A Prerequisite for Rational Philosophical Discussion

Abstract

Communication between philosophers has been deteriorating during the last decades. Logical empiricists and British linguistic philosophers have been branding large parts of the output of their speculative colleagues as ‘nonsense’ and ‘literally unintelligible’. Speculative metaphysicians, after having recovered from the first shock, either just disregard these declarations, or else declare, on their part, that the standards of intelligibility employed by the critics are arbitrary.