doe?
Kropotkin