Tuesday, February 19, 2008

The Fascination of What's Difficult

"The truth is that a mastery of literary and philosophical texts and the acquisition of wisdom (in whatever form) are independent variables."

Stanley Fish

The truth is that "independent variables" in the preceding sentence is content-free pseudo-mathematical hogwash.1 Nevertheless, hopefully you get the otherwise valid instructional point.

1 A common intellectual failing and pretension in days such as ours, which are marked by the apotheosis of Science and Mathematics over common sense and—yes—wisdom; q.v. those current exemplars of human folly: hedge funds, quantitative, and economics, non-behavioral.

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