I have to apologize for my lack of historical groundwork. I read so much about “big ideas” and “philosophy tools” or “fallacies” and I have very little ground in specific philosophers or academics. Neither heavy logical descipline nor classical memorization. I just read and discuss. Perhaps that makes me a . . . socratic.
Throughout most forums, internet blogs, even tellevised debate (the poorest public venue for philosophy), I see good ideas and powerful calculation . . . but I don’t see that much connection between the two.
A forum thread often begins with an idea, more ideas are offered, some facts are laid down. But why is there lack of conclusion? True, we all benefit, but the thread is never quite comprehensive.
Ideas swarming together I consider to be brainstorming. I imagine that an analytic sees those sorts of “brainstorming” statements as kind of inferior. After all- anyone can brainstorm quite a lot, not everyone can calculate so well. Brainstorming is the gathering of ideas- some preferred, some overlapping, some rather crude. It can seem like an annoying mess.
But on the contrary, some advanced clinical studies seem to lack an interest in grand concepts. The weight loss vs nutrition of foods. The psychological impact of playing cards. Useful, though trivial compared to all the important questions. It’s not surprising. After all, whom wants to pay for something that won’t immediately bounce back on their pocketbook?
I believe we should consider taking all the closet information (the piles and piles of threads everywhere floating off in cyberia to be eventually someone’s nuisance to bear on a hard drive) and encourage an analytical absorbtion of it. What if analysis was encouraged to rummage through the garbage (which is a thankless job for the well paid analytic), and try to create a specific project for those dieing threads.
This is another idea, probably overlapping, drifting off the dock to make way for potentially more important threads, leaving me to wonder if it’s in fact more of a burden.