27 January 2009

Pippin Interview

Skip to the last part of this (PDF) for a long-ish interview with Pippin about various things Hegelio-Academic. It's a good read.

I didn't know that Pippin started out as a literature guy, or that he had a seminar with Sellars. And the stuff about the structure of universities and the analytic/continental split is really interesting -- Pippin discussed some related topics on the first day of his Hegel seminar; he clearly feels pretty strongly about all this.

(HT: Perverse Egalitarianism -- incidentally, bjk's comment on that post is something sublime.)

6 comments:

Ben W said...

I was taken aback when I read this sentence: "There are a number of really interesting people around who don't pay attention to these disciplinary bounds: Stanley Cavell until he died, Bernard Williams, or, until he died recently, Richard Wollheim."

Presumably mispunctuated! It ought to read "Stanley Cavell; until he died, Bernard Williams; or, until he died recently, Richard Wollheim."—Cavell hasn't died, no?

I'd like to hear the recording that resulted in that transcription.

Ben W said...

He seems to dodge the question regarding analytic/continental jazz: it's not just modes of organization, there's also, you know, the matter of what sorts of styles of writing and argumentation are acceptable, what texts are presumed, what problems studied...

Daniel Lindquist said...

Yeah, I definitely double-checked on Wikipedia when I read that. I originally noted it in the post, but then I realized it must've been a punctuation error.

He makes references to some of the other things distinctive about the continental approach on p.89, philosophy as "an avant garde cultural enterprise" (which he then notes still holds appeal for certain Americans, on the next page). He certainly leaves out a lot that could be said about the distinction, but I think he does so because he suspects it will just cease to matter in, say, twenty years, when all of the German universities have been "Americanized". Which is an interesting reason for dodging like he does.

Ben W said...

This seems like a piss-taking and yet I do not believe it is, entirely.

Daniel Lindquist said...

It would make more sense if they were joking, but I don't think they are. It seems like the "philosophy as cultural politics" crowd just now discovered Scientific Realism and think it's just amazing, golly gee willickers Batman! (The other dogmatic metaphysics bits are certainly earnest and boring, just like whatever dreck Alvin Plantinga and Peter van Inwagen are up to nowadays. It's the Capital-SR Scientific Realism that strikes me about Speculative Realism. Oh hey, SR-SR. Not intentional!)

I'm reminded of this post, where it came out that Badiou apparently doesn't know that analytic philosophy has done anything since Carnap.

Also: your swampman post is fantastic, good work

Perezoso said...

Hey Danny the jew boy, you won't be doing any philosophy. You're the mockery of Kant, and don't know analytical philosophy from yr mama's panocha.

Better stick to like shebrew with yr little galpal ....benji