[MD] Academic philosophy

[John Carl]

Arlo,



On Fri, Sep 5, 2014 at 7:15 AM, ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR <ajb102 at psu.edu>
wrote:

> [JC]
> #2:  I said I never read anyone who takes philosophy personally [look of
> great distaste] or confuses philosophy with things that matter in their
> little lives.
>
> #1:Right.  If they want to talk about philosophy as if it matters
> personally they need to get out of the profession or at least go back to
> school.
>
> [Arlo]
> I imagine this is just a Platonic-style dialogue, and, here, the
> "academics" are the dreaded "Sophists" who are creatively demonized by
> unfair, and largely fictional, dialogues. I say this, mostly, because its
> absurd.


Jc:  I got it from an author, quoting an author, quoting a colleague,
quoting an e-mailed report!  So yeah, there's a lot of leeway there.  You
can read the original author's quote, here
<http://www.amazon.com/Fashionable-Nihilism-Critique-Analytic-Philosophy/dp/0791454304/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410052927&sr=8-1&keywords=fashionable+nihilism#reader_0791454304>.
Just click on "first pages in the Amazon side bar, it's how he starts his
book so it's not hard to find.

And it's not the basis of his critique, only an illustration of what he
calls "scientism" "this is the view that only science can *know*"


Arlo:


> Every philosophy professor I have EVER had has gone out of his way to make
> philosophy personal. The constant theme was "this matters, this effects
> your life, this shapes who you are, this is PERSONAL!". It was precisely
> abstract, irrelevant, 'mind play' that they were arguing against. Good god,
> imagine trying to understand Adorno's Minima Moralia from an impersonal
> perspective. Imagine trying to teach Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy
> without constant recourse to the immediate, lived life of the students.
>
>
Jc: that's great, Arlo.  You've been exposed to pretty good philosophers
then.  Good meaning "non-analytic" in the terms of the book - you must not
have known philosophers from the leading schools of Rutgers, Princeton,
Pittsburgh and very recently, NYU, which according to the industry
standard, the Leiter report, are the leading schools.

Oh, and also you've not attended any APA meetings, where the analytic
school is dominant.

Arlo:


> No, either he's using a completely unrepresentational dialogue to slander
> all of academia, or he's writing his own demons into his narrative.
>
>
Jc:  I guess we'd have to read the book, eh?  But Randy is making the same
point and I did read his book, and he, it seems to me, is an expert.
Obviously not all academia is being attacked here - both authors are
academics! No, it's a certain school of philosophy and it's the school that
Phaedrus ripped into so it's hard for me to see why you protesteth so much.

Arlo:


> The fact that you buy into this man's psychological rage really
> demonstrates how little real experience you've had in the academy. Or
> maybe, you're co-opting an "damn the academics" attitude to assuage your
> own personal failures as not your own, but of an inflexible and
> "sociopathic" institution.
>
>
Jc:  Failure?  Moi?  What are you talking about?  By that term I'm also a
failure at the Olympic Decathalon and flapping my arms to fly.  You can't
be a failure at something you've never tried.
      My posting of it pertains more to the failure (in the past) of the
MoQ to grab academic philosophy's attention.  I believe things are slowly
changing, but this explains a lot about why it's taken so long.

Arlo:

Are there more rigid (but still plastic) boundaries around the academy?
> Sure. There HAS to be. Is it entirely perfect and entirely fair to everyone
> immediately? No, of course not. But the alternative is an uninformed bazaar
> that can not distinguish at all between "flat-earth theory" and "the theory
> of relativity". And, let's be honest, our cultural and intellectual
> libraries are enormous. Even 'favored' philosophers within the academy,
> like Nietzsche, get barely any screen-time at all. At the undergraduate
> level, students are lucky if they hear his name, let alone read select
> writings. Foucault? Until you're in certain graduate programs you probably
> won't even hear his name.
>
>
Jc:  Arlo, I'm a fan of the academy.  Big time.  You can't love philosophy
and hate academics - so much great philosophy has been nurtured and
supported by the academy.

Arlo:


> The larger, and more devastating, problem with the academy is that it has
> turned into little more than a glorified jobs program.


 Jc:  (quoting Auxier) - "Professionalization of the professoriate, partly
facilitated through the activities of their own scholarly societies has
certainly rendered the lovers of ideas effectively loyal (and often blind)
servants of a multinational, corporate, and political machinery that now
rules the world.  The bad lies not so much in what is done, but in what is
not done that could been done with such an historically precious
opportunity, especially for those that call themselves "philosophers"."

Arlo:


> Does it bother me that Pirsig doesn't warrant his own course in our
> philosophy program? Absolutely. But it bothers me more that even the
> philosophers that DO are relegated to irrelevant status in our quest to
> fulfill an increasingly singular capital goal. The problem is not with the
> philosopher-academics, but with the businessperson-deans that dictate
> curricular and degree structures- and the capital culture that wants our
> graduates to be little more than skilled workers, not
> critically-thoughtful, agenic beings.
>
>
You're not criticizing Auxier's point - you're reaffirming it.

John