What does Python fix?

[Alex Martelli]

Mike C. Fletcher wrote:

> It is certainly true that the flouting of the norm is not a sure mark of
> genius, and there are examples of great minds whose greatness is their
> ability to process within the field (as Alex pointed out, Kant was
> apparently an in-the-box thinker (I didn't get that from what little
> I've read of him, but I've only read 20 or 30 pages and found it far too
> obscured to be worth finishing)).

I said nothing about Kant's *thought* (a huge subject in itself, and pretty
hard to discuss since, as you point out, he's definitely not an easy read --
not even for native German speakers, I'm told, and non-Germans suffer
under a further handicap via the translation).  I was discussing *behavior*:
following (or not) the behavioral norms of one's times and culture.

In terms of "prcessing within the field", it's surely also possible to 
identify numerous individuals whose contributions can arguably be
summarized as taking existing ideas to full bloom in one or more
ways.  Such individuals then tend to be the "peak" of some trend
or other; what comes after them, if not just trite rehashing, has to
follow new trails, as they've exhausted the already-beaten ones.

Cicero, for example, could be framed in this way -- staunch defender
of the dying oligarchy-Republic, perfecter of formalized Latin oratory.
Thomas Aquinas, apex of the Scholastic philosophy.  Johann
Sebastian Bach -- there COULD be no original Baroque music after
him, he had composed the ultimate.  Each case is debatable, of
course.  Kant, in this sense, goes a bit too deep to frame in such
wise.  Yes, he was also a culmination (of Rationalist enlightenment
thought), but in his case I consider this a historical accident; he had
not said the last word on rational criticism of rational thought's very
fundaments -- it took more than a century for the huge wave of
Romantic rebellion to recede enough to give this issue space again,
but, when it had, we did get a Wittgenstein (and others).


Alex