How to we deal with he problematic aspects of historic texts, eg in B.G...

how to we deal with he problematic aspects of historic texts, eg in B.G.E Nietzsche spends like 12 pages talking about how much of raging misogynist he is, the buddha's extra rules in the pattimokka for women, kant's racism. its easy to write them off as being products of their time or just ignore them i feel like that disregarding how intertwined these beliefs tend to be in their work at the same time putting long dead writers on social justice tribunals seems pointless

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Nice bait thread.

I can't believe I'm going to give a serious answer to this

I think that there are two distinct issues being dealt with here. There are times when a writer's "problematic" views are a product specifically of the *limitations* of their time, which have since been surpassed. For example, Aristotle would have regarded most of his most valuable commentators as barbarians and "natural slaves", but we can imagine that if we took Aristotle and sat him down in front of Aquinas or, say, MacIntyre, he'd change his mind about who is and isn't a barbarian. This is a case where the writer's view has been genuinely superseded and we can imagine they themselves would recognise this if they lived in our time.

But the worrying thing in your post (which is probably a troll, but it's something a lot of people genuinely believe) is that the alternative to burning Aristotle's books because of his views on women and slaves is to simply "ignore" them. The assumption is that in reading works from the past, there's no possibility that you might be pulled up short in a productive way, realising that some set of beliefs we have in the modern world are in fact poorly rationalised and peculiar to our time. The only reason to think this is if you think the modern world is infallible, at least with respect to the past, which imo is a ridiculous and discredited viewpoint. One of the most valuable parts of reading long dead authors is that often their "anachronistic" views will make you think about the unquestioned assumptions you've been inculcated with simply by being born in a certain time period.

Btw I'm not talking about edgelord shit. Kant's racism is racism, though he himself wouldn't have thought of it as such and merely accepted it as the latest science (what might you be accepting just because it's the "latest science"? has science become so much more reliable since Kant's time? could you give a clear narrative of what happened to make it more reliable?). But the point is that being aware of yourself as a historical actor, who could have been born into the same time as any of these men, and would have then shared the same "problematic" views that they held, is the first step to recognising that you have a parcel of unreasoned, unconscious beliefs foisted onto you by the arbitrary moment in time that you were born into.

>how to we deal with he problematic aspects of historic texts
burn these posters and everyone like them to death

>i want all the benefits of your society and I want to kill you by ripping your heart out and eating it
>hold still please
nah

Perhaps realize that it is not the greatest geniuses on Earth who are wrong about these topics but instead it is you who are wrong.

The question that extremely harder to answer than It seems.

The way to deal with it is the same as with any other issue you disagree with: you don't have to, and in fact shouldn't, approach anything you read with all-or-nothing mindset. You don't have to like Nietzsche the man to agree in part with the thoughts of Nietzsche the author. It's not a religion, just pick and choose. Would you refuse a gun because some workers in the arms factory that made it were racist?

If you let them burn books, you'll let them burn bodies eventually. In short, we listen to Heine, who even the Nazis didn't have the heart to burn and just renamed as user.

>he thinks Nietzsche was a misogynist
We give you remedial reading classes.

>I’ll study philosophy
>but first I have to make sure it does nothing to my preconceived notions
Lol

Why be a coward and assume the liberal-left position that they are wrong because... no reason other than being a coward that won't challenge contemporary dogmatic assumptions.

Dogmatic thinking is not thinking. If you are not open to the possibility that they are right then you are not open to thinking at all.

Some books deserve to be burned

Very much this desu. Thank you for a genuinely good post. Being aloof about how perceptions and stuff change is always a good idea. See there conclusions in context and know that someone will see yours in context as well.

lmao

This, unironically

Humanism and egalitarianism are true because all other ideologies are hateful.

Bait

>criticizing women means being a raging misogynist
Forget about philosophy, dude. Self-help books by new age junkies seem more your speed.

what did he mean by this?

>Kant literally believes black are born white everywhere but their genitals, and gradually darken as they sin
>IF YOU DON'T AGREE THEN YOU JUST HAVE PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS user
None of you actually knew this of Kant, but you agreed with him preemptively because... of your preconceived notions, perhaps? Or did you really read Kant and think "Ah, yes, I see now: nigger babies don't exist" in a totally woke and unbiased fashion? Oh wait, no, you didn't, because fucking noone on lit has taken the time to read Kant. Retards.

Don't know where Kant said that, but we also believe in facts that are absurd by future standards of science, which themselves will be rendered out of date later. People who assume this of the past are somehow moronic because they couldn't ascertain facts that took centuries of invention to develop are brainlets.

That's not how you spell Jainism.

abort male fetuses

Based ahisma user

I feel like most people underestimate how intrinsically linked most internal philosophical beliefs are with each other, it would be absurd to remove Bentham's hedonistic calculus from his utilitarianism so why do we so easily do the same for problematic ideas.

>This is a case where the writer's view has been genuinely superseded and we can imagine they themselves would recognise this if they lived in our time.

the issue with this is the work we analyse and digest haven't been contextualized in out time, its easy to assert they would change their mind now but their mind set was their mind set and ultimately frames their work.

>the first step to recognizing that you have a parcel of unseasoned, unconscious beliefs foisted onto you by the arbitrary moment in time that you were born into.

this is undoubtedly correct but i would hope in the future these same belief are challenged and refuted if necessary right, simply because i personally may have fallen victim to the same bias's in his time doesn't mean we should idk excuse them in a modern context

>Would you refuse a gun because some workers in the arms factory that made it were racist?

see this is a false dichotomy, one is a exchange of good for a service, but the other is either ascribing a view of the world or morality.
a gun cant be racist, it can be made BY a racist but the gun in innocent, however a racist can create a racist idea and the propagation of that would be an issue.

ment to reply to

lmao idk if you have read BGE but he literally states that the fundamental human nature of women is inferior, he is self aware in his misogyny but regardless

Ever thought your egeletarian views might be a product of its time?

Spoiler: they were right, and your school indoctrinator was wrong.

Protip: there's nothing at all wrong with being 'hateful'.

he's not wrong though

>criticizing women means hating them
Again, please fuck off from philosophy books and philosophy threads.

>I can't believe I'm going to give a serious answer to this
stopped reading there. back to r/ with you. into the trash with you. out with you. bye bye. say bye bye. user say bye bye. bye bye.

Thank you for a wonderful post!

exalting post

Pretty much spot on. I don't think all historical writers would change their views if brought to a modern context. These great writers were human after all, and as a result would probably be likely to cling to their views even if shown evidence to the contrary. Still, I don't think a work should be ignored entirely because of a few elements of bigotry. The mistake of the modern liberal is to throw the baby out with the bathwater and to not look for the universal meaning of what's being said beneath that bigotry. Personally, I disagree with many of the "problematic" observations made by these writers and there are instances of them actually being proven wrong by later scientific and sociological developments. Even so, it's understandable why these writers reached the conclusions the reached with the information they had on hand, and there is often a genuinely good intention to forward humanity behind their writings.

Christ would like a word with you.

this is a sick

But a racist can also create a non-racist idea and in my opinion it shouldn't be discarded just for this reason. For example, I can agree with Kant's categorical imperative and incorporate it into my worldview, while rejecting his racism.

The buddha was inerrant and pandakas are banned from the Sangha and will never reach nibbana in this life.

I'm not saying it's wrong for Kant to be wrong about things. What says is perfectly fine. My issue is with the "heh maybe you should listen to the pros" retardation coming from people who haven't actually listened to them.

You know what would be a good idea? To rewrite the OP in terms of something like flat earth. There are bound to have some greek thinkers who thought the earth was flat. Do you just listen to the greeks though?

>the greatest minds of all time would change their hateful tune, if only I could show them the way
Lmao

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I know this is bait but the attacks on Kants are usually retarded. The man changed his entire stance on colonialism in his later years and his racism was innocent, because observationally true.

Racism is a spook bro.

>how to we deal with he problematic aspects of historic texts

Exactly the same as every other proposition in those texts. Are they based on solid evidence that still holds true, or are they talking out of their ass?
How is this even a question?