Tatiana,
I'm not sure I see your point. Many children of successful academics seem
to become academics. I've seen the son's book on second language acquistion
but haven't read it.
I think the dad's point isn't that one shouldn't draw on the insights and
contributions of many disciplines when pursuing research into new directions
but that you can't simply cut and paste -- sort of the blind eclecticism, a
little of this, a little of that, whatever's sexy and currently fashionable.
Usually these fields have shown themselves to be valuable in some other
area, cybernetics/systems analysis most notably, and the faux theorists
metaphorically extend the analysis from the domains of one into the domains
of another discipline usually ending up with something of a house of
mirrors. Fun to play in and hard to get out of but ultimately leading
nowhere except to the inevitable exit. How many abandoned eclecticisms
litter the academic landscape. But then, there's always more attractions
at the carnival, no? Like the every ready bunny they just keep going and
going and going . . . The key points in the Leont'ev citation have to do
with losing the subject of the inquiry and the inevitable danger of
reductionism which doesn't go away just because one pulls together a
pastiche of glittery things held together with sealing wax or duct tape.
Your English is just fine.
Paul H. Dillon
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