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the philosophy site of rafe champion
We do not live by bread and technology alone because our lives gain meaning and purpose from the morals, mythology and metaphysics of our non-material heritage. We absorb these animating principles from our contacts with parents, teachers, preachers and peers, also from religion, art, literature, science, business, sport and politics.
This non-material heritage contains a mixture of good and bad ideas, and a society that loses the capacity to subject these myths and traditions to imaginative criticism is likely to die. Constant efforts are required to eliminate error and muddled thinking because the risk is ever-present that the bad will drive out the good. The task of imaginative criticism falls to all thinking people, although it has been institutionalised with certain organisations such as the universities and with occupational groups such as academics, including philosophers.
This process of institutionalisation has almost proved fatal and it sometimes seems that the institutions and groups who have the most responsibility for the health and vigour of our thinking have in fact done much to mutilate and debilitate our heritage. This has been described as 'the treason of the intellectuals'. This process deserves further investigation in the hope that it can be reversed.
home
Updated on: 26 June, 2010
This site was launched on: 30 September, 2002
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On this site, you will find a range of essays, reviews and other items that I have written over some years. Many are inspired by the work of Karl Popper, Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. Along with other great scholars such as Jacques Barzun, they deserve to be better known and better understood.
Welcome to my Rathouse - named in honour of the Rathaus, the Great Hall of Vienna.
Please feel free send a message to rchamp AT bigpond.net.au
Please click here to enter Arts and Letters wing.
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Visitor numbers have now reached:
320,000
To keep the Rathouse afloat, all donations cheerfully accepted. Many thanks. Rafe
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