Richard King (3) (1966–)

King may be a decent interpreter of Indian philosophy, but I found that his own commentary either belabored fairly obvious, accepted points (e.g., that ideas come about within a cultural context) or took them to absurd extremes. This latter tendency is never more clearly demonstrated than in his attacks on "elitist historiography" and the "tendency within modern western philosophy to revere innovation and individual creativity at the expense of continuity and tradition."

I find his idea of a proper historiography bizarre and probably utterly stultifying. King apparently finds it untenable too (having discovered perhaps that ages and traditions can't write books?), since much of this book discusses individual philosophers who had innovative, interesting responses to the questions that were most pressing in their day.… (mehr)