>Well, it's not "the west," it's just a European exam system. It's the
>same at Cambridge. At Cambs, the undergrads have to wear robes to
>lectures. You want formal, try the French and Germans.
Maybe there, but not here. I think that you can see something of the remnant of a strict teaching regime in the Oxford PPE (philosophy politics economics) course. But the gowns are really only for formal occasions now.
>
>She was re-training herself in the philosophy of
>>Heidegger, which sounds quite a waste to me,
>
>Whyzzat? Heidegger's a great philosopher. Not my cuppa, but I can
>recognize greatness even if it's different.
Is he great? I've been drawn into those convoluted passages. But I got my comeuppance from a guy who edited a music magazine, who checked my enthusiasm with 'oh yeah, Heidegger: let's all hang out in the black forest...' which is a pretty accurate precis.
With Irina, I did feel it was a bit sad, because I thought that she was merely keeping up with a recent fad in the West for Heidegger, which she was unlikely to be ahead of. Let's face it, by the time any of us mastered Nietzsche, or de Man, or Heidegger, or Carl Schmitt, the really out-there pomos had already found some new Nazi thinker to fawn over.
>Ever read Goldmann on Lukacs & Heidegger?
Yes, it is interesting, but the comparison is a bit forced. Lukacs and Heidegger were definitely competitors for the crown of the high prince of German angst. But Goldmann should have given more credit to the contrasts. Now Lukacs on Heidegger, that's excellent. And Lukacs on Sartre - I was in a public house in Richmond last year, with some seventies' rebels, both of whom could quote from memory L's judgement on Sartre: 'a carnival of interiorised reaction' if I remember right. I never quite figured out Goldmann, even though I struggled manfully through his book on Kant.
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