[PEN-L:30625] Re: academic lingo

[joanna bujes <joanna.bujes@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

No, I don't think so. (see ravi's post below). 

What pollutes academic life is the fact that ideas are turned into
various forms of intellectual real estate. This transformation is
effected by the _expression_ of ideas/arguments in a capricious
poetics/language -- making it difficult for any but those initiated in
that poetics/vocabulary from participating in the conversation. 

 Not surprisingly, what develops out of this process are not various
"schools of thought" but varied academic cliques (lacking a
common idiom) led by superstars affiliated with various premiere
universities. 

Or to put it another way, when I think of my nineteen year old son being
given a humanist education, by these morons, it makes my blood run
cold.

Joanna




> [was: RE: [PEN-L:30615] Re: Re:
> Re: Personalities and the List] 
>
> Ravi wrote: 
> >the philosopher quine i think (jks can correct me, that
> is if he is 
> still being nice to me ;-)), or perhaps one of the logical
> positivists, 
>  suggested that we should do away with ordinary
> language and use a new 
> pseudo-mathematical language that would make meaningless
> debates 
> impossible (by not permitting the _expression_ of ambiguities
> and 
> self-contradictions, etc) and force some form of responsible
> analysis.< 
>
> Isn't that kind of thinking a basis for a lot of the
> meaningless jargon that pollutes academic life? 
>
> ------------------------ 
> Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx & 
> http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
>