Intellectuals claiming continuity with the past are fossilized remnants

Evidence

In serious, critical intellectual work, there are no “absolute beginnings” and few unbroken continuities. Neither the endless unwinding of “tradition,” so beloved in the History of Ideas, nor the absolutism of the “epistemological rupture,” punctuating Thought into its “false” and “correct” parts, once favored by the Althussereans, will do. What we find, instead, is an untidy but characteristic unevenness of development. What is important are the significant breaks —where old lines of thought are disrupted, older constellations displaced, and elements, old and new, are regrouped around a different set of premises and themes. Changes in a problematic do significantly transform the nature of the questions asked, the forms in which they are proposed, and the manner in which they can be adequately answered. Such shifts in perspective reflect, not only the results of an internal intellectual labor, but the manner in which real historical developments and transformations are appropriated in thought and provide Thought, not with its guarantee of “correctness” but with its fundamental orientations, its conditions of existence. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 180 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Foundational myths reinterpret the past to justify future political claims.; Intellectual change proceeds through uneven breaks rather than tradition or rupture — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 180; Intellectual work must produce new knowledges rather than recirculate known conclusions (+1 more)

Related

• Intellectual history advances through uneven breaks, not traditions or clean ruptures (similarity 0.88)
• Intellectual change proceeds through uneven breaks rather than tradition or rupture (similarity 0.86)
• Intellectual paradigm shifts never completely break from prior positions. (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Intellectual work must produce new knowledges rather than recirculate known conclusions #expands (0.80)
• Intellectual change proceeds through uneven breaks rather than tradition or rupture #expands (0.75) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 180