[MD] Taking Words Seriously

[Matt Kundert]

Hi Marsha,

Marsha said:
My alternative view is that the differentiation between professional 
and amateur philosopher is just so much cultural clap-trap.

Matt:
When one combines this formulation of your alternative with Ron's 
observation that "every topic is cultural claptrap" (because, I take it, 
everything to discuss is built out of our culture, i.e. static patterns) 
and then Dan's iteration of the value of discussion despite that broad, 
too-true fact, I think we can get the sense in which this formulation 
isn't as preferable as your second formulation: "the differences are 
not really a topic that interests me."

For the second strikes me as perfectly reasonable: there are lots of 
topics that don't interest me (one might say: that I'm incurious 
about).  However, the first formulation was, we might say, 
dismissive of that topic.  And I don't take it that we need to dismiss 
everything that doesn't interest us, and further that dismissing is 
exactly not what one amateur does to another: dismissing is what a 
professional does when they find that something isn't relevant to the 
discipline.  But amateurs have no discipline, and so seemingly 
should always take at most a non-dismissive non-interest in each 
others work.  

Also, I agree that many attempts to differentiate between pro and 
amateur are "so much cultural claptrap."  However, that's why I take 
an interest in trying to find a better way to state those differences 
should they exist in a meaningful way.  I'm not sure I've found any 
yet, and I don't take it that thinking about it is necessary for one to 
compose themselves as an amateur (i.e., I don't think it's necessary 
for an amateur to be interested in this particular topic).

Matt