Saturday, October 08, 2011

Another Reason to Dislike Habermas

I'm no fan of abstruse Marxist philosopher/sociologists, so I found this point rather amusing:
I remember reading a response by Habermas to a critic, limited to the statement that he refused to discuss with an individual who quoted Hegel from a secondary source.

I remember seeing a documentary on Jacques Derrida, and he was asked what one question he would like to ask Ludwig Wittgenstein if he were alive, and he said he would ask him about his sex life. Philosophers are pretty loony.

5 comments:

Kirill said...

Invoking Hegel based on a secondary source makes it quite likely that the author did not read Hegel. Consequently, concepts are being introduced in a processed (and likely simplified) form, simultaneously exposing the author's laziness in forming the argument. While 20th century philosophy is certainly convoluted, resorting to secondary sources to cite primary opinions is something generally reserved for undergraduate-level arguments, not someone trying to debate with Habermas.

Anonymous said...

Wow, deriding people for quoting crap thinking not from the actual crapper.

Anonymous said...

Isn't Habermas dismissing the entirety of philosophy discussion here? How many academic papers in philosophy actually bother to cite Hegel's original works? They would probably refer to a review paper, in order to establish a broader context, aid interpretation and the like.

In other words, yes, this is pretty loony.

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of Cicero when he said that there is nothing so foolish that a philosopher has not said it.

bjk said...

http://proteviblog.typepad.com/metaphilosophy/2007/11/gulping-down-th.html

Habermas as a member of Hitler youth.