Motility and Prejudice

Marx and Nietzsche each proposes that Philosophy is not the presupposition-less endeavor that it is often taken to be. For, as they and their followers show, doctrines are often expressions of economic, theological, or psychological prejudices. Another application of that proposal is more general--to the contexts that have conditioned most philosophical enterprises. In these, the philosophizer is usually immobile, e. g. sitting, and is engaged in a favorite personal activity, i. e. contemplation, each of which can influence or determine the content of the philosophizing. For example, Descartes' being seated at the outset facilitates his eventual de-corporalization, and Aristotle's advocacy of the primacy of Theoretical Virtue is ad hoc with respect to the Golden Mean principle that is otherwise the normative criterion of his Ethics. Similarly, the traditional neglect or denigration of Motility reflects more a chronic Philosophical prejudice than any conscientious examination of the process itself.