Structuralism

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Urgh.
The state of continental "philosophy" is really sad.

What exactly is your problem with it?

It's all sophistry.
It's not even in the same planet as analytic philosophy. Its methodology lacks rigor, and at times it seems all there is to it is to make up categories into which to fit phenomena. There is also no emphasis on specific, tractable problems.
It also, for some reason, gives credence to Marxist attitudes, probably a result of the French academic mellieu.

Wow. We Agree. (Somewhat)

(And I say this as someone, who funnily enough, has an assignment due on Levi-Strauss for Monday. It sometimes descends into a rant.)

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The continental philosophy or whatnot may not be very logically rigorous, but it sure it fun to read about.

You know stuff like...

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Admittely this is from a middle of book, Delueze's The Logic of Sense, but still LOL. (American Contintential philosophers tend to be worse however..)

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Delueze is a particularly important modern philosopher, (I hate to use the term "Post-modern") but it can be daunting to wrap your head around some of his ideas for lack of clearly defined terminology. Lacan suffers from this, but it's not just them, Heidegger's writing is tough, also. Delueze and Guattari's "Anti-Oedipus" is not as wrought.

No I could imagine (when I referred to American Philosophers I was mainly thinking of Judith Butler btw), I can laugh at stuff I can't understand (and haven't read).

[Tetro Kornbluth]

In the first place, singularities-events correspond to heterogeneous
series which are organized into a system which is neither stable nor
unstable, but rather 'metastable', endowed with a potential energy
wherein the differences between series are distributed . . . . In the
second place, singularities possess a process of auto-unification,
always mobile and displaced to the extent that a paradoxical element
traverses the series and makes them resonate, enveloping the
corresponding singular points in a single aleatory point and all the
emissions, all dice throws, in a single cast."

Ah, yes. An example of "The Theory".

I often stared at that and wondered what the hell it meant. Then I realized it probably something banal like "Damn, forgot to check the pockets of my trousers before putting them in the wash. I had 100 francs in there."

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I don't like that kind of stuff. Ideas should be expressed in logically clear ways, not obscured in lofty rethoric, which seems to be a common problem with particularly French philosophers.

To be fair the example I chose was one noted for its extremity: Levi-Strauss is clear (though difficult) to understand. He's Just Wrong.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I don't like that kind of stuff. Ideas should be expressed in logically clear ways, not obscured in lofty rethoric, which seems to be a common problem with particularly French philosophers.

To be fair the example I chose was one noted for its extremity: Levi-Strauss is clear (though difficult) to understand. He's Just Wrong.

I haven't read enough to really comment on specific people. But from the contact I have had with this kind of thinking in a general sense, that is my impression. Even complex ideas aren't really THAT hard to express with clarity and stringency, at least not in writing.

I don't disagree, especially given that I had to read Derrida's Structure, Sign & Play recently. Once you actually find out what it all means, it is actually rather dissapointing, when you except language that verbose you except it to be genuinely insightful. But not so. Though in general I can only really comment on Levi-Strauss.