[PEN-L:30626] RE: Re: academic lingo

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: [PEN-L:30625] Re: academic lingo

I think you're right. Many times on pen-l, I've railed against the Mandarin Mentality of academics, who use all sorts of unneeded jargon or math in order to make their ideas seem profound (or to get tenure, or whatever).

But the idea of "a new pseudo-mathematical language that would make meaningless debates impossible and force some form of responsible analysis" has been used for this purpose.

Prof. Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
-----Original Message-----
From: joanna bujes [mailto:joanna.bujes@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, September 27, 2002 1:36 PM
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [PEN-L:30625] Re: academic lingo

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