I genuinely sympathize with much of your position here, William, but I'm damned if I'll spend countless hours explaining why a given philosopher is worth no time at all.
Besides, consider the assignment this would entail. I would have to explain in detail why I cannot agree with a very, very large number of philosophers and critics I've read over the years. You sound as though you'd have me write a whole book each. For me it's much more satisfying to try to something creative than to spend a lifetime destroying. Much of what I've been writing amounts to the reason I reject various earlier thinkers. A quintessential specimen is a popular book by an academic philosopher called THE MEANING OF LANGUAGE. The third sentence of that book is, "The central feature of bits of language -- what makes them language -- is that they have meaning." I did read that whole book, but in truth that line on page one should have been enough to tell me this guy is going to irremediably muddled throughout. I feel sure you'd be able to name prominent critics in your field you intensely disdain, and whose lengthy book you'd recoil from critiquing at great length for the very reason the guy has nothing worth pondering. In a message dated 9/29/12 5:43:14 PM, [email protected] writes: > OK,Cheerskep has spoken. He has examined all the most influential people > in > depth and has decided they're all wet. Ordinarily, a scholar who decides > so and > so -- a most influential one --is dead wrong will write a book explaining > himself. If I really knew Barthes and Harris, for instance, were > empty-headed > philosophers and linguists or whatever, I'd get it in a book and lay claim > to > their mountain-top positions. It kinda bothers me when someone who claims > to > know so much, enough to topple the kings of elite academic criticism, says > he > doesn't have time to explain himself. It's one thing to dismiss a little > mind > with little ideas, not nice but understandable; it's another thing to > stand > aside and say the big minds are too stupid to refute with argument.
