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Well, yes, but that's the point to a certain extent. The philosopher is a professional nag - that's his job, ever since Socrates. So one can argue that critical theory is actually quite traditional in this regard. (Of course if you asked the classic Frankfurt school guys what they wanted to build, they would have unhesitatingly answered "communism", but that just moves the question back a step, as the content of that term is itself very ill-specified).
The Apology really should be required reading in schools. Socrates went to the statesmen, the poets, and the artisans, for he was told they were wise; but when pressed and questioned, their wisdom amounted to nothing. When the oracle at Delphi was asked who the true wisest man was, she answered that it was Socrates, for he knew that he knew nothing. And this is the ideal by which philosophy has attempted to conduct itself ever since (but, as with all ideals, mortals fall short).
The philosopher isn't in the business of building things; he's in the business of criticizing, poking holes, formulating problems but no solutions. He is the grim, persistent reminder that you might not know as much as you think you do. Understandably, people tend to find this frustrating (in the case of Socrates, frustrating enough that the Athenians put him to death).
Western philosophy, sure, but I don't see the Socratic school having much influence on Confucius, Mencius, Han Fei, Laozi, Zhuangzi, or any pre-20th century Chinese philosophy. Many of them seem like the sorts who'd object to holding up a guy who trolled Athens so hard he got cancelled from life (as I once heard it put) as an example for sages to imitate.
(I've been slowly working my way through Thomas A. Metzger's * A Cloud Across the Pacific: Essays on the Clash between Chinese and Western Political Theories Today*. I also remember reading a comment on a forum thread about philosophy over a decade ago, from a Chinese individual arguing that Western philosophy went off the rails with Socrates and Plato, and has spent the last two millennia and change building airy edifices of dangerous nonsense.)
Yes, that's certainly correct. I think that's what makes the European (and specifically Socratic) tradition distinct from any other philosophical tradition; the emphasis is on a dynamic process of conflict, rather than a static body of received wisdom. There's someone in our midst who claims to be wise? Very well then, let's put his wisdom to the test, let's see how much he really knows. The principal figure is not the sage, but the prankster, the rabble-rouser. (I would speculate that this impulse in the European mind is part of why empirical science, industrialization, and broadly speaking "modern civilization" in general, arose first in the West and not anywhere else.)
Right. Well, this position is not alien to Western philosophy itself. You can find it in Heidegger (Plato as introducing the terrible mistake of thinking that Being as such could be identical with a specific being, the Form of the Good, the Christian God, or what have you), you can find it in Nietzsche (Socrates as physical symptom of a degenerating and sickly organism), and others.
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As a matter of taste, I mostly disagree. Poking holes can be worthwhile, and is necessary to some level, but I think it's the lesser part of the work. One could say that philosophies are like houses: none are empirically perfect, all are flawed, but many are nevertheless inhabitable. Finding weak points is an important part of structural engineering, but that's because you want to build stronger, better structures in the future. It's totally valid to say 'yes, we know Benthamite utilitarianism produces distasteful results in circumstances X, Y, Z but we think it's a pretty good way for mathematically-inclined people to make large-scale decisions'.*
Likewise, sometimes you have to destroy old buildings because they're obviously defunct beyond repair and you need the space for something else. 'Ruling philosophies' can become impervious to criticism through arrogance and social pressure, to the point of forgetting that their assumptions are assumptions and losing sight of their weak points. Sometimes you need a bloody minded bastard to stand up and keep nagging. But I think it would be perverse to value the demolisher more than the builder.
*Like software programming, really. Loads of problems don't have an accepted perfect solution, but instead lots of standard imperfect solutions that you can select depending on how the tradeoffs stack up for your use case.
** Sorry for inserting random thoughts, perhaps it will help you understand where I'm coming from. When I read your quote: "Socrates went to the statesmen, the poets, and the artisans, for he was told they were wise; but when pressed and questioned, their wisdom amounted to nothing. When the oracle at Delphi was asked who the true wisest man was, she answered that it was Socrates, for he knew that he knew nothing" it just seems like sophism to me. Yes, you can't prove that anything except your own mind exists, and maybe not that. It's worth knowing, and I've met very unreflective people who could use the reminder. But there's not much you can do with that except say "whoa". Sooner or later, you have to do what we all do: accept that the world probably does exist and so does your need for nourishment, and go and make a bacon sandwich. I find the latter wiser and more admirable.
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