Hysterical realism and the postmodern trademark

[quietphilosophe]

I finished up reading Infinite Jest a few days ago and I've been wandering around in a bit of a daze ever since.  The length wasn't as much of an issue as the general structure and nature of the novel--it was arguably one of the most difficult texts that I've gone through, but it was also profoundly rewarding.  I rarely blog on the books I read

Comments

Re: Don't cop out on me now!

[quietphilosophe]

Very few of the philosophical texts I've actually read have claimed the absolute correct position. It is, admittedly, more prominent within early modern philosophy than it is in the 20th century stuff, which is what I'm primarily interested in. At any rate, contemporary philosophy now seems to be more concerned about the limits to knowledge rather than flouncing a specific metaphysical position. Your experience here makes me question whether you've exposed yourself to anything related to the continental tradition.

The nature of philosophy is that there aren't bulleted lists with pre-reqs for what you need. This is the nature of language and culture and broader ideas beyond the realm of the quantifiable. Moreover, the language is highly specialized for a reason (in most cases). For what it's worth, I've been utterly disappointed by most philosophy of physics books I've ever tried to read. They're trying to theorize something that has already been formulated in the (probably) the best way. Introducing unnecessary complexity, believe it or not, really isn't good philosophy.

A prolegomena is entirely different than a handbook. Moreover, you're dealing with a different era--if you look at "scientific" papers of the day, I think you might find equally archaic terminology. Picking on Kant's choice of words really isn't fair.

As for Heidegger, he's difficult and I know lots of people still struggling to deal with him. I think he's certainly one of those top rungs of philosophy, which requires far more preparation and knowledge of the movements that he was part of before he can be understood. Moreover, Heidegger's a shining example of the complications that arise when you try to translate philosophy. German is an incredibly efficient language; my favorite example is that fact that the sun rising over a meadow on a beautiful summer morning can be expressed in a single word in German. Trying to translate a complicated German text dealing with German abstractions is no small feat.