Abstract

There is a difference between the marginal and the specialized. Both are little groups, often hard for others to understand. The difference is that specializations successfully reconstitute themselves as new centers. They are not marginal; they are specialized. Specialization is chosen and active; the specialists themselves choose to go off on their own. Who chooses marginalization? The margins cannot reconstitute a new center. Imagine writing a proposal for a Center for Marginal Philosophy! It is the activity at the center that makes the margins marginal. There is a difference, too, between marginal philosophy and the marginally philosophical. Marginally philosophical work says nothing new and excites no one except the ill-informed. The work has no philosophical creativity, and experienced readers feel so and, therefore, turn away. The marginally philosophical does not go very far. By contrast, marginal philosophy has gone too far — too far astray from the center.