What is the relationship between Philosophy and History?
Description
What is the role of philosophy in history? Do philosophers come up with ideas that spread and influence the world? Or are their works the cumulation of the advances of society? How do good ideas spread? And is this a time for optimism?
Today’s episode of Classical Wisdom Speaks is with Robert Tracinski, editor of Symposium, a journal of liberalism, author of the The Tracinski Letter (https://tracinskiletter.substack.com/) and a Senior fellow at the Atlas Society. We’ll be looking at the relationship between philosophy and history, the "Thales Objection" and Robert’s idea on the virtuous circle.
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United States
"What is the relationship between philosophy and history" presents an absurd claim at the outset, a Pollyanna view of the current state of the world and the US in particular. How can these preening ivory tower intellectuals have failed to notice things like multiple mass murders daily, the loss of abortion rights and the loss of women having liberty over their own person, and a looming default on the national debt and the blatant rigging of our elections by gerrymandering on a grand scale? How about run away climate change, a plainly corrupt and politicized Supreme Court, virtual book burning of textbooks which tell about our racist, slave owning past and the actual existence of a spectrum of sexual identities, and our current epidemic of brutal police violence against minorities? How about drug shortages, the decision to abandon the women in Afghanistan so we could start a proxy war with Russia and a cold war with China? How about the fact that half the country voted for a predatory,