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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

the closure of academic philosophy « Previous | |Next »
October 30, 2004

In a recent post on Enowning there is makes a good comment about our philosophical culture.

In this culture


"....many authors are not interested in the wide dissemination of their papers. They come from a tradition of exchanging ideas within a tight circle of specialists and striving to be published in certain prestigious journals. To them, being widely read, being popular, is not a concern, or even antithetical."

This is particularly the case in Australia. Both analytic and continental philosophy is, by and large, a closed academic circle of specialists whose presence on the internet primarily consists of home pages with their CVs and list of their publications on their university server. An innovative few have some of their papers on line as pdf files.

Enowning says that in a philosophical culture:


"There are people who are genuinely interested in philosophical subjects and eager to discuss it with other enthusiasts, and then there are those that have made an institutional career out of philosophy, and need to please their patrons to get grants, tenure, and get published. And there are the clever few that manage both, getting both the respect of their peers, their books sold in bookstores, and their ideas spread. I don't think there's anything wrong with being published in specialized journals, but in the long run, what's the point of doing philosophy, or anything else for that matter, only to have your work gather dust in a few libraries?"

My sentiments exactly. Philosophy needs to establish a more substantive online presence if it is to survive the ongoing neo-liberal attack on the humanities.

This weblog grew out of the academic philosophy and its outreach in the form of a philosophy cafe as an attempt to keep the conversation going, it has been spurned by academic philosophy. Even though it discusses similar material (Adorno, Heidegger, Hegel, Bataille ) philosophical conversations is not even listed on the philosophy jammm website.

Notable exceptions are this and this.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:52 PM | | Comments (2)
Comments

Comments

On-line *and* off-line (to a wider audience).
Unfortunatelly, stundents of philosophy seem to suffer from a sort of messiahnism and voracious appetite for cult-like figures... some of them at least.

Gabriel
That is so true. They identify with their hero.They live within the horizons of their philosophy.

The philosopher becomes a sort of God. It is this figure that Nietzsche played around with in Thus Spake Zarathustra.

It is much healthier to think in terms of texts, texts linked to other texts, and the diversity of interpretation of the texts.