Symposium introduction: Minding the modern: Human agency, intellectual traditions, and responsible knowledge by Thomas Pfau
Pfau opens with the point that the concepts in the book aren’t tools to be used. For Pfau, a concept is like a person. You can’t use concepts; you have to engage them. You have to know their histories, the way they passed on their traditions and their stories, because concepts are a remembrance of t...
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| Format: | text |
| Language: | English |
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Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University
2015
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| Online Access: | https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3381 https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4638/viewcontent/Minding_the_Modern_2015_av.pdf |
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| Institution: | Singapore Management University |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | Pfau opens with the point that the concepts in the book aren’t tools to be used. For Pfau, a concept is like a person. You can’t use concepts; you have to engage them. You have to know their histories, the way they passed on their traditions and their stories, because concepts are a remembrance of the past. They also grow—or, as John Henry Newman put it—they develop. You have to let a concept breathe, talk, walk. To use a concept—indeed, to be complicit in the modern academic culture’s practices of applying theories and skimming books—is what (for Pfau) is paralyzing the humanities. |
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