R. Dalvi

Associate Professor & Chair (PhD University of Hawaii at Manoa)
Department of Philosophy
Brock University
St. Catharines, ON L2S 3A1

Office: Room 284 at 573 Glenridge Ave.

• Office hours: Subject to change
• Telephone: (905) 688-5550 ext. 3547    Fax: (905) 688-0625
• E-mail: rdalvi@brocku.ca

"How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity."

     --William Burroughs 

Communiqué 1

Philosophy is increasingly under siege.  Those of us, for whom philosophy is much more than a job, are defending Lady Philosophy as best we can, in the face of our ruthless foes.  The continued assault against philosophy by the crooks and philistines who hide under the label of “market forces” is nothing new.  

Far more dangerous are those opportunistic professionals who are reducing Lady Philosophy to a trollop. The tendency to professionalize philosophy and to turn philosophy graduate programs into assembly lines for the production of obedient non-thinkers has to be resisted. Philosophy is sustained by what you know, not by whom you know.

Philosophy is not an extension of technocracy or bureaucracy. It is not the ideological pasture where the cattle of the future can graze on complacency, servility and self-indulgent pomposity.  The philosopher has to be atopos, a stranger, someone who causes discomfort and unease, a hobo or even a blasphemer but not a toady who plays any game they can to get ahead. Sincerity and seriousness in philosophy are completely alien to such hacks.

10 points

1.      Academic philosophy is utterly enamored of power. The endless genuflecting before prestige, before big names, before wealth and rank, are symptoms of a chronic illness.

2.      Most analytic philosophy represents the most boring, incestuous, inscrutable and navel-gazing work in philosophy.  This fact is often concealed under the label “rigor.”

3.      Continental philosophy in North America is often nothing more than mindless regurgitation of ideas, idiotic juxtapositions, name-dropping, lust and Francophilia.

4.      Too many philosophers display symptoms of being failed science majors. Their barely concealed sense of inferiority before the natural sciences becomes evident in the various tawdry idols of naturalism they seek to appease.

5.      If and when anyone asks me for the “cash value” of what I am saying in the course of a philosophical discussion (or any variations on this question such as “So what?” “Why should we care?” etc.), I will hand them a penny and then have them summarily ejected from the room.

6.      A career in philosophy is a contradiction in terms.

7.      Studying Wittgenstein is an utter waste of time. 

8.      The need of the hour is gonzo philosophy. 

9.      When people use the following words: “connectionism”, “anomalous monism”, “the Churchlands”, “John Searle” “Jaegwon Kim”, I run for the nearest exit.

10.   When anyone mentions “the other” I feel nauseous. Is there anything that academic philosophy will not turn into an industry?

I continue to read: Plato and Platonists, Aristotle, Abraham Abulafia, Kant, Bachelard, Alain, Ferdinand Alquie, Bataille, Foucault, Deleuze, Guattari, Clement Rosset.

Sources of Solace: The Cynics, Artaud, Cioran, the Zohar, Marx, Raymond Chandler, Bhartrhari’s Nitishataka, the poetry of Saigyo, Palamite Theology, Abhinavagupta.