The Kiss of a Philosopher

Motivated by Socrates’ warning to avoid the kisses of beautiful people, given the risk of losing rational self-government if seduced by a beautiful face, this account of Heidegger’s seemingly apolitical, Socratic defense of philosophy is a warning about the corruption of reason that may issue from commerce with the deceptively beautiful arguments, or cognitive kisses, of philosophers. Particularly philosophers who have a political agenda, this having been true of Heidegger, whose philosophy was infected with a militant fascism antithetic to truth-seeking Socratic philosophers. The test of ideas developed by America’s pragmatic philosophers, Pierce, James, and Dewey, is presented as an antidote to the malignant arguments of Nietzsche and Heidegger, whose deceptively beautiful arguments were destructive to humankind. Concluding remarks identify current threats to rational self-government writ large, by focusing on our postmodern information age in which almost anyone can become a spellbinding producer of deceptively beautiful, virulent information in cyberspace.