The index of worth in a closed academic world where conformity, patronage, provincialism, enclavism abounds is the "footnote".
"Many citations to an individual's work indicates he or she is important; conversely few or no references implies someone is unknown and irrelevant." Russel Jacoby, The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of the Academe, pg. 127 Connected with this type of academic philosophy is a narrow, authoritative view of what counts as "true", "quality" philosophical work in a particular area. In political philosophy, such work would be in the tradition of Locke, Mill, and Kant, or Rawls and Nozick, that is, of liberalism with its emphasis on the market and the minimal state, rights, justice, contract theory, and a universally justified neutral polity. In social philosophy, the "real" view of social life would be utilitarianism, where social action is guided by interests, with the greatest good for the greatest number equaling the sum of individual interests. In psychology the accompanying doctrine is of an egoistic, instinctual psyche pitted against organized society but needing its civilizing influence. The point is that Royce provides a critical and alternative view to this kind of social and political philosophy as well as the accompanying view of the psyche. Thus he would not easily fit the notion of "social political philosophy" that underlies Kuklick's evaluation. Ignoring those who are outside of and counter one's views has, of course, condemned a number of creative and excellent philosophers to the margins of academic concern, including many philosophers in classical American philosophy. Even Dewey, acknowledged by many outsiders as the last of the great "public philosophers", has been thus marginalized. Further, the liberal social-political philosophy so fundamental to "academic" philosophy is now under strong attack from within philosophy and without and is itself in retreat. This liberalism sees humans as exclusively and unmanageably self-regarding and human association as a necessary evil. The role of the polity is to accommodate civilly the clashes of individual and group interests. This philosophical liberalism, exalts the supremacy of self-interest and the development of institutional means for pursing these interests. Yet no nation could remain a self-governing, communicating whole if it were only a precarious assemblage of mutually suspicious segments. ----- Royce's philosophy is, in fact, of one integrated artistic piece; his metaphysics and epistemology are ground in and interweave with his ethics and his social and political philosophy. Indeed, Royce's philosophy of self and his metaphysical understand of the nature of the individual an d the relationship of individuals to each other and to the community are what give substance and fecundity to his social and political philosophy, making Royce's work peculiarly relevant and useful to today's needs. Much of the vacuum in public philosophy that operates with with a hidden and unexamined metaphysics and epistemology-- a reductionistic betrayal of human selves, their relationships, and the reality they encounter. The dominant American social and political thought is a "detached individualism," which is based, in turn, on an "ontological individualism" that claims that reality is composed ultimately of individuals only. All communities then, are seen as mere collections of individuals with no essential reality of their own other than the sum of individual thoughts and actions. Royce attacked this belief system which he called "nominalism" (and MoQists call "SOM) In contrast to such a metaphysical view, Royce sees reality as essentialy social and affirms the reality of both individuals and communities. Likewise in epistemology, Royce asserts the essential social nature of all knowledge-seeking and, with Peirce, argues for a third type of knwledge, interpretation, which is triadic: social, community building, and the essence of knowledge of mind (and self), whether one's own or that of another. J. Kegley Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
