Introduction
Intellectual life is first of all conflict and disagreement. Teaching may give the
opposite impression, when initiates relate to novices what we claim to know;
but the forefront where ideas are created has always been a discussion among
oppositions. This heartland of disagreement is difficult to avoid; to deny it is
to exemplify it. This is not to say that no agreement ever happens. Leave aside
the question of when and whether consensus arrives eventually upon particular
points. Even at the height of discussion, the number of opinions is not multi-
plied as far as might be possible. Intellectual conflict is always limited by focus
on certain topics, and by the search for allies. Not warring individuals but a
small number of warring camps is the pattern of intellectual history. Conflict
is the energy source of intellectual life, and conflict is limited by itself.
This book presents the dynamics of conflict and alliance in the intellectual
networks which have existed longest in world history. This enterprise is situ-
ated in today’s field of contending positions, in sociology, and in intellectual
life generally. It too is framed by its nexus of disagreement. Some might say
that the effort undermines itself; that this of all times in world history is the
least appropriate for a comparative, global eye, seeking out the universal and
fundamental. But opposites structure one another; I could equally well say that
no time in history is better suited for the effort.
Let me lay out my approach by critically reflecting on some opposing views.
- Ideas beget ideas. The tradition of intellectual historians is to enter into
arguments and concepts, showing how one set of ideas leads to another. Such
disciplinary custom proves nothing about what is possible or impossible as an
explanation. The strongest argument against treating ideas in terms of anything
other than themselves was put forward by Leibniz and restated by Searle. If
one imagines a human brain enlarged to gigantic size, Leibniz says, and oneself
entering among the machinery, one will see nothing that resembles an idea, no
matter how closely one examines the structures of the brain (Monadology 17).
Searle (1992) resurrects the point against computer models of artificial intelli-
1