Would you notice if you were living through an intellectual dark age? Most likely not. The authorities you would rely on to tell you if you were, would most likely be the problem themselves. Read my new essay on knowledge production here: https://samoburja.com/knowledge-production-and-intellectual-legitimacy/ … 1/n
-
Show this thread
-
The most intellectually productive processes do not produce intellectual legitimacy by default. An informal debate over coffee between two physicists might be extremely intellectually productive in the objective sense, yet remain totally opaque and illegible to others. 2/n
1 reply 4 retweets 51 likesShow this thread -
Such insights would have to be converted into some medium other than lively conversation to be recognized as legitimate, authoritative knowledge. Consider that Paul Erdős’ true genius was living a life full of these sorts of conversations, then rendering them legible. 3/n
3 replies 3 retweets 42 likesShow this thread -
At the other extreme end, we have the most legible and processed forms of knowledge, such as a government white paper citing a raft of studies. The problem with working only with this type of knowledge is that a new intellectual field cannot emerge so institutionalized. 4/n
2 replies 1 retweet 32 likesShow this thread -
To regard only the most legible and processed forms of knowledge as legitimate is, in a sense, to think that all important intellectual fields have already been discovered. All institutionalized fields were once merely playgrounds for weirdos and tinkerers. 5/n
1 reply 15 retweets 68 likesShow this thread -
To sustain knowledge production in a society, we must have the social technology to, if warranted, turn the insights of a coffee debate into the insights of a government memo citing many studies. In other words, to make new knowledge legitimate. 6/n
2 replies 3 retweets 28 likesShow this thread -
Some historians have argued that the science of Classical Greece suffered due to the negative connotations of manual labor -- such as tinkering with machines -- as something befitting slaves rather than leisured philosophers. 7/n
3 replies 1 retweet 26 likesShow this thread
Carl Sagan too, in Cosmos he writes that science is a manual process
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.
