To: Edwarda who wrote (80600 ) 6/1/2000 1:05:00 PM From: Neocon Read Replies (2) | Respond to
Most ideas are not broadly disseminated, but are the province of specialists. Apart from a handful of widely known concepts, like gravity, the ideas of physics are known by physicists. Similarly with philosophy or art: only a comparative "handful" of people are acculturated enough to know what "apperception" or "fauvism" mean. Thus, their survival or demise is dependent on things like the state of scholarship or protocols of a discipline, or the efficacy of education. Further, ideas are sometimes revived, modified to new uses, or disseminated beyond their original territory: for example, the rise of Neo- Thomism in the 20th century, especially among non- Catholics; the revival of Hegelianism in England around the turn of the century, which contributed to the development of Whitehead's thought; finally, the enthusiasm for Kiekegaard in the mid- 20th century, when he had been all but forgotten on the Continent, and never before well- known in English speaking countries.
