I wonder what the story would sound like if told from the perspective of the literary theorist. Perhaps a story about how philosophers like to go on and on about truth and rationality, but when pressed by a relatively intelligent interlocutor, can’t even supply you with something as basic as a theory of knowledge?
I’m not sure why a literary theorist would expect a theory of knowledge to be particularly basic, if they did they’d probably feel equipped to come up with one themself.
Basic to the field of philosophy (it is supposed to be in their domain after all, like criticism is supposed to be the domain of literary theorists), not basic as in trivial for non-experts.
If one were to fault a philosopher for not being able to generate something basic in that sense, I’d think one would also have to fault physicists for not yet having generated a Theory of Everything. A generalized theory of knowledge would be fundamental within philosophy, but that doesn’t equate to being easy to generate, or impossible to work without (if it were, after all, nobody else ought to be able to get any work done without it either.)
I wonder what the story would sound like if told from the perspective of the literary theorist. Perhaps a story about how philosophers like to go on and on about truth and rationality, but when pressed by a relatively intelligent interlocutor, can’t even supply you with something as basic as a theory of knowledge?
I’m not sure why a literary theorist would expect a theory of knowledge to be particularly basic, if they did they’d probably feel equipped to come up with one themself.
Basic to the field of philosophy (it is supposed to be in their domain after all, like criticism is supposed to be the domain of literary theorists), not basic as in trivial for non-experts.
If one were to fault a philosopher for not being able to generate something basic in that sense, I’d think one would also have to fault physicists for not yet having generated a Theory of Everything. A generalized theory of knowledge would be fundamental within philosophy, but that doesn’t equate to being easy to generate, or impossible to work without (if it were, after all, nobody else ought to be able to get any work done without it either.)
“So what’s it all about then, Bertie?”