Friday, September 8, 2017

Analytic Philosophy: An Interpretive History reviewed by NDPR

The review is here. Thankfully, even though it does mention me, it doesn't say anything bad about my contribution. (Perhaps tactfully, it says almost nothing at all about it.) Here's a taste of the review:
This volume is a valuable addition to this growing literature, with a lucid introduction by the editor and seventeen contributions by distinguished scholars, all of which demonstrate a high quality in content and are written in excellent prose.Although each chapter has its own agenda, a common theme runs through the book. The authors combat a narrow-minded, but still popular, conception of analytic philosophy based on a simplistic interpretation of the revolt against idealism, the linguistic turn, and the neo-positivist rejection of metaphysics.

9 comments:

  1. what work does "distinguished" play in the review?

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    1. It looks like a signal of pedigree.

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    2. Perhaps I should say a bit more. On the one hand, it's bad (fallacious, snobby, harmful to so far less distinguished people) that a review of a collection of essays should be in part a review of the authors of those essays. Even worse if it's a review of the reputation of the authors. On the other hand, it could be a way for the reviewer to indicate that readers don't need just to take his word for it that the essays are mostly good: it's what you might expect given who the authors are. That doesn't seem so bad.

      (If you're wondering just how distinguished these people really are, they include Peter Hylton, Scott Soames, Michael Kremer, Hans Johann Glock, Kelly Dean Jolley, Lee Braver, and Anat Mater. Those are some pretty big names. I was filling in for a distinguished person who had to drop out.)

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    3. wasn't doubting the quality of the authors just a kind of odd/formal term there that made me wonder if there was a big but___ to it?

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  2. ... suppose I had two representative groups in my living room. One were self described "analytic philosophers." The others were not so self-described. Would I find differences in the way they responded to philosophical views (what they thought was valid and so forth)? And what might such a set of differences say about the historical development of a set of attitudes? I want to say it this way: Was the disagreement Russell had with Wittgenstein II not at one point in history a difference spoken of between what analytic and post-analytic approaches? And if "analytics" then became spoken of as not making these sorts of mistakes any longer -- they say after Quine -- does that not transform the grammar from one being an approach (a method of analysis) to one being a social constituency (the people who so call themselves by the moniker)?

    Here is what we want to say. We don't care about the fact that a history exists where closer inspection reveals warts and currents in an orthodoxy or set of attitudes (an approach). What we care about is whether, right now, if you submitted a given proposition to "analytic philosophers," that they would do anything differently to it in the way they assessed it compared to the set of attitudes by those who would not call themselves by this moniker. And we are left with simple conclusions. Either some analytics are orthodox while others are not -- such that the moniker means something not unlike "Democrat" (liberal or moderated) -- or we would find that, as a group, "analytics" are prone to making more pedantic sorts of behaviors while others are more prone to thinking with affect.

    And this, I think, is a more helpful tracing of the trajectory. The difference is between those who seek to claim a history of something and those who seek to trace a development. Because, the mistakes of Ayer, the Vienna Circle and even Russell were REAL mistakes. And Wittgenstein knew them well. And rather than isolate these mistakes, as being held only by them, we seek a sociological explanation of how the matter becomes defeated in intellectual combat and what degree, today, the effects of this explosion can be seen in philosophical networks.

    For here is the truth of the matter. I see far too many "analytics" doing things that a latter-day Wittgensteinians never would. Am I wrong to say that those of who avoid this are not being post-analytic in some way? A good example is what philosophy is. The analytic people always say "argument." The Wittgensteinians know better. Argument as a conception gives us the worst sort of philosophy. And this attitude difference affects what certain publics take to be good or bad philosophy.

    I don't know where I am going with this. My sense is that liberal analytics ought to just call themselves "post analytic" to differentiate their graduation.

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    1. the division is largely between analytic and continental and given that post-analytic isn't so helpful, all fields develop with what come to be excepted as advances, no?

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    2. ... I'm sure this isn't the least bit novel, but here is what I would say. I think it disingenuous to curate artificially. Why isn't continental philosophy, by today's standard, "analytic"? I mean, it makes a point, too, right?

      The term "analytic philosophy" was supposed to curate something in intellectual history. You had analytic, post-analytic and post-modern. The Pomos were weird because they seemed to assert props while denying foundations. One could say they were not justific. (And their publics have done revisionism too -- "we didn't really say that").

      The analytics, by contrast, believed in traditional foundations. Let's call it hard AP. But those who became post-analytics developed ALTERNATIVE foundations (better tools). That's the key. Once we understood that meaning was usage, so much of about the laws of assertion changed. And what WE then saw is that only a portion of the so-called "analytics" could then be talked to about the new critical thinking. And so we saw them as either reformed (graduated) or not.

      I'm trying to curate something in intellectual history. I don't care who is on a continent or not. Tell me, can someone not on the continent do "continental" philosophy today? If so, what are they doing that is different?

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  3. Seems perfectly reasonable to me to refer to the authors as "distinguished scholars" since it marks them out as accomplished in their field (having been published and recognized for their contributions before). No big deal. That lends some credence to their contributions to the book which, after all, could have been written by previously unpublished or otherwise unknown or little known writers. It's a review, after all, and the job of a reviewer is to tell us what's waiting for us including characterizing the contents and, in this case, the contributors.

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