[MD] When Philosophy Lost It's Way

ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR ajb102 at psu.edu
Tue May 10 11:20:15 PDT 2016


Hey All,

Not sure if this op piece was mentioned before (I searched my email, didn't see any mention of the author so I am guessing not). This is from the New York Times "The Stone" series. "When Philosophy Lost It's Way" by Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle from earlier this year (Jan 2016). 

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/11/when-philosophy-lost-its-way/

There are two main points in this article. Although Pirsig is not cited, its hard to imagine the authors are not drawing from ZMM (or Dewey's later works).

The first point is the "sterilization" of philosophy as a process of removing it from 'everyday lived experience'. "Philosophy, then, as the French thinker Bruno Latour would have it, was “purified” — separated from society in the process of modernization."

The second point is a "sterilization" of philosophy in the following way. "There is another layer to this story. The act of purification accompanying the creation of the modern research university was not just about differentiating realms of knowledge. It was also about divorcing knowledge from virtue. ... Knowing and being good were intimately linked."

The authors conclude, "The point of philosophy now is to be smart, not good. It has been the heart of our undoing."

I'm not presenting this short article as anything I expect any of you to find earth-shattering, this is ground that Pirsig (and others) exposed decades ago. But I thought, since appeared very recently in the NYT, it would be worth sharing.

Arlo




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