The phrase (after Christian Bok) does a variety of things: It cites him as the author of an earlier work ("The Great Order of the Universe") that inspired Van Buskirk who used the words. It adds another layer of meaning to the work who cites the author - now readers can look at both and see how the two are similar or differ. It creates a history about the topic under discussion that both informs and questions. It may constrain the current author to...