I’m going to put forth a thought experiment. I imagine that I’ll get one or two comments about it, but I’d like to get more. Chances are I’ll probably get zero. So it goes to my point here.
I am going to write an intellectual academic paper. It makes a good argument. It has a proposal, it has thoroughly investigated rebuttals, propositions for solutions and faults, etc., but it does not site one single person in the history of written material.
Would I ever get published by a reputable journal, say?
My answer is, no. And then, why?
In in a paper I am currently writing I introduce the question of why it should matter whether someone came up with an idea that someone else already came up with, that is, in Philosophy or in critical theory or something like that.
Often, we will hear as a critique of someone’s work that it is derivative, or that someone else said it better, or that someone else said the same thing 300 years ago.
Why should that discredit or devalue at all what this other person said presently?
Chances are if the person comes up with a conclusion that other people already came up with, I would guess that the person is only putting this particular idea in a context which address is the current situation. So I’m not sure why the person’s proposal would be set aside or devalued because they didn’t reference all the other people who said something similar.
Why is it important to reference other people?

7 responses to “Thought experiment for those philosophers who.”
http://wikipediareview.com/smilys0b23ax56/default/irony.gif
😂
Someone should write a book about the irony of texting. How in texting irony is often missed, and how it perpetuates misinterpretation and miscommunication.
And how the world is coming to an end because of it!!!
“By deploying discourse throughout a calendar, and by giving a date to each of its elements, one does not obtain a definitive hierarchy of precessions and originalities; this hierarchy is never more than relative to the systems of discourse that it sets out to evaluate.”
☞ Michel Foucault • The Archaeology of Knowledge
Yes, but the problem is is that there is an inherent value according to the various calendar numbers. But also the letters that are put after someone’s name according to how much they can use those calendar numbers in reference to various discourses.
I’m not necessarily saying it’s wrong, but I am saying that if I don’t cite anyone, and everyone understands the arguments and putting forth as valid arguments, what does it matter if I cited or not?
But also I think it’s saying something about how we constitute ourselves in the world. And I think Foucault is indicating something different in the context of that quote gave. I think he is saying just as much as I just said.
And I think Fouclait is giving us an archeology. Less making an argument about what is good and right.
So: yes. I agree. 🌞
…and…🌸