Disciplinarianism In The SFL Community

Russell (1961: 21-2):

Throughout this long development, from 600 BC to the present day, philosophers have been divided into those who wished to tighten social bonds and those who wished to relax them. With this difference, others have been associated. The disciplinarians have advocated some system of dogma, either old or new, and have therefore been compelled to be, in greater or lesser degree, hostile to science, since their dogmas could not be proved empirically. They have almost invariably taught that happiness is not the good, but that ‘nobility’ or ‘heroism’ is to be preferred. They have had a sympathy with irrational parts of human nature, since they have felt reason to be inimical to social cohesion. The libertarians, on the other hand, with the exception of the extreme anarchists, have tended to be scientific, utilitarian, rationalistic, hostile to violent passion, and enemies of all the more profound forms of religion. This conflict existed in Greece before the rise of we recognise as philosophy, and is already quite explicit in the earliest Greek thought. In changing forms, it has persisted down to the present day, and no doubt will persist for many ages to come.

Blogger Comments:

Michæl Halliday's student, Jim Martin, can be seen as a disciplinarian — as opposed to a libertarian — on a number of grounds:

1. his focus on social bonding and affiliation;
2. his insistence that his students' work conform with his opinions and include his theorising;
3. his open hostility to science and scientists;
4. his open hostility to what he claims is logical positivism;
5. his declared opposition to any critical analysis that he regards as "negative".