Philosophy in Literature History

Unfortunately, there is commonly a prejudice — meaning to judge before one actually knows what he or she talking about — against ‘philosophy’, or there is a presumption that the knowledge-base or skill set can be what one chooses it to be — a gut feeling.  It is the state of affairs where a person has never taken the effort to be widely read in the genres, often because of the literature of wisdom (philosophy) is highly challenging, even for the expert. Simplicity is not profound in simpliciter. ‘Simple profundity’ is only possible within the depth of complexity.

Dr Buch is a trained philosopher, with a post-graduate qualification from the University of Melbourne, who combined his knowledge and skills in epistemology and ethics with his professional history work.

‘Horizon Worldviews’ is Dr Buch’s terms for a particular category of personal or life philosophies adopted by individual Queenslanders. It is the category of worldviews, or ‘world-picture’ as described by Wittgenstein, which provided more formative or structured thought, culturally or socially transmitted into Queensland. ‘Horizon Worldviews’ is the global literature of the ideologies, disciplined philosophies, sociologies, and other studies of our humanity and geo-landscape. In Queensland history, horizon worldviews are not merely been transmitted from attending the educational institutions. In many cases, there have been Queensland intellectuals and thinkers outside the institutions, and unfortunately have been hidden from view by the literary ‘Queensland Character’ mythology.

Jack McKinney was probably Queensland’s only internationally recognised philosopher, and yet he is hardly known in Queensland, even as a poet, short story-writer and novelist. In the first half of the twentieth century there was literature and teaching courses from institutions made available to common Queenslanders; an early version of adult and community education. These were the Schools of Art, the reading rooms of public libraries, and the Workers’ Educational Association of Queensland. These institutions and their role as informers of horizon worldviews were lost in the revolution of mass higher education.  

Here is wisdom for Queensland.

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