Intellectual Impact
Intellectual Impact
I am interested in the intellectual impact of this blog on the minds of its readers (who range from all over the world). What is it doing to your minds? I ask this as an educational psychologist manque. What you get here is a barrage of subversive thought, relative to received opinion, though highly disciplined. And it will not stop. Is it annoying, exhilarating, disturbing, amusing, infuriating? Is it changing the way you see things? Is it reshaping your mind? Does it come back to haunt you in the dead of night? I myself find it quite liberating and mind-altering, like a kind of intellectual LSD. So, readers, look within and report your findings to me. I will analyze the results.
Two things, Dr McGinn. First on sheer accessibility. It would help your readers enormously, especially those using smaller devices, if you were to darken the font colour and increase the font size. Your thoughts are truly a struggle to read.
On the more substantive side, your arguments would sometimes be more compelling to me if they were a little more formal. Unanchored abstractions often so beloved of philosophers, can smuggle in a lot of beside-the-point purposelessness – often dispelled by a small amount of mathematical modelling, even as an example of what you mean. Nothing past A-level is usually required.
First, let me thank you for responding. Unfortunately, I have no control over the font color and size. I do see your point. Your suggestion about using a bit of mathematics is quite alien to philosophy as it has been practiced for a couple of thousand years and I have no idea how it would work. It is perfectly true that I do little to explain terms and provide background, which makes it hard for people who haven’t studied philosophy intensively.
Shorter paragraphs would be easier to read.
Again, can you say how my writing has changed your state of mind, if it has?
Well, I am drawn here, by some of your books. I hope that I understand their lessons well-enough (maybe I don’t). I always hope that my mode of seeing the world is challenged, subverted. And if my sleeping nightmares get upended, ain’t that interesting. I despise the current fashion of “cancel culture”; I love those who buck the trend. Dumb-ass tendencies burn themselves out in the end.
Very sensible, if I may say so. But I’m wondering if you detect any change in your mind from reading this blog. The sheer quantity must have some effect, I would have thought.
That’s interesting— just to answer off the top of my head, I’d say that your blog, by causing me to check it daily, disrupts the fabric of my, otherwise, routine. And by causing my attention to hold to a thing that I wouldn’t have, otherwise, wrenches me from the quotidian….
I’m glad you answered by referring to your own mental state, which is what I’m interested in. I’m particularly interested in whether immersion in my blog has caused my voice to enter your head.
Historically I started to read your blog because I enjoyed a few books of yours, starting with the excellent Logical Properties. I enjoy the wit, the tone and a wild imagination that comes through your blog writing. I also value sincerity, direct style, clarity and open mindedness that is reflected in your brand of mysterianism at the expense of false certainties and ideologically driven philosophies such as scientism and most forms of reductive (read: dismissive and boring) approaches so prevalent in academic philosophy nowadays.
On a side note related to another blog post: I just came across a recent article by Nicholas Humphrey (who is a psychologist as you corrected me in that comment). He approvingly quotes your characteristically spot on colourful quote from a 1993 paper: “Isn’t it perfectly evident to you, as it is to us, that [the brain] is just the wrong kind of thing to give birth to consciousness … You might as well assert, without further explanation, that space emerges from time, or numbers from biscuits, or ethics from rhubarb.”
Source: https://aeon.co/essays/you-know-what-consciousness-is-you-live-in-soul-land
These are perceptive observations, but I’m interested in whether reading this blog has altered your own mind in any way. I used to know Nick but haven’t seen him in many years (I did once review a book of his in the LRB). Academic philosophy today stinks.
I am not a fan of the expression “mind altering” in the same way as I am don’t like “life changing” — they are frequently cliches, but I am 100% sure that’s not your intended meaning in the question above. To answer your question the best way I can: my mind was enriched by your blog’s versatility and creative thinking. If it counts as mind altering it then yes. The ability to see or establish interesting patterns between, I dare to say, any pair or triple of concepts, however mutually remote (philosophical and otherwise) is a rare gift of yours. It is stimulating and thank you for that.
Now we are in business: you identify aspects of my more recent work that I am conscious of cultivating, and I venture to suggest that you have internalized them to some degree. I was also struck by your reference to my “tone”, which I hope to inculcate in others. I myself have internalized Nabokov in my own way (and other authors too) and feel that his voice is in my head now.
It’s a great opportunity and phenomenon to have a philosopher blog and even get into discussions occasionally. It’s a very large discipline. I also enjoy the discussions about music. Tennis etc.
Btw the Beatles discussion was great, but I think music is relative – to age and hormones.
Nothing new excites me now the way it used to when I was a young listener.
I may do more on extracurricular stuff. Remember that not all philosophers are like me. I just learned to sing “Kitty” by Racey, the original to “Hey Mickey”.
Oh, I thought it was folk philosophy of music
.🤣😅
“Oh Kitty, what a pity, you don’t understand…”
Just checked the song. Don’t remember it even though 1979 was certainly my radio era
It wasn’t a hit and the band were not well known. Toni Basil made a hit of it some years later. I like their version.
In a roundabout way I shall get from philosophy to the Beatles.
Philosophy of science led to the economics and policy of science and technology (in which I did my masters).
A 2012 paper by scannell – Diagnosing the decline in
pharmaceutical R&D efficiency – poses an argument to explain the difficulty in developing new pharmaceutical medicines, by way of the “better than the Beatles” problem. He argued that just as it becomes increasingly difficult to get a band or music that can equal or improve on the Beatles, so it’s difficult to develop drugs that can beat the existing medicine cabinet we have.
I’d argue that this approach is fallacious, since music is subjective, and treating diseases still has a long way to go..
But that is why I see philosophy in many disciplines outside of philosophy
I don’t think music is subjective as to its quality: some tunes are better than others, and ditto lyrics.
Could you convince a group of 19 year olds of that? (I can’t convince anyone to like what I like)
Sure, no problem.
I haven’t done any survey, but one stance that I didn’t like, of a philosopher vis-a-vis music, was that of Jerry Fodor. Do I need to cut him some slack? What was he like (I always wondered as a result)? (I can’t see him getting down at the disco.)
I don’t know what stance you are referring to, but he was a great opera fanatic. I wrote about him in The Making of a Philosopher. He was very big and funny and loved cats.
Regarding the darker font comment, what I recommend is on a PC, copy & paste into a Gmail Draft & make it bold. I also use the Draft feature to compose comments. If reading your thoughts hasn’t changed my thoughts much that could be because I’ve only had the time to read but a small portion of what you write. I think you’ve made me more circumspect. I appreciate your creativity and generosity in sharing your thoughts. And your Colinmcginnseye view of the world. You’ve made me want to buy a skateboard. Try seated paddle boarding (if I got the terminology right). Tennis, no way! That looks like a frightful way to abuse one’s knees, vertebrae, cartilage, lower back … I think the way in which you’ve most helped shape me is with your replies and titles. I find the brevity refreshing. I think it’s made me a better editor. As in the spirit of Jefferson’s “The most valuable of all traits is that of never using two words when one will do.”
The general category is kayak surfing, with waveski surfing as one type of this. Tennis is not hard on the body at beginner and intermediate levels. Brevity is good. If you want to buy a skateboard, I recommend a Magneto longboard.
Your work means a lot to me and there is much I could say. One of the most important effects is inspiring me with a sense of intellectual freedom. The intellectual superiority of your work gives me an appropriate and healthy amount of contempt for lesser efforts in the academy that emboldens me to question their assumptions and dogmas and advance creative ideas of my own. Your work is singular proof that contemporary philosophy need not be sterile, plodding, unimaginative, insipidly written, and beholden to dogma. It is a gift and an enormous privilege to read all of your work, especially having access to fresh offerings. It is the standard of how philosophy ought to be written for me and one that I aspire to emulate.
Exactly the kind of answer I was hoping for! Your epithets are perfectly aimed. My only question is whether I have taken up residence in your head as a certain kind of voice. Freedom, yes.
Definitely. The uncompromising good sense and analytical acuity of your critical voice, the way you poke and prod at arguments and reveal their shortcomings with celerity, and your creative voice with your willingness to envisage possibilities that have not been considered before and breathe life into them–both of these voices have taken up prominent residence in the quarters of my mind. I invoke these spirits where helpful when I’m in a critical or creative mode.
What more could I ask for? And it’s for the good of mankind, if I can be pretentious for a moment. How many of these articles do you think you have read?
I have been reading regularly since 2017. I’d say hundreds. I have read over half of your books as well and plan to read them all. Next on my list is Mindsight.
So, you are thoroughly immersed–it’s the only way really. I have to say you do write very well.
I’ve really enjoyed and learnt from your approach over the years. For many years now, I have come and gone from the blog, drifting away at times and then finding myself mysteriously drawn back, as if by some intellectual tide. What brings me back, I think, is your way of writing like a playful, fearless experimentalist of the conceptual world, probing and testing the limits of intelligibility, and often bringing profound, rare, and certainly different perspectives into view. It has, I hope, given me a little more confidence to think in a similar spirit.
Very well put and much appreciated. I flatter myself that I helped you achieve that viewpoint. I believe that I invented this way of proceeding over a number of years. It has yet to be absorbed by professional philosophers. It is unique.
I am very influenced by your writing style. It taught me that the austere highly pared-down prose style adopted by most analytic philosophers is not a requirement. One can avail oneself of the full range of resources of the English language, write in a lively and imaginative way with interesting turns of phrase and the occasional metaphor sprinkled while maintaining argumentative rigor and clarity. In fact clarity is enhanced as well as mental transparency. You write like someone who wants his real thoughts to be understood clearly rather than hiding behind a wall of monotonous prose.
Those talentless twits are terrified of being understood, as well as being philistines. I aim to make my thoughts as transparent and alive as possible.
I believe I’ve internalized the swift tempo of your writing. I think your writing disabused me of the notion that writing in a slow-moving, ponderous way is a sine qua non of profundity, and that swiftness goes hand in hand with shoddiness. Now this sprightly kind of prose style is associated with intelligence–nimbleness and dexterity–lightness of touch, freedom. And prose that ponderously lumbers forward I’m more inclined to view as betraying a lack of intelligence, freedom, and imagination.
I’m seeing echoes of my writing in yours–the ability to put things well. I quite agree with what you say about the sprightly and nimble as opposed to the slow and ponderous.