Philosophical Bull Fighting
November 13, 2004
Siris has an interesting discussion of philosophical bloodsport. His comments arose from a paper by Norman Swartz called "Philosophy as a Blood Sport." It's an excellent paper that ought to make one think. Perhaps it ought to be required reading for everyone in these kinds of academic areas? The problem that was addressed are conferences where someone presents a paper and someone else stands up to tell them how wrong they are. It can be rather intimidating and I can think of a few similar incidents in Mormon scholarship. Indeed I suspect that it is rather ubiquitous in any discipline where there aren't clear right or wrong answers. Swartz brings up science, and it certainly is the case that this sort of phenomena is much rarer in the sciences. However I've seen it happen quite often there as well. Often in fields where understanding ones opponent's position is very difficult. For instance I suspect some of the attacks on superstring theory fit this mold. Of course such attacks don't often happen in science conferences, if only because the number of people who can understand what is being said in the average conference on quantum gravity is so small...
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