Frank Hartmann on Thu, 6 Jan 2000 22:09:28 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> What is traditional philosophy. A brief explanation |
What is "traditional" philosophy? - oder: Am Sonntag des Lebens. A brief reply "Geschäftige Torheit ist der Charakter unserer Gattung" - Immanuel Kant <for our german-illiterate readers, the translation of this quote reads: " k a b u m ! "> In 1783, somes cleric asked Kant the philosopher, what he thought the enlightenment was? The answer is well known, and for anyone doubting the answer from that time, there is an update by our all beloved Schwarzenegger-of-theory, Michel Foucault. ( http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/2599 /wie.html ) But we do not want to play big here. In his recent rant on "Media Aesthetics & the European Graduate School", Wolfgang Schirmacher asked me what I thought traditional philosophy was? Well, there is an easy answer to that: all those texts which suck and we still have to read. This would be OK if "something" would make us read them, not "someone" - this is the difference. All those professors who come up with Aristotle when we want to talk about interfaces. There is also an unfair answer to that: all what impresses any paying scholars. If you are in it for the money, ok, we all have to pay our rent. The more sophisticated answer requests a reference to a discussion I assume Wolfgang is familiar with: Horkheimers refusal of "traditional theory" in favor of "critical theory". The first would deal with texts only, the latter with applications of thought, and through active involvement - to put it short (for the longer version cf. Hartmann: Max Horkheimers materialistischer Skeptizimus, Frankfurt & New York: Campus 1990, 267 pages). Traditional philosophy is what is happening on the "sunday of life", e.g. for professors whose rent is paid for whether their projects work or not. Or for the people who "teach" media but never made a living out of working inside the media. Today is a holiday for the catholics, therefore Hegel: ".. es ist der Sonntag des Lebens, der alles gleichmacht, und alle Schlechtigkeit entfernt; Menschen, die von ganzem Herzen wohlgemut sind, können nicht durch und durch niederträchtig sein." <for our german-illiterate readers again, the translation of this quote reads: " take it easy ! " German is, and Germans are, complicated by nature, you know...> Frank # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net