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Articles

Herd Philosophy and the Rhetoric of Enlightenment

by John Mann

Is it true that “an unreflected life is not worth living”? It has been a common assumption in philosophy that there is an unreflective mass, the common herd, who live by ignorance and tradition, and the reflective philosophers: a few real individuals able to look at life objectively and rationally.

This assumption appears in many of the articles in issue 1 of Philosophy Now. I shall argue that philosophers are just another herd living with different (not necessarily better) values and beliefs, and that their ‘arguments’ for philosophy and enlightenment are simply rhetorical devices to prioritise their own values.

Opinion polls question a relatively small number of people and are able to reveal not just the opinions of millions, but even the changes of opinion of millions. These changes of opinion happen apparently freely, yet according to the pollsters when a person of a particular ‘type’ changes their mind, so too do thousands or even millions of others of the same type, as if they were twins living apart but leading identical lives.

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