True Freedom

great idea and what not, just not very practical.you want to get rid of cities?
society?
move back to the barter system?but that last part, sounds quite platonic.
an ideal freedom, and this freedom we have.your defintion of freedom also seems to be quite a bit different, more idealistic, than the one we currently have.I tend to follow the jefferonian ideal of freedom--liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness.As to purpose. Most of life is fake. But everyonce in a while, you might just find, there is something that IS meaningful, that isn't a waste of time. Not a blown up, exageratted purpose, but a real one. And christ and siddhartha aren't the only ones to find life's purpose. And the purpose they had (love, as far as I can discern) isn't the only real purpose in life. It's hard to explain, and I probably can't give an example--I can't right now.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

technically, no.Locke is
liberty, equality, property.or wait, is it life, liberty, happiness?
damn, I'm confused now. probably the latter.
no wonder I failed the AP government test.oh, and that should read jeffersonian, not jefferonian.(at my own silly mistake)

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

right, and no Locke without Descarte.had to be opposition, somewhere, right?(unless I've my history wrong, and Descarte came after Locke, but I don't think so)at any rate, definetely no Humes without Locke, and no Kant without Humes.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

I'm not sure if I contested that fact (may have been accidentally implies).But jefferson is more than just a rewrite of Locke. He's almost like the American da Vince.And Locke, while a good thinker, was no da Vinci.ah, who cares.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

got a 2. I think I confused plebiscite with refereundum, which really screwed up one of my essays. been a while since I took it, though.dude, locke and jefferson ain't trivial.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

Why would the founding fathers try to give just enough to satisfy the masses?You know what prompted that statement, right? The British Empire's unjust rule over the colonies.Freedom from them was the goal.they may have been wealthy, to americans. To brits, they would've been on the lower end. Today, they'd make up the upper end of the middle class.and how was the american government set up to promote the wealthly elites? How are they even elite? It could only be based off of wealth. In terms of intelligence, there's no one really all that great running our country. From president downward.To my first question. Anyone can runfor office in the US--your dirt poor farmer, even. They just have to be old enough, been in the state long enough, and in case of president--be natural born.
today the house AND senate are directly elected. THe president is still doneby electoral college, but they generally vote how their states did.The reason the wealthy today are the only ones running is becuase of, ironically, the media. It takes too much money to run for office. BUt if you look at our early history, we had people like, and including, Danial Boone in the House. We did actually have a backwater president--Jackson. The first cheif of justice was an infantry man during the revolution--and suffered through valley forge.The only true democracy that's ever existed was in ancient athens.
We have a republic--we vote for others to represent us.
Answer me this--in what way is our freedom restricted by the government? Do they trap our minds? Force us to believe in certain ways?Do you want to live in a world with no government? You may have discovered the ideal, but how many will follow? WHat you propose will eventually lead to anarchy.That guitar you play (assumed by the picture) isn't possible then. If no one has a job, and just sits on their ass becuase it's all pointless, no one is gonna fix that when it brakes, or make newer, better versions.YOu also forget one very important factor in all this. Human nature. it makes it impossible for what you propose.And at this point--I've kinda forgotten the points you made, and really don't feel like rereading your well thought out, but long, post.could you make a short list, then?
then I might be able to argue a touch better.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

oh, american history I got a five.
took the test last year.not bad, getting a three.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

that would be close to what he's talking about, if not it.I was trying to figure out what he meant with it, and your interpretation makes sense.either that, or there's some other kind of meaningful purpose for some of us.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

what can I say. my area's history. though I tend to forget good chunks of it.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

yeah, metaphysics is very important to us.I guess I'm more, damn, what are the brits called?oh yeah, pragmatic. I like things that work. mix in utilitarianism, with pragmatism, and then throw in a touch of the categorical imperative, and you've almost got my philosophy.have fun trying to become the buddha, not easy.
fun read for you might be Siddhartha, by Hesse. Little wierd, written by a german in the 60s, translated to english. that's what makes it wierd.
another one could be Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintence, which has almost nothing to do about maintaining motercycles and everything to do with how Aristotle scwered up.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

unfortunately, I know only of SIddhartha by Hesse. Had to read it for my AP/IB english 12 class, and found it very good. Now that I'm at a real University, I'll try to find Demian.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

If I could only remember what existensialism was from my philosoph class.Does it relate in any way to Descarte?
I've studied it, but I just can't remember. urghtoo tired to think straight, now, too.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

. . . or mefor I am become death, the shatterer of worlds

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

As I stated earlier in this thread, that idea is very platonic.The idea of the ideal and then, this imperfect world.
very influential in christian (and judaism and islam) philosophy.however, the ideal is not subjective. It is the perfect form that we all will know. Or at least, I do not think it's subjective. Reason being, the idea of subjective and objective was created after Plato--by aristotle, and I do believe that the two argued over whether ob/sub was real. As we can see, Aristotle won out.Interesting how western philosophy is mixed between those two figures more than any other person in recorded history.yes--western ideas are based more off of these two than even jesus. after all, he had to pull this line from somewhere to me, that sounds an awful like Plato's cave analogy.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

you know, I asked him that once. I still haven't gotten a reply. Maybe he's too busy answering your all's prayers?

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences