Modern philosophy voluntarily shrinks itself to avoid touching established reality
Evidence
The contemporary effort to reduce the scope and the truth of philosophy is tremendous, and the philosophers themselves proclaim the modesty and inefficacy of philosophy. It leaves the established reality untouched; it abhors transgression. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 648
Categorization
- SEED: Angle for an essay: the contemporary ‘humble philosopher’ as a figure who ratifies the status quo precisely through declared modesty.
- XREF: connects to: Philosophy’s task is resisting the status quo’s suggestive compulsion; Renouncing thought under institutional pressure becomes an incapacity for it — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 151; Philosophical style itself can be judged unfree and dictatorial — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 609 (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Theory is assumed abstract the more it drags away from the personal
#corroborates(0.75) - Philosophy’s own conceptual method blocks access to the non-conceptual objects it seeks
#complicates(0.72) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1592