Care to enlighten us, plebs, oh mighty Philosopher?
What the fuck does it mean to be 'philosophically left-wing'?
Gavin King
Aaron Murphy
It means they agree with shallow leftist platitudes but don’t understand why or read any works on economics
Julian Walker
Most of this thread is full of strawmen "hurr ur a stoner who read half an intro on wikipedia xD" trying to project onto others things they confusely feel applying to themselves, making sure to pre-emptively disqualify them as red liberals or whatever. This is not really specific to this thread but also applies to the majority of leftypol trying frantically to determine who is a legit leftist and who isn't (idpol, liberals, larpers, whatever, you guys have so many labels to throw around it's not even funny to list them) to feel good about themselves.
Philosophy generally as a critical stance of "commonly held views", as a pluridisciplinary approach can constitute a solid theoretical foundation for leftist politics. I'm saying can because obviously there are right-wing philosophers and people who think of themselves as well-versed in philosophy and hold centrist views or are politically confused.
Just because you aren't familiar with esoteric marxian economics, finance or the history of modes of productions doesn't mean you are disqualified. I'm getting more and more fed up of reading dunning-kruger-ridden posters who pathologically need to tell how everyone but them suck.
Being philosophically left-wing, for me, is rejecting individualist ethics, individualist morals, it implies supporting some kind of rationalist historical project (criticism of religion and tradition, trying to remove capital/the market as the only decision-taking social force and replace it by democratic institutions [not bourgeois elections] in order to uphold certain values that are specific to the left).
Spinoza's determinism is the closest thing you can find to a philosophically left-wing project and it's hardly surprising he influenced Marx that much (through hegel).
Gabriel Wilson
Are you new? If anything, the core posters don't give a shit about the term "leftist" (an already lost cause), leaving it behind and calling themselves communist/Marxist.
It all boils down to one's understanding of class struggle: the structuring ontological field of the current regime (Marxist) vs. one of the many causes (leftist).
I don't give a shit about leftist politics, mate. Your conception of philosophy as a critique of doxa is outdated, and "pluridisciplinarity" is just an ideological term every academic tries to live up to.
Esoteric for you.
It means you are not a Marxist. That's all.
I'll stick to dialectical materialism.
If there's an anti-Spinozan philosopher par excellence, it's Hegel, mate. I know that he says something along the line that "modern phil. starts with Spino" but that's just wiki-tier again. There were and are attempts to bring together Spinoza and Marx, and while these are very intelligent attempts – much better than the other 'Marxist' tradition, the analytic philosophers, with whom they share the reservations about the dialectical method, if not the ultimate aim of abolishing it altogether –, they ultimately prove to be failures.
Bentley Reed
I'm sorry but you're out of your depth.
Samuel Mitchell
I'm sorry, but you'll have to demonstrate that.
Brayden Howard
Every single string of text you've typed is a demonstration clear as day. When it takes you 10 seconds to type out a half-skilled statement, it will take me 5 minutes to debunk it, it's clear going into this is a mathematically losing game for me.
I wouldn't mind debunking you on voice chat because I could actually do it fast enough for it not to feel like a huge chore. I'm not paid to do this and typing it will take me forever. But every single point you're making is extremely weak/parroting others while you obviously have no clue what you're talking about.
Ian Torres
I'm not the one who (from the beginning) framed this as a dick measuring contest:
this post reeks of "me>u," just like the current one I'm answering to. If you attempt (and still continue to take) the debate as such at least try to measure up to your enormous phallus, or face the obvious conclusions people will draw.
Aiden Nelson