I don't really understand your question of whether academics have the "right" to impose their ideology onto the non-academic". Where do they have the opportunity to directly impose their ideology as academics?
Academic thought seems rarely to be comfortable with presenting it's own views to a non-academic audience, and thus influencing their behaviour. — kudos
However, I feel there needs to be a source of fear that makes us are aware that we are only actors and not in full command of modulating the concepts behind these actions. — kudos
And conversely, whether the non-academic have the duty to internalize said ideology.I want to say that it reaches beyond the question of whether an uneducated audience would understand or agree, but if the academic has the right to impose their ideology onto the non-academic. — kudos
I'd definitely say yes to this question. Being paid for philosophy means bought philosophy. — Heiko
I want to say that it reaches beyond the question of whether an uneducated audience would understand or agree, but if the academic has the right to impose their ideology onto the non-academic. It seems like this unquestionably happens in daily life, but I don't know of any analysis or compendium on the subject to determine if it is being correctly applied. But there do seem to be cases, take this example (only the first 1.5 minutes) from the recent US impeachment case. — kudos
↪Bitter Crank Taking your English education as an example. You must run into writing that is full of defects all the time. But if it were common to step in and act, then you'd expect to see a sort of dogmatic strictness applied to ordinary language that would be very foreign to it. But if you didn't know the subject as well it would be more acceptable, because you would be closer to the same 'level.' So someone who knows less about the subject should have more ability to alter reality than someone who studied the content of their subject. — kudos
Their vision is not somehow clouded by 'academic' reasoning and thinking as you seem to suggest, it is expanded by it. So they know everything the layman knows and more.
The academic may know a lot, but they don't know how to truly behave like a layman. — kudos
They can never know how to not know what they know, and that is a weakness. — kudos
The academic is likely to encounter the traditional way of life with a critical eye perhaps because of what they believe they know; sure they know things, but do they know better so as to decide for someone else? — kudos
What gives them that right over others when the basis of their study precedes them just as much as their subject? — kudos
So then, are academics bound to impotence except in their own - now highly monetized - spheres of thought? — kudos
If you attempted to apply the idealized structure of mathematics to physics problems you’d encounter unexpected results because the real world doesn’t always deal in easily determined discrete quantities — kudos
The academic may know a lot, but they don't know how to truly behave like a layman. They can never know how to not know what they know, and that is a weakness — kudos
No offense, but being a lawyer is not exactly what I meant by ‘academic.’ — kudos
But when you are being sexually harassed do you go to a women’s studies professor? — kudos
The academic in my experience usually deals primarily in the universality of the subject, where the specialist in the particulars. We are talking about a similar difference between the mathematician and the physicist. Physics being concerned more with the particulars of the real world at hand, where events aren’t as much idealized in the way they are in the universal form of mathematics. — kudos
If you attempted to apply the idealized structure of mathematics to physics problems you’d encounter unexpected results because the real world doesn’t always deal in easily determined discrete quantities. Similarly, those who deal in the analysis of universal categories of law might still fail in persuading a jury of an argument because that is so heavily influenced by particulars. — kudos
But what I’m getting at is that if you really well understood those idealities, and attempted to work in them as they were in practical terms, then wouldn’t you to a certain extent be applying a force to those events themselves to be more like your idealizations? That is particularizing the universal and ultimately vise versa: you may run the risk of those particular actions coming to represent universal concepts, and individualizing them to suit whatever aims happen to be popular that day. — kudos
By really learning - not just learning how to be something like a lawyer or a dentist - do we agree by contract to concede action and certainty? — kudos
No offense, but I am a social scientist as well as a lawyer and I publish on a regular basis in academic journals (although less than I wish because of other pressing academic duties such as teaching classes).
If you are unaware of the limitations to your field of study then that problem might arise. However as I have explained above, the whole point of academic studies is to get a grip on your field of knowledge and also what its limitations are.
Wow, then you're the perfect person to ask this question. Thanks for replying. I seem to have rubbed you the wrong way but that wasn't my intention. I suppose the first question I would ask you is to what extent does your academic involvement — and I'm regretting using the word 'academic' already — mix with your work in law. Imagine, that you were a judge instead of a lawyer, do you think that your exposure to certain ideas about social relationships as a scientist would affect your work to any extent? The judge being an impartial third party, do you see any conflict of interest? What if instead this person had some money invested in an non-profit, would it then become a conflict? Surely the judge who knows must self-regulate their actions in accordance with the knowledge of their own limitations, but this is exactly what I mean: then according to you they are more inclined to restraint than someone who has one-dimensional ideas that draw them to immediate action. — kudos
I'm so glad you said this, because now we are getting into the real content of the question. So what is this process of knowing ones self and their limitation? Where is the limitation? Is it common sense, is it negation of the knowledge (or 'denial'), is it drawing the line in a strict manner according to some unwritten rule? — kudos
This is not an attack on you personally, please try to see it otherwise. If my ignorance is offending you, please feel free to correct me because I certainly don't consider myself an expert on social science or the law. But we I hope you understand that we can't only ask questions here that pertain to only one field of study completely. — kudos
However when doing so, I think your judgment is enriched by more knowledge of theory of law. Maybe that is the assumption you have, that somehow there is a struggle between the two, but I fail to see why that should be so.
Academic thought seems rarely to be comfortable with presenting it's own views to a non-academic audience, and thus influencing their behaviour. This differs from the old approach of knowledge and truth being a way to attain a greater public good as it takes form in works such as Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. — kudos
As if we haven't seen that mentality utterly fail over and over again throughout history. — kudos
I would agree about the enriching, and this I think is my (known) assumption: That knowledge does 'enrich' us with a certain authority; a certain power. And the more of this power one gets it seems reasonable to think that it would become more difficult to use it effectively. Not that the intention to do good weren't there, but that the more your actions affect a greater number, the more the possibility comes that this could manifest in unpredictability and do damage to some. Especially because a great deal of this knowledge concerns the validity of the very apparatus of judgement itself. — kudos
To cite one controversial example of how knowledge itself is not always the path toward good, take the Communist Manifesto. Marx and Engels had the intention of spreading what they knew about economics, social science, and political science. These days there aren't many who don't point the finger of blame towards that action for the cruelty carried out in its name, though in my view their work rests on perfectly sound knowledge of the world. What they saw, as far as I'm concerned was the truth, but when they attempted to particularize and individualize it those universals collapsed, free will clashed with the ideal axioms of the academic world and all sorts of unpredictability resulted. — kudos
This isn't intended to be some sort of allegory of why we should never use the knowledge taught in universities and colleges, but it does go to show one example where the good it can do can easily turn foul. And this can be worse in some cases because it associates the interest within the particularities as if it were part of the universal, allowing the worst types of violence and harm done in the name of progress. — kudos
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.