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#30609 05/05/09 07:48 AM
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coberst Offline OP
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Is disinterest like apathy?

Says Goethe; “the little that is done seems nothing when we look forward and see how much we have yet to do”.

The challenge to criticism is disinterestedness! Why we can and should choose the path to DI (disinterestedness) is the discussion this OP will attempt to initiate.

Criticism can show DI by keeping aloof from the practical view of things; by the free play of the mind on all subjects upon which it touches. “Its business is,…simply to know the best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its turn making this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas…and to leave alone all questions which will never fail to have due prominence given to them”.

The world is full of partisan and emotional criticism, right and left. It is filled with various sound bites and bumper stickers advocating nostrums that are promoted with bluff, bluster, and bravado. We, who are of the DI critical thinking mind, will remain disinterested to such malarkey and try to take the path less traveled. To take the path of disseminating truth as we can perceive it so as to lay a foundation for new ideas with new approaches to old problems.

The DI critique approach must recognize that its approach is long range resulting in significantly large rewards if successful. This approach creates and nourishes fresh new foundations for the structure of new ideas. This approach lays down a foundation of intellectual grounding that provides for a solid structure but, of course, it will be a painful activity because emotional rage seems to be the order of the day and that rage will express its anti-intellectualism by focusing attacks on those who seek to make a different way.

I think that such an approach must somehow foster an appreciation of the purely intellectual sphere that focuses attention on that which is excellent in human capacity.

All of us are constantly engaged in interrelated projects which carry great meaning to each of us. These relationships define our personal “form of life” relative to our cultural situation. Each of us has developed somewhat different interests and differing stakes in the success of those interests.

Each of us has two distinctly different overlapping world views: one is implicit in our day-to-ay activity and the other is implicit in how we describe our attitude to others. These two views often contradict one another; the views can be measured by the way in which we can articulate our living pattern and the way we live what we articulate.

Is disinterest like apathy? Absolutely not!

coberstakaDutchuncle


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Contrary to your view, there is no such thing as "disinterested knowledge", nor is there any substance to the phrase "the best that is known and thought in the world." Your pompous claim that your response to "criticism" is "DI" amounts to rationalization of the fact that you cannot handle criticism !

You are just a magpie picking up little gems of ideas from diverse sources and displaying them in your endlessly revolving showcase. The magpie doesn't understand or respect the original setting of the gems thereby detracting from their value. He merely wants to attract passers-by.




Last edited by eccles; 05/05/09 02:47 PM.
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coberst Offline OP
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I would say that apathy is an attitude that pervades ones character whereas disinterestedness is a selected focus of attention away from certain aspects of human desire for the purpose of narrowing and thus concentrating ones focus in a disciplined manner.

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Is that supposed to make sense ?

Get this straight. There is no "information" or "knowledge" which is independent of human goal or purpose or desire, even if that purpose is as trivial as to win quizzes by regurgitation, or to experience the satisfaction of the elegance of an explanatory model. Note that the technical definition of "information" is "that which resolves alternatives". "Disinterest" simply means that alternatives are arbitrary, or absent.



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