Conquer the river or contemplate the river?
When I first got to UQ I remember having a conversation with the head of department there about what constituted a "first rate mind". He was an Oxford-trained philosopher in the very traditional mold, including the white beard and everything. He said his idea of someone having a first-rate mind is someone who would sit and wait for ideas to float by, then take them and mull them over and turn them around a bit, and then send them on their way. I was appalled by this. I had just come from a philosophy department, not just in the US but in California, and my model of having a first-rate mind was that you had to have an agenda, a philosophical program. You had to have an area of specialisation and then a particular take on it, and then you had to brand it and market and make sure everyone knew it was yours, and then aggressively defend it against critics and attack all alternatives. Less like sitting beside the river and waiting for interesting things to float by, more like Olympic level white-water kayaking. My department-head's view sounded unforgivably passive in comparison.
However, I realised just the other day that I have now changed to have his view. Because I do philosophy in amateur contexts now, I don't have to specialise. We talk about anything and everything, usually all over one dinner, and then start back over it all again the next time we meet. The talks I've given so far have not at all been about personal marketing, they've just been topics that have come up and I decided to mull them over out loud for people, and get discussion going about it. I don't have to take particular views, much less extreme ones that are distinct from anyone else's working in the field. And it's so much more fun, and we get so much more accomplished, that I'm thinking this is probably a much better way to do philosophy.
Don't get me wrong, I still think there's a place for academia - it's the only venue you can really delve deep into specific technical issues, the only arena where you have time and resources to do that kind of hard and highly technical research and writing. But for the discipline at large, maybe venues like Philorum are more essential for keeping the whole thing alive.
However, I realised just the other day that I have now changed to have his view. Because I do philosophy in amateur contexts now, I don't have to specialise. We talk about anything and everything, usually all over one dinner, and then start back over it all again the next time we meet. The talks I've given so far have not at all been about personal marketing, they've just been topics that have come up and I decided to mull them over out loud for people, and get discussion going about it. I don't have to take particular views, much less extreme ones that are distinct from anyone else's working in the field. And it's so much more fun, and we get so much more accomplished, that I'm thinking this is probably a much better way to do philosophy.
Don't get me wrong, I still think there's a place for academia - it's the only venue you can really delve deep into specific technical issues, the only arena where you have time and resources to do that kind of hard and highly technical research and writing. But for the discipline at large, maybe venues like Philorum are more essential for keeping the whole thing alive.
posted by Ellen at 6:19 pm
2 Comments:
You go girl !
But maybe in an ideal world there would be no need for academia. (or many other things). You are right, that people need time and resources to write and research, but these do not need to be locked up in a university. Maybe the time and resources should be there for anyone who wants to use them. the same could be said about schools !
My comment is - the time and resources are there for anyone who wants to use them, but you have to do the hard work to acquire the necessary training and credentials beforehand. Just because philosophy can thrive in amateur circles doesn't mean it's easy and just anyone can do it.
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