<nettime> What is traditional philosophy. A brief explanation

["Frank Hartmann" <frank.hartmann@chello.at>]

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