VIII. The Shape of Renewal
The path forward is not a return to pure dialectic, as though the lessons of the Enlightenment’s victory over the last three centuries could simply be unlearned. Nor is it an embrace of pure rhetoric, which would make a neoclassical tradition no better and no more viable than its opponents. It is the synthesis that the Enlightenment pretended to offer but never delivered, the combination of genuine logical rigor, with genuine mathematical abstraction connected to genuine empirical grounding, all deployed with rhetorical effectiveness, that is the optimal philosophical path.
This requires several things.
First, it requires calling all the bluffs. Every Enlightenment claim that invokes reason, mathematics, or evidence must be challenged to produce the reasoning, the equations, and the evidence. These challenges must be pressed relentlessly, and publicly, until the bankruptcy is fully exposed. The tradition has been too polite and too willing to assume good faith on the part of opponents who relentlessly operate in bad faith. That philosophical courtesy must end.
Second, it requires actually doing the intellectual labor. It is not enough to assert that the tradition has logic, mathematics, and evidence on its side. The logic must be articulated clearly. The mathematics must be calculated accurately and presented accessibly. The evidence must be gathered and displayed. The tradition must mint real philosophical currency and spend it lavishly.
Third, it requires addressing the public. The specialized vocabulary that served the tradition well in the seminar room is a liability in the public square. The arguments must be translated, popularized, and even dumbed down where necessary in order to make them accessible to the laymen who lacks specialist training. Clarity is not the enemy of rigor; it is its completion.
Fourth, it requires going on offense.......
