Politicians and philosophers

Manfred and I were studying for our PhD at Case Institute of Technology. He was a genius, I thought. He chose to write his thesis on artificial intelligence. He proposed to design a system handling all types of data and develop the best way to analyze them. The introduction to his thesis referred to Kant, a major German philosopher born in 1724.

I always wondered why Manfred used Kant in his thesis. As I move on in my investigation of the history of philosophy, I can say – as an amateur – why he wrote about him. Each philosopher adds something to our knowledge base – whether we agree with him or not.

Kant proposed a model of how we think. (I can see SNS graciously yawning. Bear with me SNS. I have a point.) His model suggests how sentences and knowledge are developed and is, in my humble opinion, the framework used to make computers work and think.

Hegel, another German philosopher, provides a new sense of history. His concept of state was for the benefit of the King of Prussia – the state is omnipotent and progress can only happen through struggle. Nothing comes easily. We have to fight for it. Simple and innocuous ideas. But they were the seed for major global changes and the beginning of nationalism.

Nietzsche also believed in a strong leader. People are average and can only elect average people. For this reason, leaders belong to an exclusive class. His strong and exciting writings dealt extensively with the idea of defining the above-average man. This ideal person is someone who stands on his own feet, does not believe in anything. Only in himself. Anyone trying to tell him what to do is just trying to exercise power – the driving force of any group -- over him. And this is inadmissible if you want to be an above-average man. These concepts were also used by later philosophers.

Engels was dismayed by how workers were treated in England during the Industrial Revolution, as we are now about China. He documented what he saw. But he did not recognize the wealth being generated. Karl Marx used the information to revolutionize the world but this lead to the collapse of the USSR. And so ideas come and go.

Thinkers come up with new ideas. We test them, thinking the next politician has all the answers.

George Dagnino, PhD
Editor, The Peter Dag Portfolio
Since 1977
https://www.peterdag.com/.