You said a mouthful right there dave! dmb says:
Mark isn't the only poster who seems to be confused about the difference > between social level authority and intellectual authority. For instance, you yourself have many times offered as an argument, "Because Pirsig says I'm his favorite" and you seem to think that sort of social conferring of authority carries intellectual weight. dmb: > > And yet we have a whole crew that seem to actively disrespect and despise > any kind of intellectual authority or expertise. Did you count the number of > times that Steven Hawking was dumped on? You seem to think that challenging the 'great man's authority is a sign of disrespect. I've posted a perfectly legitimate intellectual challenge to the validity of "a brief history of time" and it's underlying metaphysical assumptions and have I received a single answer or refutation of my arguments? Nope. All we get is, "well, he's more famous and brilliant than you, so shut up." Is that what you consider an intellectual argument dave? Or a social one? From my perspective, it's a social refutation to say "Hawking is more intellectual than John, so therefore he's right and John is wrong." An intellectual refutation would deal with the actual underlying assumptions and issues, and not our respective places in society - which admittedly, are inarguable. dmb: > I think anti-intellectualism is a very common attitude generally, but in a > philosophy discussion group? In this context, it strikes me as bizarre. And > when you don't buy what they're selling, it has to be a matter of > authoritarian oppression. The MAN is keepin' 'em down, they think. It can't > about about their quality of their own thought and speech because it's > always that other guy's fault. > > John: What you term anti-intellectualism, I see as anti-authoritarianism. You think we oughta make the intellectuals our high priests, because their "intellectual" whereas I think they ought to be subject to intellectual inquiry, same as anybody. dmb: Oh, the drama. > > dang, I wish I had that book I was reading yesterday, it had a great quote regarding a debate between Royce and James on the innate dramatic bent of metaphysics. Most apropos. Maybe later, John 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/md/archives.html
