Some lovely ideas. "Lies" is nice and provocative, but I think it's potentially limiting as you develop these ideas out. A recursive lie to children, perhaps.

Some lovely ideas. "Lies" is nice and provocative, but I think it's potentially limiting as you develop these ideas out. A recursive lie to children, perhaps. I feel that it's quite relevant for anyone who wants to learn philosophy these days. Western philosophy has, for hundreds of years now, mostly taken the form of dialectic or polemic. A philosophical position is polemical response to a previous philosophical mode, one that the new school defines and characterizes. Often one that they even names. Marx defines and characterizes capitalism. Academic feminism eventually characterizes patriarchy. Postmodernism responds to.modernism. The enlightenment counters medievalism. As the era progresses, we know about the earlier modes of thought primarily from the polemical retorts. It's much easier to gain a rudimentary understanding of "what non-trinitarian gnostics believed" from inquisitors and heresiologists than it is from reading gnostic sources. Even when the Pendulum swings, the inquisitor's definition tends to persist. Ayn Rand and other late modern, libertarians/objectivists adopt Marx's use of capitalism, and what capitalists believe. Revivalist religious movements rely on heresiologists for their theology. These "lies" are necessary scaffolding for modern ideas.