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Raz on Our Intellectual and Philosophical Culture

Brian Leiter

Interesting interview with Joseph Raz here; an excerpt:

[C]ontemporary life, including philosophical life, is marked by its short span of attention. Within months of a new book by a respected author being published conferences about it are held, and special issues of journals dedicated to it are published, only to be superseded the following year by the new stars of that year. We think that we live in a dynamic and innovative age, whereas we live in a culture devoted to the ephemeral. In this intellectual climate much of our work is to try to stop people from forgetting today what everyone knew yesterday, and to reduce the intoxication with the latest word. A necessary task, but not one conducive to the longevity of the work. Perhaps in our hyperactive world the mode of progress in philosophy has changed. Perhaps it now lies less with the singular achievements of exceptional thinkers like the classics of modern philosophy: Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, and others, and more in the cumulative products of hundreds of worker ants. This would suggest that the history of philosophy may assume the relation to philosophy that the history of physics has to physics. It would even make the ephemerality and forgetfulness of the age less regrettable. I doubt, however, that that can be the whole story. It is probably yet another manifestation of the lack of clear horizons in contemporary philosophical thought.

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21 responses to “Raz on Our Intellectual and Philosophical Culture”

  1. Gary Kemp

    I think the bit about the 'new stars of the year' etc. has more to do with the rise of a certain star culture in academia, maybe especially in philosophy in recent years. A certain factitious fame is sort of easy to get, now that we have so many conferences, are all visible to each other via the web, and, er, have a certain obsession with rankings and the like as promulgated by our dear blogmaster. Which is not all to the bad, don't get me wrong. Also, many of us feel we can't afford not to publish, and end up publishing faster than we can think.

    Reply
  2. Brian Leiter

    There is no doubt that periodic rankings contribute in some measure to a "star" culture (Chalmers leaves Arizona, Arizona's rank drops noticeably, etc.), but they also counteract it too by according recognition to lots of programs without the "stars" but genuine strengths in various areas of our field. I wonder, though, whether the "stars" are the offenders that Raz has in mind. Is not Raz a "star"?

    Reply
  3. Strange Doctrines

    "[C]ontemporary life, including philosophical life, is marked by its short span of attention."
    –Joseph Raz

    "Now what was the second part [of your question]?"
    –George W. Bush

    Reply
  4. Chris

    Before I got to the sentence in which Raz compares philosophy to physics, I was thinking that what he was describing sounds a lot like science, and in particular, the more youthful sciences. It's in those that new ideas come and gain a lot of popularity quickly, which leads to conferences on the topic or (more likely) special sessions at more general conferences, and then the ideas are supplanted. I then wondered if this isn't what many philosophers want? I recalled a description of an upcoming conference on "formal epistemolog" which included the statement that "much progress has been made in the area over the last decade." I wonder how often, in philosophy, it has been felt that "much progress" has been made over a decade (except, perhaps, in the work of a single philosopher). If what is really happening in philosophy is analogous to what goes on in the sciennces, then Raz' criticism may actually be a compliment. In that case, while many books, theories, and ideas may produce special sessions at conferences that year or the next, and become popular briefly, only those that can stand up under prolonged scrutiny will have special sessions twenty years after their original release. That is, at least, the way it works in the sciences.

    Reply
  5. Kosta Calfas

    I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of Anglo-American Analytic philosophy for whom the history of philosophy consists largely of the glorious tale where the brave lord Russell charged in to rescue us from the bane of Plato, Descartes and the rest of the tyrannical essentialists.

    The reason much of philosophy has become "ephemeral" is many of its practitioners lack a sense of history that informed many of their great predecessors. This is not a particularly new phenomenon in the humanities, it's been going on since the post-war period.

    You kind of got the sense philosophy was in trouble when Edmund Gettier claimed to refute a position he attributed to Plato in a four page article in the Journal of Philosophy. I recall being the only one in my epistemology class who found the hubris of such a spectacle funny. I remember my immediate reaction was "only in America would this be taken seriously."

    To play on an often used joke, Nietzsche would never make it through an American Ph.D. programme, neither would many philosophers in the pantheon of greats. The reason being that the methods adopted by many anglo-american analytic philosophers are often ill-suited to the proper study of history and the history of philosophy which many of our great philosophers so heavily relied upon. I'm not suggesting one never use the methods of philosophical analysis to explore the history of philosophy, often anachronistic views of a subject (for example Kaufmann's comparison of Wittgenstein to Socrates in his Critique of Religion and Philosophy) illuminate both philosophical positions and bring previously unseen issues to the fore. The attempt, however, to study, say, Rousseau, Vico or Hegel solely "from a logical point of view" and then render final judgement based on this view is bogus, and typically results in laughably superficial scholarship (for paradigm cases of this, see Karl Popper's treatment of Hegel in The Open Society, or Russell's account of Kierkegaard or Nietzsche in his History of Western Philosophy). There is the tacit assumption that because much of the history philosophy does not appeal to, or was not written in deference to logico-linguistic concerns now fashionable in philosophy it is of little value, which is, of course, nonsense.

    I'm reminded of the story in which, during his immigration proceedings, Godel believed the US constitution was "inconsistent" and decided, against his lawyer's better judgement, to inform the judge of this. The judge granted Godel his citizenship after realizing who and what he was. Philosophers should take this as a cautionary tale since philosophers are now more than ever seen as those who miss the forest for the trees and are simply dismissed as puzzlers and sophists.

    Philosophy is of course not the only victim to the new zeitgeist of fashionableness qua progress, American psychology too has fallen victim to the new dogma of science. You'll recall in B.F. Skinner's Walden Two; his picture of the ideal society cherished all academic pursuits, save one, ephemeral subject, history.

    Brian Leiter rightly chastizes the state of Nietzsche scholarship in the english-speaking world. Nietzsche scholarship, however, is not alone, Heidegger scholarship (with notable exceptions like Bert Dreyfus and Bill Blatner) and Hegel scholarship have suffered equally harsh fates precisely because appreciation and comprehension of these philosophers requires a broad knowledge of history and, due to the historically German romantic penchance for it, Greek philosophy.

    Paradoxically, the same American philosophers who ignore or denigrate history and the history of philosophy still seem to want to be part of it:

    "The place on the shelf where my stuff would be if they had it (but they don't) is just to the left of Foucault, of which there is always yards and yards. I'm huffy about that; I wish I had his royalties…Royalties aside, what have they got that we haven't? It's not the texture of their prose I shouldn't think, since most of us write better than most of them." -Jerry Fodor LRB http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n20/fodo01_.html"

    The reason Jerry Fodor, like many Analytic American philosophers react to Michel Foucault's popularity like bodacious hollywood starlets clueless as to why they were snubbed for an Oscar nod is because they fail to appreciate that the level to which they aspire requires the one thing they all conspicuously lack, a historical weltanschauung.

    Anglo-American philosophy is now reaping what it has unwisely sown along with the other humanities and it shall take quite some time to recover what has been lost. I applaud Joseph Raz for bringing attention to a problem which has become epidemic in the humanities, although others have been aware of this for some time.

    Reply
  6. Andy Streich

    What's the issue here? Is it that important ideas are being lost in the noise? Or that ideas that are not that important are getting attention?

    When Descartes, Locke, Hume, and Kant were writing there were far fewer human beings on the planet with vastly lower bandwidth and far more costly communication. In fact, in that world only a relative few could even be included in the discussion of any issue. Literacy and access to books and other printed material controlled who could participate and how quickly ideas could propigate.

    So now with the Internet, blogs, higher literacy, very high bandwidth at low cost, and vastly more people, is it any wonder that things are different? If, however, truly good ideas are not being lost in the noise, it may be the case that we are better off because more ideas are being heard and that bad ideas are being filtered out that much more quickly.

    Fundamentally it is an information management problem.

    Reply
  7. Bill Edmundson

    Two things struck me about the interview. The first was Raz's concluding lament about the "lack of clear horizons in contemporary philosophical thought." He intimates that this lack may explain contemporary philosophy's "ephemerality and forgetfulness," but he does not say what a condition of "clear horizons" might consist of now. I associate "clear horizons" with the dominance of some particular school, such as scholasticism, or ordinary-language philosophy. But schools themselves are liable to a suspicion of emphemerality and forgetfulness. So, I'm mystified both by the diagnosis and the prescription.

    The second thing that struck me was the narrow account he gives of what jurisprudence has to offer moral philosophy–or, more poignantly, of what jurisprudence has to offer, period, since moral philosophers constitute the primary market for jurisprudential output. I think he is largely correct about this; but it should make those of us philosophers who shelter in gremio legis (in law's bosom) a little bit nervous.

    Reply
  8. seth edenbaum

    Your field is preoccupied with minor differences and arguments over 'technical' matters. B.L. has even argued that this is a good thing. But it means that every new publication invariably is little more than a few words in an argument, to be followed by a few more in response. Why should any of these be remembered after they've done their job, which is to keep the conversation going, to keep the ball rolling along? And outside the immediate context the words mean little.
    A great work of any sort makes its own context. That's no more than a literary conceit at this point, and since novelists are never more than storytellers, with their words having no claim to truth, that doesn't interest any of you very much. Yet why is it only now that every professor of philosophy expects to be called a philosopher? Why the grand title for every mediocre mind?

    22 years ago when Marsha Cavell referred to a class of idiot 18 year olds as philosophers I almost walked out the door in disgust.

    Reply
  9. Ivan Ivanov

    This is in response to Mr. Calfas' criticisms, which strike me as quite appropriate. However, I have a few minor bickerings that might eventually set us on on separate tracks. First, as a student profoundly interested in German Idealism and Hegel in particular, I believe the last 10 years have been the most prolific time for high-quality Hegel scholarship, and the majority of it is being done in the States, mostly by analytically trained philosophers. Secondly, if I understand Prof. Leiter correctly, he argues that it is precisely the recent proliferation of "continental" Nietzsche journals, fora and think-tanks that is responsible for the decline of Nietzsche scholarship; at the same time, if I recall it correctly, Leiter mentions somewhere that only recently has Nietzsche been given an adequate interpretation, by people like Clark, Richardson, Solomon, Higgins, etc. So I doubt he is dissatisfied with the state of analytically-minded Nietzsche studies these days.
    These small objections bring me to a general one: I think the problem of the state of contemporary Anglo-American philosophy does not lie in its preoccupation with logical coherence nor in its peculiar methodology founded on basic intutitions, but (at least presently), on a severe split between historical scholarship and issue-oriented scholarship. Analytically-trained philosophers have proven to be very successful in the interpretation of major historical figures. On the other hand, the analytically-trained philosophers preoccupied solely with "problem-solving" seem to be getting bogged down into less and less important disputes or even end up defending positions that appear quite anchronistic to someone versed in the history of philosophy. This split is misfortunate because, historically, philosophy has always developed thanks to a "speculative" element. This element arises from a creative engagement with previous philosophical figures. Currently, analytically-trained historians of philosophy lack the creativity, and the problem-solvers lack the historical engagement. Hegel read Kant somewhat tendentiously, and a lot of people are interested in the actual commonality between both; at the same time Hegel managed to go beyond Kant in many aspects of his work. Such going beyond seems very difficult to achieve nowadays. The pompous speculation going on into marginalized American continental circles isn't progress, either.

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  10. proud worker ant

    I'm not sure that historical comparisons between philosophy as it's done now and philosophy as it was done in the days of Descartes and Russell are apt.

    It seems to me that the number of philosophers, wherever and whatever they may practice, has simply increased as time has gone on. One can point to any number of reasons for this, but one thing is certain–it's easier to enter the profession of philosophy now than it used to be in the old days. For whatever reason, there are just a lot more of us about. It shouldn't be at all surprising then that as our numbers increase, the work of individuals should stand out less, and general "horizons" be harder to percieve across the diverse, increasingly more specialized interests and cross-currents that characterize philosophy as it is done today. The more people going to lunch, the harder it is to pick a restaurant. There's no mystery in it.

    The lament that we lack a Descartes or a Hegel is misplaced too. For one, the trends noted above make it hard to identify the great ideas–let alone individual thinkers–that have that kind of staying power, and make the qualifications for being such a figure harder to discern and more open to question. The truth of the matter is we simply don't, as a body, have an agreed-upon, working standard by which we can recognize philosophical greatness in our own time. It's not even clear that we could have one if we so wished. Sure we can all rattle off the canonical figures, but they're canonical now. Many, like Spinoza, were not exactly household words in their own times. There are exceptions–Newton was Newton almost from the beginning–but in large part judgements of intellectual greatness and questions of "where the horizon is" are made in hindsight.

    Even if we did have a clear standard for ascertaining current philosophical greatness we would still be faced with the difficulty of picking our next Wittgenstein, say, out of a crop of at least the hundred or so most able thinkers out of the many thousands that practice philosophy as a profession all over the world. Think back to the last time you were on a hiring committee. Wasn't that easy? 🙂

    The complaint that contemporary philosophy is ahistorically detached from its culture is also a bit off. 21st century culture is one of temporary fame, so the current lamented trend in philosophy would seem to be right in step with the "spirit of the age". There are more "stars" now with less durability, and more critics. Worker ants with the right connections and credentials get to be famous for a couple of months; for better or for worse, the rest of us slog on. At the end of the day, though, we're all worker ants. That's a good thing. It may not always feel like it, but it's really our club after all. 🙂 You don't have to be famous to be a member anymore.

    What is ahistorical (and unrealistic) is to wish for the intellectual heroes and cohesive research programs (a.k.a. "clear horizons") of times past to magically surface today. These are different times.

    Reply
  11. Shag from Brookline

    While auditing a philosophy course a couple of years ago, during one particular class there were so many, many references to Kant I was inspired and wrote:

    KANT-AKEROUSITY

    Those who Kant
    Rave and rant;
    Those who can't
    Recant and decant.

    Reply
  12. John Fischer

    Kosta Calfas, in his diatribe against analytic philosophy, says that we are not sufficiently grounded in the history of philosophy. He refers to a four-page article by Gettier in the Journal of Philosophy. I assume he is referring to Gettier's famous article, which appeared in Analysis, not JP. Mr. Calfas: get your history right!

    For all our faults, we in analytic philosophy don't denigrate an article because it is short!

    I do sympathize with Raz's laments, although I am not sure what the source or sources of the problems are. Our culture broadly has a kind of "breathless" dimension to it…

    Reply
  13. Kosta Calfas

    I never suggested that analytic philosophers are incapable of doing good scholarship in the history of philosophy, nor did I object to the use of logical coherence in the study of the history of philosophy. I did say, agreeing with Raz, that the intellectual climate many have fostered has become inhospitable to the proper study of the history of philosophy.

    There is no question that much of what goes on in the name of "continental philosophy" is, to borrow Mr Ivanov's term "pompous speculation." However, these schools, as Mr. Ivanov correctly points out, are "marginalized." I think anglo-american analytic philosophy should stop comparing and congratulating itself against the pithy contemporary alternatives (which, as the joke goes, is a bit like being valedictorian in summer school) and start looking to why it has failed to foster a culture where the study of history and the history of philosophy are so denigrated, and its researches so "ephemeral." Why have American and British philosophers after John Dewey had so little impact on political and social discourse? I don't think, like Rorty and others, the reason is because the historical dialectic has ienvitably brought us to the "end of philosophy."

    Mr. Fischer was correct, I did mistakenly cite the Journal of Philosophy instead of Analysis; all my points are thus invalidated. Sir, I stand refuted! Who would have thought that all of my cogitations would be brought down by something as simple as faulty reference (Now I know how Hegel feels)…On second thought, Since I take "article by Gettier" to be a rigid designator, independent of confused sense, I withdraw my concession of defeat, especially since Mr. Fischer knew exactly what I was referring to.

    As for Mr. Worker Ant's "ant" analogy, I think Nietzsche had the best response:

    "You higher men, overcome the small virtues, the small prudences, the grain-of-sand consideration, the ants' riff-raff, the wretched contentment, the "happiness of the greatest number"! And rather despair than surrender. -Thus Spoke Zarathustra TPN 399

    Reply
  14. Ryan

    Quite to the contrary, we are brazen enough to believe that centuries of tradition can be wiped out in a matter of a few paragraphs…

    This is somewhat speculative, but I see this trend as the result of a pervasive insecurity/deep jealously in the field, brought on by the reverence given by the general public in our society to those working in the so-called "hard sciences". Insofar as physicist, chemists, and the like have been considered the paradigms of "real" science, as opposed to mere speculation, philosophy has tried more and more to pattern itself after its better respected cohort. This has resulted in a massive shift toward hyper-specialization in the field (what would Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, et al have listed as an AOS?), the development of an increasingly esoteric, overly technical vocabulary, and the rise of "journal culture". Of course, this shift has had an effect entirely opposite to that intended, serving only to render academic philosophers less and less relevant in the minds of the general public.

    Unfortunately, you see a similar trend within the field itself. Insofar as ethical/moral/political philosophers are taken to embody this scientific ideal more poorly than their M&E counterparts, those in M&E are often considered to be the ones doing "real" philosophy.

    Reply
  15. Geoff Pynn

    In response to Kosta Calfas's comments–

    The "Anglo-American philosophy doesn't care about history" myth can only survive among people who aren't familiar with the facts. E.g.: The latest issue of Mind reviews books on: Wittgenstein, Hume (this one by Jerry Fodor, "ignorer and denigrator" of the history of philosophy), Spinoza, German idealism, late Platonism, Husserl, and Aquinas. The current presidents of the three divisions of the APA are Julia Annas, Stephen Darwall, and Alexander Nehemas, all of whom are well known for their work in the history of philosophy. According to Brian Weatherson's analysis (http://brian.weatherson.net/jfp2004a.htm), roughly half of the jobs in the latest JFP have a history AOS.

    To claim that this is "a culture where the study of history and the history of philosophy are denigrated" is absurd.

    Reply
  16. Jamie Dreier

    The current presidents of the three divisions of the APA are Julia Annas, Stephen Darwall, and Alexander Nehemas, all of whom are well known for their work in the history of philosophy.

    Alexander Nehamas just passed the torch to Ernest Sosa three weeks ago. Ernie's presidential address in Boston was about Cartesian skepticism, though, so although he isn't primarily an historian he in some ways makes Geoff Pynn's point as well as Nehamas does.

    Reply
  17. seth edenbaum

    Analysis vs. the history of analysis. Mathematicians may go to see a biographical film about a famous mathematician, but the odds are they won't do it out of any substantive interest in narrative, whether cinematic or otherwise. That in a nutshell was the point of the criticism.

    How did it come to pass that the author of an idea came to be seen as akin to the author of an equation?

    (That's a good one; think about it for a while.)

    Reply
  18. Kosta Calfas

    Far be it from me to impugn the unambiguous and wholehearted statement of support for the history of philosophy by Analytic philosophers embodied in the book reviews section of Mind. Incidentally, this month's Articles and Discussions (you know, the stuff people actually read) are:

    ARTICLES
    Michael Fara and Timothy Williamson
    Counterparts and Actuality
    David Hershenov
    Do Dead Bodies Pose a Problem for Biological Approaches to Personal Identity?

    DISCUSSIONS
    Steven Gross
    Linguistic Understanding and Belief
    Dean Pettit
    Belief and Understanding: A Rejoinder to Gross
    Jeffrey Ketland
    Deflationism and the Gödel Phenomena: Reply to Tennant
    Neil Tennant
    Deflationism and the Gödel Phenomena: Reply to Ketland

    Well consider me reformed, there's lots of history of philosophy going on there. I remember my salad days of yore when I read Spinoza's view of Deflationism, and hey, who can forget Plato's book long treatment on counterparts and actuality (that was in one of the lost dialogues wasn't it?).

    Mr. Dreier uses a different method to set me straight; "Innocence by Association." Alexander Nehamas and Julia Annas are mentioned and their positions in the APA touted as clear examples of mainstream support for the history of philosophy. This argument is specious, but I kind of left myself open to this kind of criticism since I wasn't clear on what I meant by the failure of analytic philosophy to properly foster history and the history of philosophy. So allow me to rectify this and state, in as specific terms as my patience permits, where the failure of lies.

    The problem with Anglo-American philosopher trained at rockstar-school X is he or she views the history of philosophy as a series of pegs, notable philosophers upon which positions can be attributed, and whose work bears directly on their current research. This relief of the philosopher against a background of nothing means that they relate, inappropriately, the philosopher to a anachronistic contemporary view. They lack any tools for relating the view to the philosopher's world, or for that matter, to their own. Nietzsche referred to this practice as "Egypticism" and expressed my sentiments better than I ever could when he wrote:

    "You ask me which of the philosophers' traits are really idiosyncrasies? … For example, their lack of historical sense, their hatred of the very idea of becoming, their Egypticism. They think that they show their respect for a subject when they de-historicize it, sub specie aeterni—when they turn it into a mummy." (Twilight of the Idols, Kaufmann tr.)

    More often than not these mummies become strawmen used to justified all kinds of things. Philosophers then compound their error by arguing against this strawman and the primitive positions to which our newer better philosophy has an answer. More often than not, they end up foolishly re-treading explored territory or raising problems that were never really problems in the history of philosophy. I already mentioned Gettier’s Plato, but perhaps the best example is Rene Descartes. Descartes is the most unfortunately misrepresented and vilified Frenchman of the Twentieth Century (yes, even less popular than Charles DeGaul). "Cartesianism" has emerged as the antagonist in many an analytical bedtime story. My suspicion is that the dearth of bad references to Descartes stem from a sophomoric reading of the Meditations on First Philosophy where the mental balloon on the philosopher's head reads something like: "You know, this would make a great collection of dualistic assertions and empirical suggestions…if only it weren't for that god stuff in the fourth meditation." Then, to justify their bad reading, they do some equally bad historical inference "he must have been afraid of the church when he wrote that part." Descartes disliked the church so much that he wrote no less than 600 replies to the church to extol how theism was the cornerstone of his metaphysics.

    There’s a televised example of the failure of analytical philosophy and the humanities to encourage competency in their history. There was a wonderful Dutch programme from the 60's where Michel Foucault debated Noam Chomsky. The then-young MIT professor boldly called his pioneering work "Cartesian Linguistics" and after explaining it discovered a puzzled expression on the face of Michel Foucault. Foucault asked Chomsky if he's certain he's not instead referring to Pascal since what he proposed sounded nothing like Descartes. I don't know what "Cartesianism" is, but from how I've heard it described, it sure as hell isn't Descartes. Maybe he was replaced by a Doppleganger along with Aristotle and Homer and what many analytic philosophers think they refer to when they utter "Cartesianism" is in fact Mr. Cartesian or another Frenchman. (Where's Peter Strawson when you need him?)

    For a more contemporary example we have Daniel Dennett, a self-described lapsed Wittgensteinian who, telling from his latest shelf shocker "Freedom Evolves" believes he has pioneered skepticism, atheism, and materialism (Stop that Crow!). Gosh darnit if I didn't swear I read something similar in those frisky French and Germans about this, and that Xenophanes guy also said some pretty suggestive about the possibility of no god non? The book itself is a "paint-by-numbers knockoff" (Tom Wolfe's term) of B.F. Skinner's Beyond Freedom and Dignity, albeit Dennett uses the deterministic technology du jour, genetics, rather than behavoural operant conditioning with some Dawkinsian Geno-pop and Neuro-pop thrown in for good measure. What's that they say about those who don't learn the lessons of history? Nobody bought this stuff when it was being sold in 1971, but maybe Dennett's on a determinism revival tour, and hey, with the level of historical knowledge in philosophy remaining where it is, he could someday mistakenly be considered the father of operant conditioning too! I of course don’t object to borrowing historical ideas, the entire thrust of my argument is that such borrowing and engagement is necessary for genuine philosophical scholarship, but increasingly, such borrowing is done in the vulgar sense where an idea is taken to be the “latest and greatest” discovery marketed as being descended from the earlier instance but now “new and improved.” Typically, this involves a rebranding (eg. Utilitarianism is now Consequentialism, Platonism is now Realism, Common Sense is now Folk Psychology, etc.) and selling as new.

    Philosophy in America does resemble something of the American culture, the consumer culture, and I dare say this is something philosophy should avoid emulating at all cost.

    Reply
  19. Keith Douglas

    It seems to me that some of this debate could be sorted out a bit better if the protagonists could answer the following questions (for themselves, not for the other side[s]!):

    What is the history of philosophy for?

    Why should philosophers read their predecessors, and whom should count? What counts as the history of philosophy? Does Wittgenstein or Russell, even though there are at least a handful of people who met/corresponded with them who are still alive?

    My own general impression is that history of philosophy for its own sake is very valuable – for the same reason history of ideas and history in general is a good thing. However, that said, it is important to realize if everyone does it, then we just get papers and books like the following, ad infinitum:

    A's interpretation of B on C
    by D

    which get (to me at least) deathly boring as well as nonprogressive. Perhaps it is weird, but I do expect to make progress in philosophy, and to discover new things to worry about. If we just read the history (whatever that is exactly) this discovery of new problems will never happen.

    Of course, discovering new problems need not occur in philosophy proper. One of the interesting things I discovered as an undergraduate in the philosophy of science was how you can do philosophy "and" science, as it were. Use them to mutually reinforce and check each other. This approach generalizes; philosophers in the "analytic" tradition are accused of ignoring the rest of culture. Well, if one is interested in art, pay attention to art history, current trends in media, etc. The greatest lesson I learned from my education in the history of philosophy was up until recently many more philosophers were much more "broad" in their scope. I take this to be the kernel in what Kosta has said. This breadth should be encouraged – which is not to say that the little analysis puzzles are not good too. It is hard, but who said the truth should be easy? 🙂

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  20. Brian Leiter

    I assume others will comment at length–I can't just at the moment–but it does seem to me worth stating emphatically that Kosta Calfas has an exceptionally superficial knowledge of what is actually going on in philosophy in the English-speaking world these days. I should be sorry if any readers took these caricatures seriously.

    Reply
  21. Mark

    Just in case anyone is interested, there is an online transcript of the Chomsky-Foucault debate to which Kosta Calfas refers. The address: http://www.chomsky.info/debates/1971xxxx.htm

    Reply

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