I think I want to go further on this, Chris, recall, if you will, that the
original bow of 'problematise' here was in the context of a set of
objectives for assessing or directing the performance of students in a
course, not a technical paper on philosophy. Now in all the posts that have
followed not once has the alleged 'technical' and 'unique' meaning of
'problematise' been given. My point about it was that it actually meant
'problematicise', which is what the word would be if formed from
'problematic' as in 'grammatic'/'grammaticise' but that would give the game
away, as it were, as its meaning would then be clear.
Languages can be specialised, yes, take music or mathematics, but the
invasion of the common tongue, which belongs to everybody, by
faux-specialisation, is not comparable. I guess that, apart from other
considerations already mentioned, it's another feature of that wish to
appear scientific that has bedevilled communication in the arts since the
'triumph' of hard science in the late nineteenth century. I guess.
As for philosophers, how do you become one? If I go down to my local job
centre there is a conspicuous lack of vacancies for philosophers, people to
work in call-centres or data processing, yes. A professional philosopher
will be, inevitably, a member of a tiny elite of people supported by the
structures of power whether or not an individual rebels against that power.
Philosophy requires a great deal of leisure for its study, and that leisure
has to be paid for by others. And we hardly need reminding what happened to
poets in the Philosopher King's Republic.
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "david.bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2002 1:12 PM
Subject: Re: Newbie
> I love the implication in your post ,Chris, that only professional and
> qualified persons, and those they show favour on, can be capable of
> understanding specific terms. It ties in very well with the consistent
point
> that came out of the recent threads: the abuse of the language in order to
> obfuscate and thus preserve status by members of the professional
> hierarchies, whether they be academic, business world, political,
whatever.
> If you look back at some of the posts you will see examples given by Liz
or
> Lawrence in such unrarefied and common areas as National Vocation Training
> or 'A' levels. In effect, I gasp at myself using this word, your stance is
> elitist, overlaid with a rhetoric of rural boy and colonial victim that ,
> like other abuses of language, disguises its true meaning.
>
> And as for this Royal Head of State (?????) and, best of all, the use of
> 'racist' in your accompanying post ( taken aback at that - all the sources
> criticised were from England) which not only is ridiculous but also
empties
> a word which obtain to real issues, racism, and by that emptying out of
the
> word helps perpetuate the evil it condemns.
>
>
> David Bircumshaw
>
> Leicester, England
>
> Home Page
>
> A Chide's Alphabet
>
> Painting Without Numbers
>
> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "ccjones" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2002 11:39 AM
> Subject: Re: Newbie
>
>
> On Wed, 30 Jan 2002 09:03, you wrote:
> > some really good points chris
> >
> > (watch me vacillate from one extreme to the other)
>
> I must admit Doug to being a bit cheeky in my post and letting loose some
> heavy technical language. As Stephen King writes: writers put together a
> tool
> box. He was never crass enough to command or even imply what those tools
> should be. For me, some areas of philosophy I came across through
> philosophers who were not very happy with academic philosophy and who were
> generous enough to talk to me and help me became part of my tool box. It
> took
> me some 12 months of concentrated effort to learn their technical language
> so I could understand what they were on about. Now words like the
> transcendental eliding into the empirical are thought images which I can
> use.
> What I do object to is the Royal Command from a Man of State telling me
what
> I should do as a writer and hence what I put in my tool box. I am not
> saying
> that these Royal Commands are consciously done but I think it would be
nice
> if people did actually think about what they say. (Am I being utopian,
> here?)
> Being a stubborn bugger and colonial rural idiot I do refuse such Royal
> Commands, of course. I can think of Proust who felt alien to his native
> language when he wrote and Artaud does a fair better job then my other
post
> when it comes to this so-called respect writers should have for language.
> Poetry is pigshit as Artaud did say. Funny you should mention the Hegelian
> Butler, also. I was reading Hegel _Philosophy of History_ before that last
> post.
>
> best
>
> Chris Jones.
>
> (PS: Rudy R is into some heavy theory, square root of minus one stuff and
> Mandelbrot. As for his melting drug: ever seen someone really stoned on
> heroin?)
>
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