And is your contrast supposed to to whom and on what grounds? Quine, whose major thesis (the indeterminacy of translation) no two people can agree on what it means? Davidson, similarly opaque? Rawls, whose writing is a crime against the English language? Sellars? Give me a break.
Foucault can write perfectly well -- his prose not fancy, but clear and serviceable. Zizek has a nice breezy accessible journalistic style. Merleau Ponty writes like an analytical philosopher, for good or ill (says one who was trained in that tradition).
As you know, you can get a PhD in philosophy from a top school without ever looking at a word of Heidegger. I actually think he's a major philosopher though, one of the 20th century greats, well worth the effort of headbanging you have have top do to get your head around the main points.
--- Jerry Monaco <monacojerry at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/7/06, Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Hell, without Heidegger there wouldn't even BE a
> > Zizek. Or a Sartre, Foucault, Derrida,
> Merleau-Ponty,
> > Lacan, Arendt, Marcuse, Adorno and probably a
> couple
> > of dozen other thinkers I'm in too much of a hurry
> to
> > remember right now. What did Arendt call him --
> the
> > Hidden King?
>
>
>
> Does that mean all these people might actually have
> to learn to write? I'll
> admit an affection for Sartre in his popular mode
> and Merleau-Ponty when
> writing about the senses.... But the world would
> have been better off
> without Heidegger. At least trees and graduate
> classes would have been
> better off.
>
> --- ravi <gadfly at exitleft.org> wrote:
> >
> > > At around 7/5/06 8:46 am, Chris Doss wrote:
> > > > Cuz he's the most influential philosopher
> since
> > > Hegel?
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > You mean not Zizek?!! ;-)
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Nu, zayats, pogodi!
> >
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>
> --
> Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog
> is
> Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and
> Culture
> http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
>
> His fiction, poetry, weblog is
> Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories
> http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
>
> Notes, Quotes, Images - From some of my reading and
> browsing
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