On 2/9/2003 10:40:52 PM, Professor Borrowdale wrote:
>All the writers you mentioned
>understood
>the -isms of their day. Even
>Nietzsche
>who wrote in aphorisms and long
>passionate diatribes was a university >professor and wrote criticisms of
>Hegelian Idealism and Utilitarianism, as
>well as Christian Morality.

Perhaps, to a degree, I am straying from the topics at hand. Nonetheless, one of the most important things in my life right now is thinking about the philosophy of education and academia. So I can't let this fly by without sharing some of my thoughts. Yes, most great intellectuals have had an understanding of the work which their predecessors did. But at what cost? The intellectual elite often misses great paradigm shifts happening right under their noses, because they are too caught up in the study of knowledge which is deemed to have merit by academia. As an example, I would point to the cultural movements of the 1960s, which (with some notable exception) were ignored by the elite in their field. While the work of writers like Kerouac and Ginsberg is now admitted into college courses, and whole courses in fact are taught about their work, they were ignored in their own time. Van Gogh was ignored in his own time. These are people who's work has spurred very important paradigm shifts within the arts, and within academia itself, and yet academia refused to admit their thoughts until after the fact.

>Categorizing is a way of making truth
>claims more precise in order that they
>be accurately evaluated. Before you can ask
>what the truth is about a particular
>topic, it makes sense to look at what others >have said, attempt to understand it and then >try to evaluate it. After this you're in
>more of a position to which of the views >you've examined are best or to cobble out a
>view of your own.

And yet, in many thousands of years of human history, how much closer to truth has this method brought us? While, yes, we have far more scientific knowledge today than we had even ten years ago, I would contend that science is not truth. From an idealistic perspective, we have come further from the truth in the past thousand years, as that we have as a culture, and as a world, lost much of the profound faith in the spiritual and the supernatural which we once had. These beliefs in a spiritual world have been replaced with an almost undying faith in science and technology. And where has this belief gotten us? We are on the brink of environmental disaster, because there is no sense of ethics in the sciences, and when ethical persons recommend that scientists refrain from putting certain technologies to use, they are labeled "luddites" and "torch and pitchfork types". Only now, with the recent advances in quantum physics which suggest a much more Buddhist (eastern, idealistic) scientific paradigm, has science begun to seek the whole truth. To quote Matthew Palmer;"Science is magic mapped out with math." This is not to take the Eliminative Materialist viewpoint that 'magical' terminology is simply an outdated and incorrect way of describing scientific events. Rather, the point which I (and Palmer) seek to make is that scientific events and magical events are one in the same, and that each way of describing such events is both wrong and right. Each comes with it's own pitfalls, and it's own advantages. The way we, as a society, as a culture, and as academics will best serve ourselves is to seek out truth from outside of externally imposed paradigm, but from within internal paradigm. Objectivity has been proven to be an impossible goal; to be truly objective is to view the world without paradigm, to see reality without perspective. I have never personally experienced this sort of viewpoint, and I don't imagine that anyone really has. Everything we experience is interpreted by our minds in terms of those lessons which we have learned, and in terms of those memes with which we have been infected. So, our only option is to view events from our own unique perspectives (no two people share the same life experiences). So, where I agree with you, Professor, is that we, as intellectuals, should seek out experience. Where I disagree with you is that we are capable of consciously categorizing these experiences. The search for truth in the universe must be personal, must be organic (not organic foods, but organic thought. I could care less whether or not people eat organic foods), and must be subject to our own understanding. No philosophy is right. None is wrong. Few will ever be conclusively proven or disproved, and those that are will cease to be philosophy. Within academia, the movement must be toward such a goal, in which all branches of study can admit their own fallibility, and in the interest of coming closer to the unachievable goal of truth, must be willing to encourage conversation between all fields of study, and all walks of life. In the words of KRS 1, “…it’s time for all the scholars to unite with all the playas.” We are all on equal footing, and education is not a substance.