So Aristotle, Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Husserl faced off at the Gnu’s Room. I wore dark glasses and made the case for Aristoteleanism as a way to stop being stupid without becoming crazy. (Stupid = the unexamined life; crazy = believing stuff you can’t coherently live.) At the end the audience voted to keep Aristotle alive and to return the others to the grave. Mission accomplished.
Will there ever be a video or audio recording of this? It sounds really interesting.
From their comparative opinions on human nature, as an aside to the above post, Austrian Economics was based on Neitzsche’s outlook, not the others, although Aristotle would come close. I have not studied Austrian theory prior to Mises, but I do know that Mises axioms were premised on egoism and never varied from its application regarding all human action. The only phil0sopher listed above who based his own work entirely on egoism was Neitzsche, who I knew was strongly influenced by La Rochefoucould. It’s my opinion that Mises must have been familiar with the philosophical lineage of egoism–Erasmus-Bayle-Hobbes-Mandeville, and so forth.
Now, the difference between Mises and Rothbard is that the latter injected ethics throughout his work, while Mises made sure not to. Mises rejected all theories of morality, and like Neitzsche, even rejected the concept of a free will and evil, and made sure he never even used judgemnets such as right and wrong in his works. Obviously, these men were philosophical anarchists based upon their understanding of human nature. Mises chose utilitarianism as an ideology and thought that the efforts to justify his theories on libertarian ethics would weaken them-so he didn’t.
Mises was an egoist only in a purely formal sense. Aristotle was an egoist in that sense too, though not so psychologistic. Nietzsche denied the ego, and so wasn’t an egoist in even a formal sense.
Egoism established as human nature, has nothing to do with libertarianism. Neitzsche was an individualist, not a libertarian–the differences of which are easily explainable. Kant, on the other hand, was the libertarian of the group. Was Aristotle a libertarian? Not even close, as he was perhaps more synergenic with Neitzsche. The libertarians like Rand stole Aristotle, They cherry picked his thinking to substantiate their views. Yes his thought was consistent with individualism while politically not libertarian. Individualism, mind you, is also consistent with authoritarian forms of government, the nuance of which is discoverable in the differences between Neitzsche and Rand, as an example.
So, as far as consolidating philosophy and economics, Kant underwrites Rothbard and Aristotle and Neitzsche underwrites Mises. With regards to the others, I have not studied their works very much, so must concede to Wittgenstein: whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent,
I used the phrase ‘philosophical anarchism’ when philosophical nihilism was more appropriate.
I assume that Mr. Long’s presentation didn’t include an examination of Aristotle’s theory of proportionate equality.