 | | Habermas: 'Go-Slow' in Historical Materialism |
The strike has not been as effective as organisers hoped, with most of the general public unaware that there has been no new philosophical theory for the past five years. Habermas and his Union are adamant, however, that the strike will continue until the world's philosophers receive the recognition they deserve.
IPETU are demanding royalties for philosophers whose theories and epigrams are co-opted by the entertainment industry. Cerebrators' aphorisms are frequently used to lend pseudo-intellectual credibility to Hollywood films, bolster tedious airport novels or add fake profundity to colourless TV dramas.
Habermas, a leading light in the second wave of Critical Theory, put away his pens, paper and pipe half a decade away and has not uttered a philosophical word since. (Though he has written a few tantalising précis on historical materialism, promising enlargement if and only if IPETU's demands are met.) "The world will just have to do without communicative action, neo-Marxist social scientific enquiry and negative dialectics until such time as it is ready to acknowledge the tireless work of its philosophers."
This does not, of course, include the work of several independent thinkers, including Australian ethical utilitarian Peter Singer, who are not members of the IPETU and whom Habermas rejects as "self-serving scabs." Singer is dismissive of the union's action: "Philosophy is a calling to seek the highest eternal truths. It is at best tawdry, at worst abjectly self-contradictory, for my misguided colleagues to quest for immanent recognition instead of metaphysical verity."
<< More General news articles |
231
Despite vocal opposition from within the medical community and among the public, the NHS has approved funding for Dr. Yevgeny Tam's Public Fat Pump scheme, which aims to improve the ... 
The tide of indignation that has swept through the media folllowing the discovery last week of a Nepalese monk in a bowl of chowder at a fashionable Newcastle restaurant would ... 
In a daring experiment to illustrate the interaction of thermodynamic properties, Danish engineer Per Woym had himself doused in kerosene, set alight and strapped to the nosecone of an SAS ... 
Post a comment