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Wow! A new record … my post disappeared in less than 30 mins … Here is the second attempt to post a reply to Diogenes post on the suppression of populism.
… I think good argument could be made that the desire for suppression of what is, at least here, being called “populism” is the suppression of what in the history of philosophy is referred to as Scottish Common Sense (sometimes referred to as Scottish Common Sensism or Scottish Common Sense Realism). Of the figures involved I am only familiar with Thomas Reid and Sir William Hamilton and would recommend reading them. There are of course many others. A couple of famous names connected with this school of thought that you might have read or studied would be Francis Hutcheson and David Hume.
Why would I make such a claim? The Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense showed that there are mental phenomena that cannot be interpreted as any form of sensation and that “intelligence supposes principles, which, as conditions of its activity, cannot be the results of its operation” (I think the discussion from which this quote is pulled occurs in Hamilton’s Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, Education and University Reform, 1853). What he is getting at here, as does Reid in his work, is that first, there are mental phenomena experienced that are caused by (there is more than one form of cause on this see Menno Hulswit’s writings on Semeiotic Causation and Teleology (he argues, and I think correctly that Semeiosis [the scientific study of the flow – a certain kind of entailment if you like – of the action of signs] is where one can observe the teleological process at work), or are a result of, if you will, by something outside of our own interpretation of sensation and second, that intelligence (consciousness?) presupposes laws or principles outside of or that must be in place logically prior to our mental activity. In short, there are aspects of human thought outside the control of the apparatus of political (and I would argue theological also) dogma or ideology. Yes Virginia “populism” is a HUGE problem. For a nice account of Scottish Common Sensism see Herbert W. Schneider’s History of American Philosophy. Yes, I am aware that Schneider studied under Dewey at Columbia and that he (Schneider) had Fascist leanings, and that his work in social philosophy is suspect and questionable … his history is still worth a read. As with many writers we should not commit a division fallacy when considering their work.