this article commits the same error that much of analytic philosophy does: it asks how something observable could be possible, and when it doesn't find a good a

this article commits the same error that much of analytic philosophy does: it asks how something observable could be possible, and when it doesn't find a good answer, it suggests that the thing to be explained actually is impossible. it's statistically unlikely that plato and aristotle were that good, ay? and they simply picked off low hanging fruit? okay, show me 13 modern day publish-or-perish professors whose thought and work are as sweeping, insightful, or profound as plato or aristotle. show me the last person since wittgenstein or frege or kant about whom we could write something like woodbridge's "aristotle's vision of nature." they certainly write down as much as plato or aristotle. show me the thinker with that much quality work. the point here is that this is always how philosophy has been, and how it always should be: yes, we need to question our assumptions; yes, we need to listen to any voices that have been historically locked out of our discourse for biased reasons... but if you want to do either of those, you show me the damn proof of it, and you explain it really, really well. edit: in other words, an explanation of why we just can't appreciate the current 13 platos in athens is worth exactly nothing. show them to me, and prove to me that they're as good as plato. that's how philosophy works. giving an abstract argument trying to explain why you can't give me a good argument just is giving me a shitty argument.