Talk:Philosophical anarchism

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Godwin wasn't a self proclaimed "anarchist", if we're opening things up that widely, there's plenty more to be included. And nothing in this article really differs from any other school. Philosophical anarchists are a huge percentage of the movement, but it's just a matter of approach. They're often within the other schools. The "Philosophical" part refers ultimately to their tactical approach, which is not grounds for its own school.--William Gillis 23:03, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

It's true that Godwin never called himself an anarchist. But no one denies that he was an anarchist. All scholars have anarchism consider him an anarchist; they usually consider him the first one. One doesn't need to call oneself an anarchist to be one. In his time, "anarchist" was associated with violence. It's only later that an "anarchist" could be considered a peaceful person. Tolstoy was another one that never referred to himself as an anarchist, but everybody agrees that he was one. Anyway, I don't know if it can be considered a "school" or not, but it is a type of anarchism.Anarcho-capitalism 05:19, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, here's a source for it being a "school." "Thus, Miller proceeds to analyze three different schools of anarchist thought: philosophical, individualist, and communist." (Wayne Gabardi, review of Anarchism by David Miller, published in American Political Science Review Vol. 80) I don't think a "school" has to be mutuallly exclusive.Anarcho-capitalism 03:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

1.Why does “philosophical anarchism” as you have claimed have any direct relation to individualist anarchism? Why not include Bakunin? Why not include anarchist communism and thinkers like Kropotkin. Last time I checked, these traditions were historically concurrent. 2.Why do you place Proudhon as an individualist anarchist? Are you claiming that Proudhon considered mutualism to be a form of individualist anarchism? Did he ever say this? If you are saying that Proudhon might have influenced a self-described individualist anarchist, like say Benjamin Tucker, that is something entirely different. Where is your evidence to these claims? Proudhon's work, What is Property? and its critique of property had a huge influence on the young Karl Marx, who latter criticized Proudhon. 3. How could Godwin have been afraid to call him self a philosophical anarchist, when the term anarchist had not been used by any known theorist until 1840 in Proudhon's What is Property? Godwin died in 1836. 4. Why does this entry exist?--Begintheend 05:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

But apparently Proudhon also advocated property outside simple possession despite his good intentions to advocate possession. He advocated property as a defence against the encroachment of the state in "Theory of Property".

Modern property, constituted, as it appears, against all thought of rights and all good sense, on a double absolutism, must be considered as a triumph of Liberty. It is Liberty which has made it, not, as it seems at first glance, against law or right, but by an intelligence superior to those. What is Justice, indeed, but the equilibrium between forces? Justice is not a simple relation, an abstract conception, a fiction of the understanding, or an act of faith of the conscience: it is a real thing, all the more obligatory because it rests on realities, on free forces. From the principle that property, irreverent with regard to the prince, rebellious against authority, anarchic in the end, is the only force which can serve as a counter-balance to the state, follows this corollary: property, absolutism piled on an absolutism, is still for the state an element of division. The power of the state is a power of concentration; give it freedom to grow and all individuality will soon disappear, absorbed into the collectivity; society will fall into communism; property, on the other hand, is a power of decentralization; because it is itself absolute, it is anti-despotic, anti-unitary; it is because of this that it is the principle of all federation; and it is for this reason that property, autocratic in essence, carried into political society, becomes straightway republican.

It is entirely the opposite with possession or fief, which has a fatal tendency to unity, to concentration, to universal subjection. ...

Excerpt care of Shawn Wilbur. --121.220.208.110 (talk) 07:45, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

In such a sense he's referring to VERY broad trends, which reinforces my statement. Philosophical anarchism is not a school of thought, it's a tendency of withdrawn thought rather than applied action. Another page on anarchism is alright, but let's not pretend that it's an independent school. That would require internal discussion, explicitly Philosophical Anarchist periodicals and inter-school discourse. "Philosophical Anarchism" encompasses everyone and ANYone on the fringes of the actual social movement without any further concrete shared theory. There would have to be grounds of separation from the other schools. At the very least let's remove it from the "Schools" category on the Anarchism series. --William Gillis 05:20, 28 January 2007 (UTC)