zinnat13 wrote:Hi lance4,
you said-
it is interesting to see what paid philosopher really say - and I have found that usually they say what they should say because they are like any worker: they do their job and then go home and drink beers and smoke pot and watch football. And maybe they got some methodological skills by which to most successfully process a problem. Its not their fault; everyone has got to make a living, and they like to think and write, but it don't mean they have anything good to say, just that they know how to say it.
Lance, i found it very surprising and totally uncharacteristic of that lance4, to whom i am familiar since i joined this board.
Are you serious and stand by your words?
Please, do not get me wrong. I do not want neither to refute nor comment on what you said. I was asking this just because, imho, this is not your line of thinking.
But, i may well be wrong, and thus, asked.
with love,
sanjay
As with any career move, there are the many who just like to do it, who want to be able to to such things. Indeed they may be proficient in their job, and can do the job, but they merely, in the end, do their job - and probably enjoy it.
Titles mean little; just because one is a king does not mean they are good at being a king.
And, there are those who a naturals at what they do, but these are a minority.
But philosophy is not like these other jobs. They produce only discourse. So one would think that they should be very good since it seems it demands of one a certain callling. But philosophy career, as a part of the academy, is demanded to produce. The ends of philosophy is no longer left to honesty in questioning; it is taken as a job because its workers have to be funded, paid. Thus they must produce. But how shall we determine whether a philsopher should be hired, worthy is getting our money? We must set criteria for what it is to be a good philospher. This criteria has to do with useful production. It cannot have been said before, for acedamia is in the business of progress, so the philosopher must be versed in the past knowledge of his trade. Like a skilled carpenter, he must have the basic skills by which to develop and offer better and more efficient skills, or even more beautiful images. The career philosopher does not have time to understand for himself the authors, he is told what the past authors have said and from there he makes 'better' ideas. He must also be able to appear like a philosopher. He must use the language of the discipline in a way, and be able to use the technology that shows he is skilled in the trade.
What this process lends itself to is tradesmen who's trade is using established tools of thinking to produce useful items of discourse for consumption. It becomes a job. It is something they do. This is not to say that there are not many many carpenters who can build a good house, but that philosophy is more than building structures for use. At least this is my view.
This is my explanation for what I have found in the academy. The professors are strapped for time between students, politics, and publishing. And so they merely use their tools to produce. It becomes automatic and limiting, in that same way an auto machanic can listen to a car and have a pretty good idea of what the problem is or where to look.
And their productions reflect the limitation, as they use their toold to continually produce the new in order to help with progress - and its a wash; the thinking that goes into their productions are stale and formulaic A job. In my mind, in most cases, not worthy of the title of philosophy. That is unless I understand that they are just 'fixing cars'. Then its fine they do what they do.
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