Technical language when it's needed, but clear and conversational when it's not. Also, many of the people on this forum are good writers. I know that my writing has improved during the year I've been here — T Clark
On the whole, when I read something from a modern philosopher I can usually understand what they are getting at. One popular philosopher I did struggle with though was Dennett who has gone out of his way to call philosophy self-indulgent. — JupiterJess
I think they do. In particular, the observation:I'm not an academic, but wonder if the complaints made regarding academic philosophy would also apply to other academic disciplines/studies. — Ciceronianus the White
seems to apply equally to any other discipline that has mountains of research, including natural and social sciences.Although there is already a growing mountain of philosophical research that’s impossible to keep up with, it’s common for journal referees to reject your paper because you didn’t engage with [X] paper/book, where often [X] is either written by the referee themselves or someone they’re chummy with. — Rachel Williams
I've always viewed philosophy as a calling of sorts. If it's in you, it's in you. — Hanover
But here is a counter- argument in favour of obscure, pedantic overspecialisation 'for its own sake'. — unenlightened
Thanks for uncovering that. It's a real gem — Pierre-Normand
I don't know how I feel about the idea that Humanities purpose was always to create a courtoisie class, or even that Humanities value cannot be expressed outside of an adherence to the curriculum of said Humanities. — Akanthinos
Maybe Stover meant to put it in a rather provocative way. But if we bracket out the rather modern Marxist connotation of a class and rather hold to the more 'conservative' idea of a guild, tradition, art, craft, tradition of excellence, etc., — Pierre-Normand
Sometimes when I am asked about the value that I find in philosophy, the question takes the form 'A quoi ça sert?' (what is it useful for) and my provocative reply is that philosophy is utterly useless, which is why it's so valuable. — Pierre-Normand
Would it be fair to say then that academic philosophy has succumbed, or surrendered itself to the prevailing materialist paradigm/ethos -- using the descriptor 'materialist' in both its ontological and cultural sense -- just like most other academic pursuits, such that, once indoctrinated, there's no longer much leeway to be a so-called 'free thinker' outside that paradigmatic box, so to speak. — snowleopard
I ventured into academia a little later than most, and generally got the feeling that many (though not all) of the faculty members were very clever children whose emotional development was arrested back in the school playground.The second component is ego, which was comically avoided in this article. I’ve spent a long term around other academics and many of them are ego-driven jerks
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