One interesting thing I want to point out about this thread is the interesting distinction between making use of scholarship, which is what seems to be usually referred to on this site when you guys talk about scholarship as a value; and doing scholarship. Obviously, in order to make use of scholarship, the scholarship must already exist.
The way you reduce scholarship to being merely a way of impressing other people belies, I think, a misunderstanding of what scholarship is, or at least what it should be. To me, scholarship should be the best means for any given inquirer to get to the answer, as simply and easily as possible.
Of course, scholarship can be good or bad, and I like to think that doing scholarship is something that rationalists ought to do. If you’re pursuing a line of inquiry, and run into a dead end, it makes absolute sense to post a sign at the beginning of that road you’ve already taken that says “Dead End”—and here’s why.
It makes sense to cite Jeremy Bentham because he was the first one who pursued that line of inquiry. Of course, as it happens, people generally find it difficult to critique their own, established views, so it took someone else to post the “Dead End” sign for him. But citing the intellectuals is an important part of the map of scholarship that creates a common language for the rest of us to find our way, and not follow dead ends.
But I’m not speaking strictly of Academia. Wikipedia is as much a work of scholarship as the official journals, in my view. Of course, if it’s bad scholarship, a bad map, it will inevitably lead people down bad paths. Lets hope that people take the time to improve it.
One interesting thing I want to point out about this thread is the interesting distinction between making use of scholarship, which is what seems to be usually referred to on this site when you guys talk about scholarship as a value; and doing scholarship. Obviously, in order to make use of scholarship, the scholarship must already exist.
The way you reduce scholarship to being merely a way of impressing other people belies, I think, a misunderstanding of what scholarship is, or at least what it should be. To me, scholarship should be the best means for any given inquirer to get to the answer, as simply and easily as possible.
Of course, scholarship can be good or bad, and I like to think that doing scholarship is something that rationalists ought to do. If you’re pursuing a line of inquiry, and run into a dead end, it makes absolute sense to post a sign at the beginning of that road you’ve already taken that says “Dead End”—and here’s why.
It makes sense to cite Jeremy Bentham because he was the first one who pursued that line of inquiry. Of course, as it happens, people generally find it difficult to critique their own, established views, so it took someone else to post the “Dead End” sign for him. But citing the intellectuals is an important part of the map of scholarship that creates a common language for the rest of us to find our way, and not follow dead ends.
But I’m not speaking strictly of Academia. Wikipedia is as much a work of scholarship as the official journals, in my view. Of course, if it’s bad scholarship, a bad map, it will inevitably lead people down bad paths. Lets hope that people take the time to improve it.