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Politics : Libertarian Discussion Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (2618)	5/6/1999 3:22:00 AM
From: Dave Reed	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13056

I'm interested in learning more about your views on commercial pornography and the limits to free speech. In the April issue of Scientific American, they had an interesting item in their "150 years ago" section. They quoted an article about a hazard that was causing many people to become "morally insane." It wasn't pornography, as you might expect; it seems they were reading too much fiction. 150 years ago, would you have argued that free speech rights shouldn't include commercial fiction? Dave

To: Neocon who wrote (2618)	5/6/1999 11:55:00 AM
From: Richard Babusek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13056

I would liked to have seen that debate. For those who may be interested, Mr. Adler has many great books, several on philosophy. Among the most approachable are "Aristotle for Everyone" and "Six Great Ideas". If I remember correctly the six great ideas are; Truth, Goodness, and Beauty as ideas we use to judge by, and Liberty, Equality, and Justice as ideas we act on. He contends (and I approve) that we should know what the business of philosophy is. His answer is in a word, ideas. In two words, great ideas. The funny thing is, on many topics I couldn't agree more with the conclusions he draws, and on others I can't understand his conclusions at all. He is one of the few who I would defer to assuming he had greater knowledge on a topic we differ on. Of course I would try to avail myself to the truth of the issue. I'm not above asserting what I think is correct, but some have the integrity and reputation for truth that makes me reconsider my opinions, and he is one. Too bad hypertext technology was not available when he wrote The Syntopicon. If you haven't seen this work, you are really missing a literary and philosophically heroic effort. This is a collection of "Great Books of the Western World" along with about four additional volumes which made up the “Syntopicon” and an extensive index. You could look up a topic in the Syntopicon, and get an overview of the history and development of the idea. You could also see what the West's Great Thinkers had to say about the subject, with cross references to each place it appears in the nearly fifty volumes of the Great Works that accompany the set. Sorry for rambling, I'll try to make a point next time. Ricardo