Some philosophers write so obscurely that the problems they purport to discuss are occluded by the problems they cause the reader. One has to waste time figuring out what the author is saying, time that ought to be spent on assessing whether what is being said is true. The French are prime offenders, allergic as they are to plain talk and clarity of expression with their pseudo-literary pirouettes and their overuse of universal quantifiers. The French Continental style draws attention away from the substance so much so that one wonders whether there is any substance beneath the stylistic flummery. And yet I sense that Michel Henry has something interesting to say about Husserl and Heidegger and so I will continue to plough through the turgid prose of Material Phenomenology.
Worse than obscurantism in the French style, however, is the attitude of a certain sort of analytic philosopher who dismisses as meaningless what does not instantly make sense to his shallow pate. And among these benighted souls, the nadir is reached in a positivist like David Stove.
I coined a name for people like him: 'philosophistine.' A philistine out of his depth among real philosophers.
The maverick philosopher, avoiding both camps, strives for clarity with content with a fidelity to reality that tolerates such obscurity as is unavoidable.
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