I feel like I cheated on analytic philosophy

[iamlying]

I have no idea how I did on my final test, except I know I didn't do great. I'm reeeally hoping I squeaked by with a 10, but I think it's pretty obvious that I don't know anything about phenomenology. It's always been a pet peeve of mine when students say they "BS a paper" or "BS a test". Either they think lowly of their field, or they're providing

Comments

[lifftchi]

I'm hoping that sounds better in French. See also: "Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so by the reader."

[iamlying]

It doesn't sound much better in French to be honest. haha. Oh man, the worries.

However, that quote is way too broad to agree with. I found the larger extract of that George Orwell quote on wikipedia. Sure a word like "plastic" is just a pretentious synonym for "malleable" or "artificial", but those synonyms have meaning. I think his point is that they're often misused. Later on he makes the same criticism of words like democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice. Philosophers pretty much make their bread analyzing these kinds of words. It was glib of him to say that this large collection of words have no meaning. I think the lesson here is that those words can be misused and therefore we should be careful.

[lifftchi]

Well, I think the example of "living quality" vs. "peculiar deadness" is the best part of his argument in that section. It's clear that he's not arguing that "living" and "dead" are meaningless, but in the particular case of art criticism, they're used in a very limited way that's detached from their use in daily life. I think he's objecting to the ambiguity that overlapping definitions cause when trying to communicate to a general audience, although I admit to being less certain about that the more I read the paragraph. But he was a journalist, writing about political speech, so I think the essay should be read with that viewpoint.

Personally, I know that "romantic" has a very particular and specific meaning in English criticism -- it's one of my favorite periods -- but I'm not going to begrudge Orwell the figure.

Also, yes, my citation style has devolved to "enclose in quote marks, let google sort it out." I always hope people will check, but it's nice to get confirmation.

[yurifish]

oh man that sentence is like oatmeal. you eat it, you get really full, but it's all roughage so you poop it all out.

i'm sure you eked out your 10. if you didn't, you can blame phenomenology itself and all its scholars. IN THEIR FACE! if i knew anything about it i'd be making some sort of clever pun. wait, i will wikipedia it and make one anyway.

phenomenologists: they don't noe shit.

[1tophi]

Happy birthday Kousaku!