Should there be a line drawn between common (practical, particular) and academic (universal) philosophical thought? — kudos

I'd definitely say yes to this question. Being paid for philosophy means bought philosophy.

Obviously the further we go back in time, the less of the population is even able to read or receive an education, the less likely an academic will win the minds of the common citizen. Profound thinkers do influence the world we live in but rarely by convincing someone who is uneducated and disinterested but that's to be expected.

If we believe that an academic should act primarily among other academic-minded individuals, then in most senses wouldn't it mean not to search for truth at all, but rather to concern oneself only with actions and immediate consequences? Thus we'd have a type of action or career-centered education system, training women's rights writers to be women's rights writers and not to explore women's rights as a subject existing in itself and with other subjects. Adhering to the dogma of the subject would be more beneficial both in terms of individual interest and social interest than learning it and rendering oneself unable to act.

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqmhfyH09jM

Aside from the controversial content of the case, you can clearly see Prof. Dershowitz outlining his academic views of impeachment that could not be followed as a common rule without err. But he speaks of the principles of impeachment themselves, their origins, which would present a disastrous meeting of the academic and non-academic worlds if the content of his speech were treated as objective reality. Yet he presents it as a sort of necessity, as if some line had been crossed and academia needed to step in, but where is this line?

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? In the example you've given, we have a lawyer who is talking about that which can only be talked about with an understanding of the law. So, it's unsurprising if the average citizen is not able to or is uninterested in being able to understand and form opinions on what he says.

Often there is a far stronger connection between academics and politicians, we've seen that throughout history and those politicians or rulers who listen to the academics will bring their ideas into the world. Writers, directors, actors, journalists and other forms of soft power are often more influenced by academics, acting as intermediaries for their ideas, connecting them to the people.

Politicians are going to listen to specialists on matters where they themselves know nothing yet they still dismiss or ignore specialists when it suits them. The specific kind of thinker who actually has applicable advice for the average employee will sell books or give lectures but it's not an imposition but rather a commodification of their ideas.

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?

Take the first film example from IANYN. Mr Weiss explains to James Baldwin that we should avoid excessive cataloguing by race. His background being one where he himself had never been separated, he explains bluntly what would not sound at all out of place to another academic of similar background. But because he explains it to Baldwin, he does more than simply explain his universal viewpoint, but instead presents a kind of offered reality to Baldwin. Baldwin did not have a choice to separate by colour because it was central to his reality and his mode of understanding the world.

If Baldwin said to himself, 'I'm not going to separate people based on colour' and someone separated him by race, he would be sacrificing his very power to question race at all. My point is that to some extent the same thing happens whenever specialist academics interact outside their specialization, and there ought to be some type of reasonable basis for when they should be representatives of their knowledge and when they should remain silent; both these extremes seem to be problematic. If they were forced to never represent their specialization it would no longer make sense to pursue it.

Academics themselves often strongly disagree and rebuke each other and as it should be. We can't guarantee that academics will always have the best answers but we should allow them to be heard and have their ideas be subject to scrutiny. If the result is that some ideas are demonstrated to be weak and problematic then isn't that a kind of progress?

Your response sounds reasonable that there exist 'filters' through which academic thought passes to become culturally disseminated: the arts, media, technology, social relationships, etc. If these institutions were to become unconcerned with academic thought and focus inwardly on money or notoriety then instead you'd have an essentially impotent set of dogma that would have really no reason to exist at all besides immediate actions like matching individuals with certain careers and such. Perhaps this is the reason why you see these interventions, as a type of expression of frustration when these dissemination medium aren't seen as effective enough.

Academic thought seems rarely to be comfortable with presenting it's own views to a non-academic audience, and thus influencing their behaviour. — kudos

Universities do not operate as missions of enlightenment to the proletariat. One thing universities do is train people (including some proles) to reach ascending levels of knowledge and expertise. BAs make up the base of the educated, the professoriat fills in the peak. Another thing universities do is provide services to the corporate, governmental, and NGO elite. Whether it's electrical engineering, public policy, investment strategies, medicine, business administration, mathematics, geology, chemistry, and numerous other departments the university produces useful knowledge. It transmits this knowledge through specialized events, networks, publishing, consultation, and so forth.

The people influenced by the university are in a position to influence the rank and file. University geology professors don't drill for oil. Their students and the beneficiaries of university expertise do the drilling. Some corporations have research arms, but the local state university (Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota...) share (or increasingly, license) discovered technology. A lot of drugs have their beginnings in University labs. The internet began in a DOD/Academic partnership,

Some departments -- Classics, Philosophy, English Literature, etc. don't produce knowledge with as ready a market as mechanical engineering, The humanities are taught as part of "the reproduction of society" and as such are important. If university philosophers come up with ideas that find a market, then the knowledge will be transmitted, and will affect others.

One thing, the humanities are supposed to directly influence the students most of all. I hesitate to bet on the net benefit of the humanities, even though I was an English major a long time ago. (I would definitely do it over.)

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.

Maybe it depends somewhat on the faith societies have in the content of those subjects; we expect a certain fear of rebuke that keeps those who do not have academic knowledge of certain subjects from burdening others with it's content. Social media groups come to mind. But an environmentalist group that spreads a sort of enviro-propaganda can actually do good things for the environment, and similarly a zombified feminist group can protect subjugated women. 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.

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

Being aware of one's own station in society and of one's own level of knowledge of a topic is often enough for a person to self-moderate what they say on a topic.

As a simple example, a while back, the local road in my neighborhood was being redone, new asphalt, new sidewalks etc. On my way home, I once met an older lady who also lives in the neighborhood. We chatted a bit about the roadblock, the new road, etc. She said the road is now even narrower as it was before, and added "Oh my, I have a lot to say, and I don't even drive!" It was interesting to hear this bit of self-censorship.

Of course, not everyone is like that, and some people have very definitive opinions about the new road, even though at least some of them don't know what legal, practical, etc. restrictions the planners and the workers had to work with.

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

And conversely, whether the non-academic have the duty to internalize said ideology.

It's an important question, esp. in the time of this pandemic and issues of vaccination.

I'd definitely say yes to this question. Being paid for philosophy means bought philosophy. — Heiko

And being paid to do painting means bought painting .... wut? No, you get paid for something because you have a certain skill or trait that people pay money for. People pay to hear an educated philosopher lecture because they think they learn more from him or her. And lo and behold, they are probably right, because the man or woman in question has been dedicating her or his time to the subject. That is what academic education provies you with: time, a structure in which you are educated and educators that have obtained distinctions making it creible to think they are fit for their jobs and know what they talk about.

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

There are many assumptions in your post that an academically trained philoopher or a self educated one skilled at the discipline spots. A. You assume there is some 'ideology' which apparrently the acaemically trained share. This is not true. B. you seem to think that everyting must be equally understandable for everyone. That unfortunately is not the case. If I am at a conference on cancer treatment I will not understand it because my knowledge of biology is insufficient. Now I am a lawyer and what Dershowitz says in the fiirst 1.5 minutes makes perfect sense to me. your posts further display an assumption C. and that is that somehow there are different truths which can be imposed by different people, but there is also one tuth to rule them all to which you sometimes allude. It is hard to make out because you are not clear on what you mean by truth, but you seem to assume somehow the academics have some sort of conpiracy among themsleves to corrupt hte untrained, but also uncorrupted soul of the non academic.

↪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

You also seem to unerestimate academics. Why would they just apply dogmatic strictness? you think that scholars of the field of linguistics are so dim that they do not understand language is a living instrument? Of course they do. 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. Take the last sentence of the quote above: "So someone who knows less about the subject should have more ability to alter reality than someone who studied the content of their subject." What do you mean by ; 'alter reality'? Non-academics and academics alike have the same ability to 'alter reality'. Go and pour a cup of tea or crack open a beer, move your fingers over the keys of a keyboard and presto reality is altered. The argument is totally mudled by the sloppy use of terms and language. The difference between non-academic and academic writing and argumentation is that academic writing and argument has standards of rigour, rigour which the sentence quoted above and the argument at large in original post so sorely lacks.

On a less ascerbic note, I gebuinely wonder what you mean to illustrate with showing Gershowitz first one and a half minutes. I thought he was clear as day for everyone. There is not a word of legalese in there... He does not say anything 'academic', he speaks as a lawyer. A lawyer knows the law just like an architect knows architecture. so why would this be a desastrous meeting? When you need an expert you call one. They needed an expert on constitutional law so they called him..

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. They can never know how to not know what they know, and that is a weakness. 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? What gives them that right over others when the basis of their study precedes them just as much as their subject?

The academic may know a lot, but they don't know how to truly behave like a layman. — kudos

Before I became a lawyer I was a layman at law. An interested person. So, have I forgotten the questions that intereste me then, but which I could not solve? No why would that be?

They can never know how to not know what they know, and that is a weakness. — kudos

I teach and so I see all kinds of people who do not know what I know, but who will know in the future. Why do you think I have mysteriously forgotten how it is to be a student?

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

Yes of course they do. Say you have a broken car. Then you take it to the mechanic. If you have a problem with your skin, you go to a dermatologist and when you have a legal question you go to a lawyer. Try taing your skin problem to the garage and your car to a lawyer and see whether your problems are solved or not. Academics are just specialised in some field or other and therefore they know more about that subject.

And well, acadmeics do not decide for you. Policy makers do. They decide what behaviour you may perform and what not. they could also use conviction or nudging. But all of that is perfectly straight forward no? I do think you agree that society needs laws and policy.

What gives them that right over others when the basis of their study precedes them just as much as their subject? — kudos

What gives them (or anyone for that matter) rights is a legal question. Mostly they do not have more rights than anyone else. I have the right to judge my students' exams because the university thinks I can do it well. I have the right to write Ph.D. after my name if I so want. Those are some rights I have. Sometimes academics inflruence policy making, such as in the case of the pandemic. However, I did not know academics had more rights than other people. They are more well respected socially maybe. That is logical. They know more about the subject at hand. It is that simple.

:up:

I can add little to nothing. You have expressed your point of view - to which I agree - admirably.

Thanks! :) @jgill

So then, are academics bound to impotence except in their own - now highly monetized - spheres of thought? — kudos

Unanswerable. There are good and bad academics and some university departments are subject to fads and agendas. Sometimes work transcends the universities, especially if it is useful. Most of human organised behaviour provides examples of this, from selling pet food to selling Plato. Does it matter?

No offense, but being a lawyer is not exactly what I meant by ‘academic.’ Yes, when you have a civil problem you go to a specialist in that field. But when you are being sexually harassed do you go to a women’s studies professor? 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.

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.

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.

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

In a sense calculus has an "idealized" structure and physics cannot do without it, but you must be referring to set theory and foundations, and the axiom of choice, and the physics I am barely acquainted with does not require the latter.

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

This sounds like an argument an anti-vaccine layman might make. Pity the poor virologist who toils in the lab.

No offense, but being a lawyer is not exactly what I meant by ‘academic.’ — kudos

No offense, but I am a sociel scientist as well as a lawyer and I publsh on a regular basis in academic journals (although less than I wish because of other pressing academic duties such as teaching classes). Law can also be performed in academia next to practice. No offense, but I am beginning to feel more and more you have no idea what you are talking about and that you jump to conclusions too easily.

But when you are being sexually harassed do you go to a women’s studies professor? — kudos

No, but when you want to know something about the cultural origins of sexual harassment you do.

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

Sure, but what is the point? When you want to know someting about a practical legal case you go to a lawyer. When you want to know something about the legal culture of a country you consult a sociologist of law and when you want to know someting about the pivotal nature of the right to property in today's legal systems you go to a scholar of jurisprudence. Sometimes you want to know something particular sometimes something universal.

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

Of course. The only problem is that hidden in your argument is the assumption that academics are such silly people who do not know this. However they do. Ask me a practical question on taxes or traffic law and I have no clue. However I know I have no clue. that is the difference between someone academicaaly trained and someone who is not. Actually the exact oposit of your point is true. Academics know the limits to their competence because they know how to delineate their field. The non-academic makes all kinds of assumptions wandering into a field of knowledge blissfully unaware of his or her limitations.

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

If you are unaware of the limitiations to your field of study then that problem might arise. However as I have explaine above, the whole point of academic studies is to get a grip on your field of knowledge and also what its imitations are. Therefore I think an academic is more trained to spot this problem than the non-academic. Moreover, there are of course relationships between the universal and the particular and one of the tasks of the academic is to study their interrelationships. A sociologist of law for instance studies how universal categories of law influence the behaviour of certain people in certain ways in practice.

(y) Well said (err written)

It's a rather simple matter: We haven't found the answers yet. For certain then ideas/theories won't match reality on the ground. Odd that ideas about reality should be complete strangers to each other.

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

If you learned how to be a lawyer, you'd know that one doesn't "agree by contract" to anything by "really learning."

So much for "really learning."

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).

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.

Keep in mind, I'm not approaching this under any assumption that either response is a true or false.

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.

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?

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.

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

Those are good questions. Well, my work in practice is informed by my work in theory, but not determined by it. To some extent they are different ball games. My research into legal mobilization for instance has no bearing on the way that a legal case is solved in practice, Practice and theory sometimes pose different questions. However, I do bring what I know of theory to bare on a case in practice. I think my knowledge of criminology and philosophy of law informs my judgment and makes it more kaleidoscopic. I however do not see a conflict of interest, the two are not opposed, but related. Law is a profession and the law has to be applied to a case according to some sort of procedure, that is what a lawyer or judge does. 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. In fact if that was the case it would be very alarming, it would mean our theories of the world are wholly unrelated to the world itself.

The question of having some money invested in a non profit I do not really understand. Why would that influence the merits of a case either from a scientific or legal point of view? It might in some circumstances weigh in on judgment, the character of a defendent is not unimportant, but what it exactly does, depends on the facts at hand. What it actually means is dictated by the laws of the practice. I do not know whether a man of theory or practice is more easily swayed by this knowledge. A lot depends on the 'rules' of the practice and what a judge is 'supposed' to do with such knowledge.

the scientist might have more restraint, but law in practice is about jugdment, so you cannot show restraint... You know that when you get into legal practice. It has to do also with the role one plays. I think I can separate these roles, also because I know soething about the legal profession and legal ethics. I do not think I would judge slower, but I hope sharper because of my training in the asking of questions. However I find that my colleagues are generally sharper than I am, because of their training in practice maybe. However I know I am good at legal argumentaton and knowlegdable in the principles begind certain rules. therefore I bring other skills that the table that I feel increase fair and even handed judgment, at least I hope they do.

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

Well, it is more akin to a 'discipline' which one has to learn. As a student you are very mmuch inclined to ask all kinds of questions and try to solve each and everyone. Than a prof comes along and shows you that you basically do not have the knowledge to answer this question. Many law students for instance like asking the question whether this or that law is 'effective'. However, effective in what sense and from what perspective? Can they perform for instance an economic analysis of a certain law to see whether it increases wellfare? They can not. They do not realise that as yet, but they learn it when it is pointed out to them. In the process of writing my PhD I have time and again be told to limit my question and not forray into areas I lack knowledge of. At some point you get a feel for it and the more you work 'acadmemically', the more you train and discipline yourself to realise these limitations of your field.

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

I do not take this as such, not in the least. There was nothing in your post here I thought of as offensive or jumping to unwarranted conclusions and so neither is this response meant to include any barbs. It is means as just an exchange of ideas and an explanation of where I come from.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Cause as in everything the root is the Ego! Academics(not all of course) snob the common people. Thinking themselves too intellectual to deal with common people. And acting superior towards them.

I get sick when I hear philosophers interviews and they talk with terms so sophisticated and complex for really really simple things! It seems really ridiculous to my eyes.
I always wondered "do they actually care to be understood from everyone and actually help even a bit in people's intellectual growth or they care as to show off? Make others see how great they are?"

And particularly in philosophy which "owns" to everyone! It's the only science (well if we can call it science of course) that everyone takes part!And has the "right" to do so! It comes with the human package itself! Philosophy is what people do since the appearance of our kind. So they aren't entitled to look so snobbish about the rest common people.

The one who is higher needs to low down if he actually wants to help the other who stands lower! The opposite is impossible.

I feel your pain. The university system to me seems to be instilling a sense of class separation and control through just the same phenomena; the proposed oligarchy of the intelligentsia. As if we haven't seen that mentality utterly fail over and over again throughout history.

As if we haven't seen that mentality utterly fail over and over again throughout history. — kudos

And it will go on failing.

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

Here you make the same mistake. The enrichment I speak of is not power or authority, but it is the repertoire of arguments, the depth of knowledge and the acumen in applying tried and tested methodology that enriches. Because they know certain things and can use certain methodologies they wield power and authority. You think it is just blind coincidence they get these desirable goods, but that is not the case.

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

Well there can be many things wrong with Marxist economics... or with dialectical materialism. However what regimes do with knowledge is something else than what academics discover. Following your line of thought we might blame physicists for the existence of the atom bomb, hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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

What is the alternative? No knowledge. The human life span on average was 30 years old in those days. You had no idea if you survived another winter due to poor harvest and things like romantic love, freedom, reading and writing were anathema and perhaps only available for the upper class. Sure knowledge might have adverse consequences, so has all human endeavour. Your view is in last instance romantic. It comes down to ignorance is bliss. I dout that very much when we ook at history.