Proprietary intellectuals

Words are ambiguous. Meanings vary according to context, and misunderstandings abound. Words and phrases might make sense individually, but combined in a sentence they can lose sense. However, communication relies on shared understanding, particularly in the academic world. Sharing and exchanging ideas is supposed to be central to the intellectual process, enhancing our ability to explain, decipher and understand. Traditionally, the formation of theories and models involved taking on board competing views, trying to convince those who disagreed that our views were correct. This process of persuasion often exposed flaws in supposedly unassailable paradigms. As a result, advocates of particular models and theories and their opponents often modii ed or even abandoned their proposals, and new, often radically different ones replaced them.