Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Go Figure: a Path through Fictionalism' and 'The Really Hard Problem'

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2 ideas

24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 1. A People / b. The natural life
Rational animals begin uncorrupted, but externals and companions are bad influences [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: The rational animal is corrupted, sometimes because of the persuasiveness of external activities and sometimes because of the influence of companions. For the starting points provided by nature are uncorrupted.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.89
     A reaction: If companions corrupt us, what corrupted the companions? Aren't we all in this together? And where do the 'external activities' originate?
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 9. Communism
Alienation is not finding what one wants, or being unable to achieve it [Flanagan]
     Full Idea: What Marx called 'alienation' is the widespread condition of not being able to discover what one wants, or not being remotely positioned to achieve.
     From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 2 'Expanding')
     A reaction: I took alienation to concern people's relationship to the means of production in their trade. On Flanagan's definition I would expect almost everyone aged under 20 to count as alienated.