To grab people's attention, you should argue that something we think of as bad is good, or vice versa; that some apparently individual phenomenon is really collective; that several seemingly disparate things are actually part of the same thing

We might pay attention to fad facts, but I wonder if people's first reaction to everything is scepticism. Mine is. I don't necessarily subscribe to ideas that get my attention, but it's nice to throw those ideas into the mix.

As AdMan707 says, philosophical "truth" is subjective. I'd like to add that there is a lot of bad science that wants to appear true, particularly whether food x or vitamin y is good or bad for you.

But is it true? (In science, this helps explain the "file drawer effect": studies with interesting conclusions get published; boring ones, however true, get locked away.)

Anyway, thx veen for the post.

As "truth" in the realms of philosophy, critical theory, and literary studies is almost purely subjective, I find it irrelevant to the discussion. Interestingness is unquestionably a motivating factor in selecting who and what is taught, but it's not neccessarily the students whose interest is factored in when making that selection. Interestingness over time, to multiple groups and/or generations, seems more accurate a scale. In addition, it isn't too hard to defend thinkers like Nietzsche, Derrida, Zizek, Marx, Hegel, Lacan, Freud and the like on grounds well beyond those considered "interesting." Are Marx and Engels taught because they are interesting, or because their works are challenging and brilliant? Frankly, most of the people listed are so fucking boring to read and understand that after 4 years of undergrad work, I was ready to build a time machine so I could go back and edit in some illustrations just to break the castle-walls-of-text monotony. Zizek is cool, lot of movie references. Foucault is probably the most "interesting" of the possible selections, and he is really only featured in one or two departments on a whole campus, while Hegel and Nietzsche (much less interesting to read in my opinion) are all over campus, they even show up in some business and advertising classes.

Well, that was a rant to nowhere. What do the kids do in this situation? TL;DR - I disagree with the article that student interest dictates the canon on any given university campus, but concede that interestingness is a factor in canonization over time.

This article is somewhat ironic, because there is not support provided for this theory. The paper cited is basically an essay, and Davis only considers social ideas. It may very well be true that sociology is vulnerable to this effect, however, I don't think it's likely to be the case in physical sciences, and I am not sure that we can walk away with a lesson learned.

When I hear something interesting, my first reaction is to ask: Is it true? Science is about the search for truth, and discovering something that holds true is very interesting.

If I were to say that people became sleepy at night because the moon drops sleeping dust, you wouldn't be much interested. Freud's theories have become less scientifically interesting as their faults have come to light. They were scientifically interesting at the time because they advanced the notion of the subconscious, which brought new and useful ways to talk about the mind. Freud's theories will long remain historically interesting, but that's not the same thing.

Sunsets are interesting. They are red because the light travelling near the horizon into your eye has traveled through relatively more of the Earth's atmosphere, which dis-proportionally filters out photons of shorter, bluer wavelengths. It looks bigger when it sets due to the Ponzo Illusion.

If we are asking the question:

What is it, Davis asks, that makes certain thinkers – Marx, Freud, Nietzsche – legendary?

The only thing that makes them legendary is the attention they got. The widespread sharing of their works, discussions, classes, expansion of their thoughts into diverse areas (as AdMan707 says, seeing Nietzsche in an ad class). They can be interesting or uninteresting, true or false, it is all irrelevant (for now). The only thing that elevates them to legendary is the fact that they got, and continue to get, an amazing amount of attention.

So instead of saying "they are legendary because they are interesting - say what the actual case is and then ask the secondary question, "why did they get so much attention."

This is a much easier question to answer and doesn't jump to the weird conclusions the author of this piece seemingly jumps to. There are a number of reasons something can get attention - maybe because it is interesting. It is easy to share or discussion. Maybe because it is true. Maybe because the font was 10 pixels bigger so more people read it. Some true items are interesting because they are true, even though the item itself may be inherently uninteresting.

So, if you want attention, you can do all sorts of things to get attention. You can shorten your writings to 100 words so more people will read it. You can make it colorful. You can lie or dumb down facts. You can say things are bad are good or good are bad and get people's attention. If your goal is to get attention, then you can make decisions on how to do so very easily.

If your goal is to create great work, explore a topic fully, write something amazing that you can be proud of, then you should do that and you should be proud of that. If it doesn't get attention, that is okay because it isn't your goal.

I think so many people get confused and do things for the wrong reasons. Don't go into academia for attention. If you want attention, become a master of meme-making or 100-word blog writing or acting or start a youtube channel. It's much easier. If you want to explore truths, then do that and don't erode your truths for attention.