There is a strong framing of being ambitious without a particular ambition, caring about impact or progress or status of the work, but not about specific technical topics or questions themselves. This is good advice if the choice of a possibly more narrow topic that the world doesn’t necessarily care about is not dismissed, it’s in any case quite useful to set effective priorities.
More explicitly, what I’m saying is that terminal goals are not up for grabs, and scholarly pursuit of a particular question can serve as a terminal goal. So the choice of particular questions shouldn’t be dismissed or sacrificed on the altar of effectivity, even if answering those questions has no broader use. This is an issue of values, not means of achieving them. Effectiveness is relevant with subgoals, or if effectiveness/status/impact are themselves seen as major terminal goals, but that is not a given.
There is a strong framing of being ambitious without a particular ambition, caring about impact or progress or status of the work, but not about specific technical topics or questions themselves. This is good advice if the choice of a possibly more narrow topic that the world doesn’t necessarily care about is not dismissed, it’s in any case quite useful to set effective priorities.
Well said. “it’s in any case quite useful to set effective priorities.” this is exactly where I have been struggling.
More explicitly, what I’m saying is that terminal goals are not up for grabs, and scholarly pursuit of a particular question can serve as a terminal goal. So the choice of particular questions shouldn’t be dismissed or sacrificed on the altar of effectivity, even if answering those questions has no broader use. This is an issue of values, not means of achieving them. Effectiveness is relevant with subgoals, or if effectiveness/status/impact are themselves seen as major terminal goals, but that is not a given.