Hi Stef, what role should history play in determining philosophical truths or falsehoods? I ask this question knowing your background in history and how you have integrated it into your communication of philosophy, however, the point of conflict for me is this.
When history is used as evidence for a problem existing, the debate is then about causality rather than principles.
Since causality can't be proven with certainty, neither is it encouraged because we have free will, the utility of a philosophical claim rests on whether or not the person is persuaded by the causality you have presented. From a logical and syllogistic point of view, the argument might be valid, but it might not be true without the empirical evidence to back it up since put simply, truth is a status that a claim has relative to its correspondence with the world.
For example, if you were to say child abuse is wrong, and use reason alone to make that argument, someone might not be convinced that how we treat children is even a problem. As such, you’ll then need to use history to support your reasoning. You would examine the French revolution, the childhoods of people in call-ins, look at other literature and research that uses a greater data set of human history to investigate if how we treat children is a problem.
At this point, someone might then be convinced since you have presented them with history, but maybe instead they’ll debate you on the causality of historical events. You won’t be able to convince them through principles, nor history. You could even try delve into their childhood only for them to say that they turned out alright.
At this point, we determine that the person can’t be reasoned with regarding this topic and move on, however, the problem remains regarding the role that history plays in making a philosophical claim that is valid, useful. If people can’t accept a truth statement, it isn’t useful even if it is true. History seems to be indispensable in persuading other people to accept truth statements, however, the battle is then about causality and how it is perceived or interpreted rather than principles.
If the first battle as a philosopher is about making valid truth statements, is the next battle about using history to persuade others of their validity, thereby rendering them ‘useful’? Is the final battle for the human mind about causality now that UPB is in the picture?
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When history is used as evidence for a problem existing, the debate is then about causality rather than principles.
Since causality can't be proven with certainty, neither is it encouraged because we have free will, the utility of a philosophical claim rests on whether or not the person is persuaded by the causality you have presented. From a logical and syllogistic point of view, the argument might be valid, but it might not be true without the empirical evidence to back it up since put simply, truth is a status that a claim has relative to its correspondence with the world.
For example, if you were to say child abuse is wrong, and use reason alone to make that argument, someone might not be convinced that how we treat children is even a problem. As such, you’ll then need to use history to support your reasoning. You would examine the French revolution, the childhoods of people in call-ins, look at other literature and research that uses a greater data set of human history to investigate if how we treat children is a problem.
At this point, someone might then be convinced since you have presented them with history, but maybe instead they’ll debate you on the causality of historical events. You won’t be able to convince them through principles, nor history. You could even try delve into their childhood only for them to say that they turned out alright.
At this point, we determine that the person can’t be reasoned with regarding this topic and move on, however, the problem remains regarding the role that history plays in making a philosophical claim that is valid, useful. If people can’t accept a truth statement, it isn’t useful even if it is true. History seems to be indispensable in persuading other people to accept truth statements, however, the battle is then about causality and how it is perceived or interpreted rather than principles.
If the first battle as a philosopher is about making valid truth statements, is the next battle about using history to persuade others of their validity, thereby rendering them ‘useful’? Is the final battle for the human mind about causality now that UPB is in the picture?
Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!
NOW AVAILABLE FOR SUBSCRIBERS: MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING' - AND THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI AND AUDIOBOOK!
Also get the Truth About the French Revolution, the interactive multi-lingual philosophy AI trained on thousands of hours of my material, private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!
See you soon!
https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022
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LearningTranscript
00:00Hello, hello. Stephen Molyneux from Freedomain. Question from a listener. I think this is
00:09from a live stream. Can't recall. Interestingly, a question about history has been somewhat
00:16lost in my history. All right. Hi, Steph. What role should history play in determining
00:21philosophical truths or falsehoods? I ask this question knowing your background in history
00:28and how you have integrated it into your communication of philosophy. However, the
00:33point of conflict for me is this. When history is used as evidence for a problem existing,
00:41the debate is then about causality rather than principles. Very true. Since causality
00:46can't be proven with certainty, neither is it encouraged, because we have free will.
00:54The utility of a philosophical claim rests on whether or not the person is persuaded
01:01by the causality you have presented from a logical and syllogistic point of view. The
01:07argument might be valid, but it might not be true without the empirical evidence to
01:13back it up, since, put simply, truth is a status that a claim has relative to its correspondence
01:21with the world. For example, if you were to say child abuse is wrong and then use reason
01:27alone to make that argument, someone might not be convinced that how we treat children
01:32is even a problem. As such, you'll then need to use history to support your reasoning.
01:38You would examine the French Revolution, the childhoods of people in Collins, look at other
01:43listeners and research that uses a greater dataset of human history to investigate if
01:52how we treat children is a problem. By the way, it's just a great question. Thank you.
01:58At this point, someone might then be convinced, since you have presented them with history,
02:03but maybe instead they'll debate you on the causality of historical events. You won't
02:07be able to convince them through principles nor history. You could even try to delve into
02:15their childhoods only for them to say that they turned out all right. At this point,
02:19we determine that the person can't be reasoned with regarding this topic and move on. However,
02:25the problem remains regarding the role that history plays in making a philosophical claim
02:31that is valid, useful. If people can't accept a truth statement, it isn't useful, even if
02:38it is true. History seems to be indispensable in persuading other people to accept truth
02:44statements. However, the battle is then about causality and how it is perceived or interpreted
02:49rather than principles. If the first battle as a philosopher is about making valid truth
02:57statements, it's the next battle about using history to persuade others of their validity,
03:01thereby rendering them, quote, useful. It's the final battle for the human mind about causality.
03:08Now that UPB is in the picture, what a, what a, man, goosebumps. Beautifully written,
03:16beautifully articulated, wonderfully presented, just, mm, hats off. Hats off to you.
03:24So, as you may know, I started in English literature because I was interested in writing
03:30poetry, plays, novels. I've never been good at short stories, but I started off in English
03:38literature and then I started doing a lot of acting. I was always the lead in plays in university.
03:46And so then I applied to the National Theatre School and I went to the National Theatre School
03:50and then I found the National Theatre School skin-crawlingly repulsive in its ideology.
03:58And so then I thought, okay, well, I'll finish my degree. I left before two years,
04:05before two years, right? And if it's any consolation, the loathing was completely
04:12mutual, which is kind of fair. So then I said, well, you know, I'm, one of the reasons I left
04:19in this literature is it just seemed to be all made up. Like you can just make up these
04:23causalities, these themes and so on and so forth. What does it matter? It's not moral.
04:26It's, uh, it's like analyzing dreams with no moral or purpose. It just feels like kind of
04:37intellectual masturbation, really of the worst kind. So then I thought, okay, well,
04:42I've always enjoyed history. I loved reading about history. So I'll go to history because
04:47history is more objective than English literature. And I remember, I don't remember this guy's name
04:53many years now, but I had a professor and this was quite true of a lot of my professors. I did
05:04not know the point. What was the point? Why would we learn these things? You know,
05:08I had a professor who took a full year course on Roman history. I remember almost nothing except
05:14the laws of Sulla. And he had us memorize all these, all these things. And this is true of
05:26almost everything. Like 98% of what you learn is humiliating, kneeled before the altar of
05:32irrelevance, brain filler. It's a junk food. It passes through you leaving no nutrition behind,
05:41except junk food at least tastes good. And I had this professor of European history who just was,
05:51you know, kind of anal and controlling about all these little details of this, that, and the other.
05:56The pronunciations had to be correct and the years had to be exact and sometimes even the months.
06:01And it was like, why? So I had to write a paper for him and I struggled. I think this is the
06:10only paper I really remember struggling with. I mean, I wrote a paper my first year on the
06:17village of Montaillou, which is a really well-preserved set of documents from a French
06:21village of the 15th century or something like that. And the paper was so good, the professor
06:26read the whole thing to the class and said he'd never read anything better. Like literally spent
06:30a whole class reading my paper. It was really quite something. But this professor and I were
06:34just at loggerheads. And back then, I did eventually struggle. I wrote the paper on the
06:44Crimean War. He didn't like the paper and he gave me a chance to do a do-it-over with, you know,
06:50flesh this out more, like for no purpose that I could see. And I don't remember anything about
06:55the paper, like anything that I learned or what I did. Probably still have a copy of it somewhere.
07:00But the question that I really wanted to ask him, and he was one of these wound up,
07:05tightly wound up kind of people. But the question I really wanted to ask him,
07:09and I didn't have the courage to ask him, was why? In your view, what is the study of history for?
07:18Now for him, it was an easy paycheck. He got to bully people over irrelevancies and he got to
07:24make people jump through hoops. I personally think it was something like, it's just my opinion,
07:28right? Something like mild sadism or just kind of a control freak and, you know, people who like
07:35to get into positions of power not to illuminate or enlighten, but to control and subjugate and
07:41bully. And I just didn't have the courage to ask him, which, you know, looking back decades and
07:53decades later, was the right choice. I mean, that was wise. That was the right thing to do. It was
07:58the right approach. It was absolutely correct because he would have flunked my ass and he would
08:03have probably been so triggered that he would have prevented me from getting a graduate school
08:08advisor at some point. So yeah, it's kind of, so what's the purpose, right? So the purpose of
08:18history is not the past, but the future. This is not a stunning insight. Let me sort of flesh it
08:24out a little bit. So the purpose of history is to manipulate those who are morally sensitive into
08:35giving up liberties and resources, right? So, I mean, if you look at something like COVID, people
08:44who are morally sensitive, oh, well, you know, I don't want to spread the germs and, you know, I
08:48don't want grandma to die and I want to do the right thing by society and I want to be moral. I
08:52want to want to be good. Well, this was all manipulated and used with sort of this weapon-grade
08:58propaganda, military-grade propaganda, really, to have people obey and turn on their fellow citizens by
09:05provoking their conscience. And of course, one of the amazing things about the internet, and this is
09:11really truly a wild thing. One of the amazing things about the internet is you get to see historical
09:19narratives versus actual facts in real time. Right? I mean, the whole time I was growing up, what did I
09:28hear? Oh, Nixon was bad. He was corrupt. And Joseph McCarthy, there were no communists. It was all a
09:33fantastical witch hunt. It was all like, and then you find out the facts. I did a whole truth about
09:38Nixon. I've done, of course, the truth about Joseph McCarthy. It's all a lie. A complete and total
09:44lie. History is a manipulation. It is, it has about as much truth, really, as, and not all of it, right? I
09:57mean, there's certainly some facts that I accept and some morals that are definitely there, but for the
10:01most part, history is a manipulation to extract resources from morally sensitive people with both
10:11bribes and threats. It has, in many instances, about as much moral truth as a medieval morality
10:21play, right? You look at another woman, a bit of lust, you're going to hell. There's no particular truth
10:29in it. But the one thing that is true about history is that you can't have accurate history while you
10:37have political power. You just can't do it. You cannot have even remotely accurate history while you
10:48have political power. So, for instance, if you look at, what's it now, coming on six years ago, that I was in
11:00Australia doing a speaking tour. And I chose as the topic of my speaking tour actual anthropological historical
11:12facts about the Aborigines in Australia. Now, of course, I've just said history is all narrative and so on.
11:20These were objective anthropological facts based upon some very basic scientific research. And I wasn't even
11:29doing that much of a moral judgment. I was simply talking about the facts of the Aborigines and their
11:34treatment of children and infanticide and rape and torture and mutilation and the occasional cannibalism,
11:40all this kind of stuff, right? Which was important. So the purpose, of course, of saying there were these
11:47wonderful noble savages, and then, you know, the evil Europeans came along and killed these wonderful
11:52noble savages, and they were terrible people. And like the Europeans were terrible, and the savages
11:57were noble and good and kind, is to delegitimize the victory and extract resources from the guilty
12:04conquerors, right? I mean, that's the reason why Cortes and other Spaniards were able to overthrow
12:11the tyrants of Central and South America. It's because all of the local tribes hated them,
12:17the Aztecs, the Mayans, and so on. They hated them for all of their viciousness and brutality
12:22and child sacrifice. I mean, these are people who played a game of soccer with human heads.
12:27And sacrificed thousands of children, sometimes in a single weekend, to their god that feasted
12:33off the tears of children. So they would torture children, drug them, and then slaughter them
12:38en masse, right? So it's a way of saying, it's an appeal to emotion, right? And it's funny,
12:49you know, because there is this kind of instinct, right? There is this kind of instinct. And I
12:53remember when my daughter and I went to a mall, it was like an Asian mall when she was very little,
13:00right? And it's really neat because it's all in Chinese, and I think it's mostly Chinese and
13:05Korean. And we were actually kicked out of there, that mall, because we bought food,
13:10but we weren't vaccinated and we didn't have our little cards, so they kicked us out to eat
13:15in the cold. It was excellent. But anyway, many years ago, we went there and we picked up some
13:23green tea Kit Kats. And I'd kind of forgotten about them. And then
13:32one day, my daughter is a hoarder, I mean, in a good way. She likes to hoard everything,
13:37right? Don't ever sell anything in Minecraft Dungeons, and she hoards everything. And she's
13:41a keeper, right? And that's perfectly natural. She comes from sort of European stock, although
13:46opposite ends of Europe, right? Well, she's a quarter Irish, a quarter German, and half Greek,
13:50right? So she's quite the smorgasbord. But to hoard is part of surviving winter and keeping
13:56track of resources, so it's perfectly natural for her to be that way. Anyway, so I went to the fridge
14:05and I just sneds back when I was on sugar, and I just snacked on one of these little,
14:12I think it was the last one, these little green tea Kit Kats. And I think my daughter saw the
14:19little wrapper in the garbage and she's like, oh, that was my favorite, right? To make me feel
14:25bad, you know, and she was young and this is no big issue. It's just interesting. There's this
14:30instinct, right? That was my favorite. And so that is not about any objective facts. It's certainly
14:40not about any morality. It is about an emotional manipulation of a narrative. And I've always said
14:50that communism is hyper, is pathologically female, and fascism is pathologically male.
14:56For more on this, you can check out my review of the album The Wall,
15:00which you can get at freedomand.locals.com if you subscribe.
15:03So, as more and more women have moved into the field of history, history has become more and
15:15more, you know, kind of manipulative and so on. Because remember, the whole purpose of women is to
15:24make sure that people don't suffer negative consequences for bad decisions.
15:30That's the whole point of female nature, which is why they have sympathy for the underdog. And it's
15:35a beautiful thing. It's an absolutely wonderful thing, right? Female nature is beautiful,
15:39combined with political power. It goes bad, rancid, but then so does male nature as well.
15:44Male nature is beautiful, but, right? So, the whole purpose of females is to make sure that
15:49people don't suffer negative consequences for bad decisions, because they are there to protect
15:53babies and toddlers, and you can't let babies and toddlers learn through bad experiences, you know?
16:00There's that joke about the kid about to put a fork into a socket, and the mom's like,
16:03don't! And the dad's like, go ahead. And it's like, you won't do that again now, will you?
16:08So, men, you have to learn by consequences. Women are there to prevent negative consequences.
16:13So, women have a very heightened sense of danger, and they feel great sympathy for anybody who has,
16:19who is going through negative consequences. Which is fine when children have, when moms have,
16:24women have a conveyor belt of babies and toddlers, and then grandbabies and grandtoddlers to
16:29take care of. But when they don't, then they just find some underdog who can present a sad face,
16:35and it causes their estrogen twitch, and, oh, you can't have negative consequences.
16:41Negative consequences are terrible. People should never be able to learn by negative
16:44consequences, which is fine for babies and toddlers, not so great for single moms, and so on,
16:47right? Which is why women tend to vote to let dangerous criminals out of prison, and then
16:53complain that they can't walk the streets at night. Because the criminals, oh, they had sad stories,
16:58they had sad histories, they cry, they, you know, and they just arouse that protective,
17:03nurturing, shield people from consequences kind of thing. So, yeah, history as a whole is
17:09turned into a predatory fiction through political power, because the stakes are simply so high.
17:18If you can get a historical lie, and a historical lie doesn't mean that things didn't happen.
17:26It's the morals of the story, right? Is it true that the Europeans conquered the Aborigines?
17:31Yes, it is. Were the Aborigines noble savages who lived at one with the neighborhood? Like,
17:38you know, this thing about the North American indigenous population, they used every part of the
17:43buffalo. It's like, no, they didn't. They drove buffaloes en masse off cliffs, and then just had
17:47a little bit here and there. They're like, so, yeah, I mean, it's all just, and they practiced
17:52genocide and cannibalism and rape as a weapon of warfare, like all this kind of stuff, right?
17:57And of course, back when I was on X or Twitter, you know, I would, you know,
18:05there'd be people complaining about the European occupation, the British occupation
18:09under the Raj of India. And it's like, yeah, well, I mean, 15 million Indian girls are killed
18:16every year, 15 million, 15 million Indian girls are killed every year, infanticided. Maybe that's
18:22slightly more important than what happened in 1870. Maybe, just maybe, there's a possibility,
18:28right? But that kind of guilt is really, really important. So, history, stuff happened,
18:38but the way that it's often, not always, but the way that it's generally twisted
18:44is that the rewards of lying and falsifying and manipulating, the rewards are so enormous,
18:51right? The rewards are so enormous, right? I mean, the fine people hoax, I think Snopes
18:55has finally said that that's not true, that Donald Trump referred to white supremacists
19:01as very fine people. Like, they finally said that that's not true, but that's simply because,
19:06you know, the political requirements have changed and so on, right?
19:12And they're probably going to move Biden out. So, it was a useful lie. In other words,
19:20it was a productive falsehood. And we have an instinct for camouflage, right? To gain
19:27resources through camouflage is half of nature, right? To either avoid predators or to have prey
19:33not see you. That's the reason the tiger has stripes and moves through tall grass or hides,
19:36right? So, camouflage for the sake of gathering resources is an instinct as old as life and
19:43certainly as old as mammals. And so, lying to gain resources through the power of the state
19:55is really such a powerful force in human society that you can't expect the truth from historians
20:06in the presence of massive political power is like expecting truth from a junkie looking for his fix.
20:13It's just not going to happen. So, I went to a place that I thought was more objective. And again,
20:17the facts are real. The morals are often purely manipulative. And so, when I read stuff in history
20:27now, I used to do it with much more, this is what happened only I can see that moral and so on.
20:31Now, I assume, again, there are exceptions, but I assume in general that it's all
20:40my daughter suddenly claiming that this candy was her favorite when I've eaten it and she
20:43didn't like it. So, I hope that helps. But thanks for such a great question and
20:47I'd love to get your thoughts on it too.