Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'The Road to Serfdom' and 'Foucault: a very short introduction'

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4 ideas

25. Social Practice / A. Freedoms / 4. Free market
Hayek was a liberal, but mainly concerned with market freedom [Hayek, by Dunt]
     Full Idea: Hayek was a liberal (rather than a conservative), …but the individual liberty he cared about was not diversity or freedom of thought. It was freedom to operate in the market.
     From: report of F.A. Hayek (The Road to Serfdom [1944]) by Ian Dunt - How to be a Liberal 7
     A reaction: There seems to have been a drift from obsession with freedom to participate in the market, towards the less plausible idea that market forces can solve everything. I once met someone who was convinced the market could solve environmental problems.
Impeding the market is likely to lead to extensive state control [Hayek]
     Full Idea: Once the free working of the market is impeded beyond a certain degree, the planner will be forced to extend his controls until they become all comprehensive.
     From: F.A. Hayek (The Road to Serfdom [1944]), quoted by Ian Dunt - How to be a Liberal 7
     A reaction: Hayek was terrified of totalitarianism (quite reasonably), but fascism and communism don't seem to have arisen in the way he describes. I'm not clear why sensible intervention in the market should slide down into nightmare.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / a. Aims of education
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it.
     From: Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE])
     A reaction: The epigraph on a David Chalmers website. A wonderful remark, and it should be on the wall of every beginners' philosophy class. However, while it is in the spirit of Aristotle, it appears to be a misattribution with no ancient provenance.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles
Aristotle said the educated were superior to the uneducated as the living are to the dead [Aristotle, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Aristotle was asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated; "As much," he said, "as the living are to the dead."
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 05.1.11