reading as authoring
It is seldom useful when people speak in complete generalities. Propositions without concrete subjects cause one’s brain to infer meaning wherever one (or one’s brain) sees fit. This can cause a reader to attribute to the author thoughts and feelings that in fact generated from the reader, which in turn causes the reader to grossly misunderstand the author’s intent.
I am a firm believer in intent. Authors rarely write without an intended message. Certainly, there have been works written to inspire rather than inform (Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky comes to mind.) But in the case of philosophy, and especially contemporary academic philosophy, being vague in this way seems to go against the point.
When you do philosophy, and especially when you are writing it down, you are concerned with establishing that your thoughts are true. This is considerably more difficult when you attempt to write clearly, because your thoughts must be organized and be supported by evidence, examples, etc. When you write vaguely, you can say anything, and whatever the person is thinking of when they are reading becomes what you wrote about. When you write vaguely, you do not own your thoughts. They become the property of the reader. You can not legitimately claim to have written these ideas.
So if someone comes away from your work and has a different idea than what you intended, can you say that they have understood you? Have you communicated your ideas? In both cases, the answer is no.
In philosophy, if you write vaguely, you aren’t writing at all.
This is why I tend to dislike the continentals. Hegel, Heidegger, etc. I stick with good ol’ boring analytic philsophy — Russell, Wittgenstein, Ayer, etc. I deeply distrust anyone who says they are interested in continental philosophy, because it’s really just a bunch of essays. That’s fine, for literature. Philosophy, and philosophers however, need to be more serious.