When you write like this

Among the easily discernible differences between medieval and post-mediaeval philosophy there is a striking difference in forms of literary expression. For one thing, whereas the mediaeval wrote in Latin, in the post-mediaeval period we find an increasing use of the vernacular. It would not, indeed, be true to say that no use was made of Latin in the pre-Kantian modem period. Both Francis Bacon and Descartes wrote in Latin as well as in the vernacular. So too did Hobbes. And Spinoza composed his works in Latin. But Locke wrote in English, and in the eighteenth century we find a common use of the vernacular. Hume wrote in English, Voltaire and Rousseau in French, Kant in German. For another thing, whereas the mediaeval were much given to the practice of writing commentaries on certain standard works, the post-mediaeval philosophers, whether they wrote in Latin or in the vernacular, composed original treatises in which the commentary-form was abandoned. I do not mean to imply that the mediaeval wrote only commentaries; for this would be quite untrue. At the same time commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard and on the works of Aristotle and others were characteristic features of mediaeval philosophical composition, whereas when we think of the writings of seventeenth-century philosophers we think of free treatises, not of commentaries.

(Copelston, 1994, p. 5)

People with a propensity for literary criticism & cognitive sciences, if they’re out there, should wonder how the predominant genre of an epoch affects the predominant beliefs. Hard to isolate, maybe, but one cannot help thinking that when you decide to write in commentaries you decide more than just the spacing and the subject of your sentences. Amongst other, maybe more subtle, things you also choose the amount of personal input you are expected to produce.

The equivalent nowadays? Is there an equivalent nowadays? Are the scholarly genres of the twenty-first century rigid and obstructive? Maybe not. At least not apparently. But think of the academic paper. Who decides what counts as and what cannot count as a scholarly paper? And on what grounds does one make this decision? Isn’t novelty amongst the criteria? Could you possibly get through with a paper that brings up nothing novel? So then, aren’t you forced – the word might be harsh, but you are, in a sense, forced by the context – to bring about something new if you want to get published? This might be so. And not only in the natural (hard) sciences, where even if you are engaged in testing an old hypothesis, you are doing so after a new fashion (with new data, by a new method etc.) It is also the case, maybe even more so, in social sciences and, ultimately, in philosophy. Post hoc ergo propter hoc? Possibly, but here’s a nice research idea for an argumentation theorist: How authors manage to convey the message that their paper is new, i.e. brings something novel, to the field in which it is produced. Strategic manoeuvring, straight-out argument structures, linguistic devices, implicitness – the whole deal.