One thing about academics that turned me off were the relentless spatial metaphors that obscured more than they explained. The ideas are deep, but talk of movements of being and permeability to them, amounts more to a jargon than an illumination.
So much of academic language is schematic and leaves us more with a blueprint than the thing itself. That doesn't mean the work is without value by any means, but it's waiting for the writer who can translate it into more immediate terms, perhaps into poetry.
Another question is how closely the Aristotelian model corresponds to actual people. It is an inspiring myth, but how much of it can be realized? And how much does it leave out?
Models based on ideal human types give us an idea of what is desirable and possible, but when we have to understand and cope with actual human beings the pictures we rely on are somewhat different.
To expand the question, how much does our free-market capitalist liberal democracy fulfill and how much does it negate the Aristotelian ideal? Or how much does that ideal fulfill or negate what we have now?
No society can survive without virtue, but self-interest seems to be the lifeblood of ours, or to change the metaphor, virtue and desire are air and water to our society.
Hey, Huck....what about it...we take him out back and tell him some of us have to work for a living?
Representation. Representation. Representation. I say it three times as an incantation when thinking of going much beyond the first two chapters in The New Science....
Today, flipping channels I finally found what is faster than the speed of light. James Carville can spew more lies in 60 seconds of blather than any philospher can modify by analysis in a thousand years.
Cornelis....I'm gunnin' for you now.