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Bridges to Autonomy; Paradoxes in Teaching and Learning, by Matt Silliman and David Kenneth Johnson (click on book for more information)
Plato's Dialogues
Welcome to Matt Silliman's Skeptiblog
Though all posts are open to all visitors, this semester's posts will mostly pertain to my Plato's Dialogues course.
my most recent book
Bridges to Autonomy; Paradoxes in Teaching and Learning, by Matt Silliman and David Kenneth Johnson (click on book for more information)
4 comments:
Only if you define 'choice' as free will. If one merely 'chooses' in the sense that they were influenced by their environment and biology to make that decision, then they still were not individualistic in the slightest.
Or at least that is how I see it.
Well, if our choices in this anemic sense are merely things that happen to us, rather than things we do, then I think it would be seriously misleading to use words like 'choice' and 'voluntary' here. It doesn't follow that we must ascribe them to a disembodied 'free will,' either. Perhaps, contra Kant, freedom is actually a feature of the physical world, and comes in degrees.
It seems that she is at least entertaining this notion: when constantly forced to be around be people to what degree you form the friendships and realtionships is hevaily based on location or area rather than choice. Voluntary associations allow you to expand outside the constraints of whats just around you. It is individualist, however wouldnt she agree that a person can just as easily decide to reject friends and realtionships within those communities of place?
I think you're right, Corey. Perhaps she is looking to preserve what we properly value in the idea of the (partly self-made) human individual, while still rejecting the radical individualism of the contractarian tradition that the communitarians rightly critique.
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