XPost: alt.philosophy.taoism, alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.philosophy.zen   
   From: invalid@invalid.invalid   
      
   Tang Huyen  wrote:   
   > On 11/3/2016 6:32 PM, brian mitchell wrote:   
   >   
   >> A useful practice that most academics follow is to provide examples   
   >> and/or citations to bolster the propositions they put forward. It   
   >> seems to me that in the realm of abstract concepts the distinction   
   >> between form and content is so fine as to be mostly invisible. Can you   
   >> give an example of a "white scholar" floundering about in content   
   >> while ignoring the form they were better to be focusing on? Just a   
   >> short extract would be enough to give a sense of your meaning here.   
   >   
   > I am talking about the highest level of abstraction, at least in   
   > philosophy, so examples are also very abstract, but if you   
   > bear with me, the following quote from Michael Friedman at   
   > Stanford should serve as example, just so that you know that   
   > the wish is not outlandish. He is incredibly accomplished in   
   > philosophy and logic, and what he says is not mere   
   > vapourware. Scarcely anybody in the humanities of today can   
   > equal him in area expertise, and his areas are many.   
   >   
   > “Nevertheless, there is at least one aspect of Cassirer’s   
   > philosophical approach that I think is most relevant indeed to   
   > our contemporary philosophical predicament: namely, his   
   > interest in forging a connection between scientific and more   
   > broadly ‘humanistic’ orientations in philosophy (embracing   
   > both the Naturwissenschaft and the Geisteswissenschaft) and,   
   > more importantly, the characteristic method he adopts for   
   > pursuing this end. For the essence of Cassirer’s approach is   
   > to employ the most sophisticated and comprehensive   
   > resources of conceptual intellectual history (and thus the   
   > resources of a paradigmatic Geisteswissenschaft) in   
   > attempting to craft a new philosophical orientation   
   > appropriate to the problems and predicaments of the present.   
   > For Cassirer this meant, in particular, that we attempt to trace   
   > the conceptual evolution of both modern science and modern   
   > philosophy — and the conceptual interactions between   
   > them — within the framework of an historicized (and to this   
   > extent Hegelian) version of a broadly Kantian theory of the   
   > most general forms and categories of human thought, and this   
   > approach was later generalized and extended, in the   
   > philosophy of symbolic forms, to embrace what we might call   
   > the conceptual history of all of human culture as a whole. Now   
   > this last step, as I have said, is one that I myself am not   
   > prepared to take. But Cassirer’s earlier approach, exemplified   
   > in his more narrowly scientific works, makes particularly good   
   > sense, I believe, within our present, post-logical-empiricist and   
   > post-Kuhnian situation in philosophy of science and scientific   
   > epistemology.”   
   >   
      
   His lack of ability to clearly form and express thoughts on his own becomes   
   evident from the phrase "most relevant indeed", whereupon he has assumed a   
   prestigious persona that then launches into allusion intended toward   
   creating the impression of knowledgability rather than simply saying his   
   piece and placing his astuteness nakedly on the chopping-block of the   
   reader's judgement.   
      
   > I couldn't state my objective better. I savour every word of him,   
   > without reserve, but only regret that he never puts this   
   > ambitious programme to work, though he is modest enough to   
   > admit that "I myself am not prepared to take". You can look up   
   > the web for his stupendous achievements, but you will never   
   > find him fulfilling Cassirer's wish to "the conceptual history of   
   > all of human culture as a whole". Roughly, Hegel, Husserl and   
   > Heidegger have expressed some similar claim, but no such   
   > thing has ever been produced, by any means. Just a pipe   
   > dream, in a most platonic manner (as in platonic relationship).   
   > That is the glass ceiling of abstraction that I talk about. It is   
   > unforgiving.   
   >   
   > Tang Huyen   
   >   
      
   Imaginary too, as far as I can tell.  The only glass ceiling of abstraction   
   is the belief one has been coerced into accepting as the student of   
   scholars rather than practitioners.   
      
   --   
   email: noname.1234567.abcdef@gmail.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)