Quotes About System-building

The essentialized approach is the opposite of that practiced by today's academic establishment, who reject system-building—that is, broad integration—in favor of the analysis of minutiae. I am as far from today's philosophy departments as an atheist is from the pope or, in more positive terms, as a man who wants to live is from an ascetic writhing in the desert. My explanation of today's philosophers is offered below, in my discussion of the D2 mentality.

Ati?a, following N?g?rjuna's commentator Candrak?rti, held that although our everyday language adequately describes apparent reality, philosophical discourse nevertheless has a necessary role: not system-building but the criticism of our presuppositions, dismantling them until we arrive at the profound realization of emptiness and the opening that this entails.