Abstract
This chapter demonstrates: (1) how analytic philosophy, as a reflection of the Enlightenment Project, understands the relation between philosophy and the history of philosophy; (2) how analytic philosophy understands its own history; and (3) how the analytic understanding of these issues renders itself highly problematic. We provide a way of overcoming these difficulties by showing how the history of philosophy is integral to philosophy itself.
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Notes (Chapter 11)
Frankena (1983), p. 580.
Maclntyre (1984), 39–40.
For a counter-argument that stresses how temporality is essential to being and therefore the study of former reflection is essential to self-understanding see Dupre (1987) and (1989).
“There are human enterprises and cognitive pursuits where the consideration of logical structures is of little significance, where the consideration of other types of structural patterns may be more important, such as, for instance, that of temporal and evolving structures. Inquiry which is directed towards such enterprises and cognitive pursuits has profited little from the new logic. In some cases preoccupation with that logic has actually led to a decline in the quantity and quality of such inquiry. In philosophy that is clearly evident in the study of the history of philosophy and the philosophical study of history…” Sluga (1984), 353.
For an interesting and informative discussion of the relation between `historicism’ and `psychologism’ and its relevance to other features of analytic philosophy see Mandelbaum (1967).
Not all forms of realism need necessarily involve an ahistorical perspective. Hegel, for example, is a realist with an historical perspective. We have already had an opportunity to comment on the inability of analytic philosophy to see idealism as a form of realism because analytic philosophy has a tendency to confuse idealism with phenomenalism. There are others who embrace a form of realism but who claim not to be analytic. This view has recently been articulated by Jorge Gracia (1988). Gracia maintains a distinction between philosophy and the history of philosophy such that the “history of philosophy is not necessary for philosophy, although it is very useful for it” (p.92). The reason that the history of philosophy is not necessary is that “philosophers have traditionally interpreted their task as the discovery of truth” (p. 103), and “the product of philosophy understood as discipline consists of a comprehensive, consistent, and accurate view of the world…without regard to provenance or time” (pp. 104–05). Consequently, “the philosopher qua philosopher does not need to refer to the history of philosophy, its actors, and/or its ideas” (p. 107). The history of philosophy is instrumentally valuable insofar as it “furnishes diverse formulations of positions and arguments that facilitate the philosopher’s task. In many instances it may supply the solution or the seeds of the solution that the philosopher was looking for, or it may show that certain views are over simplistic, or that certain arguments are unsound” (p. 108). This is the same volume in which the comments by Bennett to which we shall refer later appeared. Hare, the editor, describes Gracia’s argument as “the most sustained discussion of philosophical historiography in this volume” (p. 15). Gracia has repeated this view in (1992): “…to do history of philosophy is not to do philosophy. to do history of philosophy is not even a requirement of doing philosophy” (p. 334).
“To achieve the kind of liberation from particular historical circumstances for which philosophers have craved, we must know the matrix from which ideas arise, and in order to surmount our prejudices and biases we must flesh them out” Gracia (1992), p. 334.
Gabbey (1987), 16. See also L. Cohen (1986).
“In papers from the beginning of the 1930s Carnap occasionally wrote (with a Marxist accent) of physicalism as an expression of ”scientific materialism“, and saw in it the crown of a development in which the names of Copernicus, Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud marked earlier milestones. Physicalism was, in other words, presented as the completion of an intellectual development through which man was transformed into an element of the natural chain of things and events, and the supernatural was eliminated” Wedberg (1984), p. 222. See also the list of historically important individuals cited in the positivist manifesto.
Quine (1979). See also Rorty (1984): “So far I have been suggesting that the history of philosophy differs only incidentally from the history of one of the natural sciences” (p. 56). See also Lepenies (1984), p. 157: “…is not the history of Western philosophy the story of its weakening domination of disciplines, first of the natural sciences, and then, shortly thereafter, over the human and social sciences?”
Rosenthal (1989), p. 141 and p. 169.
We must distinguish between how analytic philosophers, qua philosophers, use and conceive of the history of philosophy and how analytic historians of philosophy use and conceive of the history of philosophy. To begin with, our case is directed primarily against the former. No matter how many exceptions to our remarks are cited in the writings of analytic historians of philosophy our case against analytic philosophers, qua philosophers, still stands. There is also a question of who qualifies as an analytic historian of philosophy. Margaret Wilson identifies, without definition, Alan Donagan as an analytic historian of philosophy; but Donagan in his book on Spinoza (1988) specifically calls attention to anachronistic analytic readings of Spinoza. Second, as long as analytic historians of philosophy accept the notion that the history of philosophy is not intrinsic to the practice of philosophy they are confirming our case. Third, as we show throughout this chapter, even analytic historians of philosophy practice their “subsidiary” craft in a way that serves rather than challenges analytic philosophy.
“In my opinion, the effort attendant on philosophical history is often not justified in terms of the purely philosophical product. This outcome is not entirely surprising. If you want to work on the problem of personal identity, it is useful to read John Locke’s writings, but it is more important to read Sydney Shoemaker - in part, of course, because Shoemaker has incorporated Locke’s insights into his own work. If you are interested in making a contribution to the metaphysics of modality, it does no harm to study Leibniz, but Kripke is really more to the point. Philosophy is not related to its history in the way physics is to its history, but there is progress in philosophy, and it is not necessary to study the history of a philosophical problem in order to make a fundamental contribution toward the understanding, perhaps even the solution, of that problem” Sleigh (1990), P. 3.
“The course of history does not show us the becoming of things foreign to us, but rather the becoming of ourselves and our knowledge” Hegel (1968), Vol. I, p. 4. “No age but ours could have taken Mr. Russell’s account of the great thinkers in his major pot-boiler, The History of Western Philosophy, for serious historical scholarship, nor greeted with respect and not ridicule a work based on such extensive ignorance and misconceptions as Dr. Popper’s The Open Society and its Enemies. It may have been arrogant in Aristotle to call his predecessors lisping Aristotelians, and in Hegel to claim the main philosophies of the past as moments absorbed and transcended in his own system; but…Aristotle and Hegel had not only read and reflected deeply on their predecessors’ work but were respectively the first and the last great historians of philosophy. Their pride pales to humility beside the conceit of those who argue that the sages of the past talked mainly nonsense (because theirs was not the way to talk), and even offer their outmoded epigoni a course of psychotherapy, a philosophical brain-washing, to relieve them of anxiety complexes induced by wrestling with pseudo-problems” Mure (1958), 250. Aristotle and Hegel both took their predecessors seriously. We believe that both Aristotle and Hegel engaged in what we shall call an explication of previous philosophers and that they both did so brilliantly and in a way that is still useful.
Rorty (1984), 51. Two points must not be confused: (a) we always look at the past from the point of view of the present; (b) present beliefs are always superior to past beliefs. The truth of (a) does not entail the truth of (b). Moreover, we shall in the main body of our text be denying the truth of (a) and, independently, the truth of (b). Finally, if there are alternative systems of present beliefs, not all of them are necessarily true or necessarily false.
Rosenthal (1989), pp. 157–58.
“The majority of those who are commonly supposed to have been great philosophers [Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and the British Empiricists from Hobbes to Mill] were primarily not metaphysicians but analysts” A.J. Ayer (1950), p. 52.
Philip Kitcher (1992), p. 55. The misrepresentation of Hume and Kant in this respect is especially egregious. For the analytic misrepresentation of Hume see Capaldi (1992). For the analytic misrepresentation of Kant by Patricia Kitcher see McDonough (1995).
Bennett (1988),p. 67.
If analytical history of philosophy is an exploratory hypothesis about historical texts which are themselves exploratory hypotheses, then the rational reconstruction of such texts is analogous to translating one scientific theory or hypothesis into another. Such a translation of the terms of one theory into those of another raises all of the now familiar issues about incommensurability that we discussed in Chapter Two. Just as Donald Davidson rejected the notion of radical incommensurability and argued that alternatives presuppose a common core, so an analytical historian of philosophy would have to insist on diachronic problems and solutions.
Russell (1937b), p. 2.
Bennett (1988), p. 64.
J-C. Smith (1990), p.xxi. Among those who contributed articles to this collection are Hubert Dreyfus, Noam Chomsky, J.I. Biro, Patricia Kitcher, and John Searle. How representative is such a view? We note that the editors of the series in which the Smith book appears, Philosophical Studies Series, are Wilfrid Sellars (deceased) and Keith Lehrer (currently serving as Chairman of the Board of the American Philosophical Association); the Board of Consulting Editors include Jonathan Bennett, Allan Gibbard, Robert Stalnaker, and Robert Turnbull.
“As to the thesis that the hypothetico-deductive approach is wrong because of some radically rival way of looking at the entire work… 1 have nothing to say about that and don’t expect to on any future occasions.” Bennett (1988), 64. Margaret Wilson (1992) asserts that “Barry Stroud’s Hume is widely regarded as a classic” (p. 198) even though Stroud’s admitted lack of attention to Hume’s views on religion, economics, politics, and history suggests that these areas are less fundamental to Hume’s philosophy. We note that Stroud’s book would not be considered a classic, if anything just the reverse, by a good many serious non-analytic Hume scholars; see, for example, the review of Stroud in Review of Metaphysics (1978), 688–89. More important, note that what counts as relevant context in Stroud are epistemological and metaphysical problems central to analytic philosophy.
Rosenthal (1989), p. 156.
There are other, i.e., non-analytic, bases upon which one can come to construe an historical philosophical text as open ended. For example, it is perfectly possible for later authors to develop ideas from earlier authors in ways that are different from what the original authors intended. However, such a procedure does not pretend that it is getting at the “real” historical meaning of a text. Technically speaking, it is the ideas that evolve rather than the text. Moreover, this basis for utilizing earlier texts permits earlier authors to participate in the contemporary dialogue as equals.
See Michael Ayer’s critique of Bennett in Ree, Ayers, and Westoby (1978).
“How if at all is literary structure relevant to interpretation? I’m sorry, but I have no opinions about that” (p. 64). (2) “The relevance of societies and institutions to interpretations in philosophy is not a topic that I have thought about, and I have nothing to say about it” (p. 66). Bennett (1988).
“… although arguments of the kind favored by analytic philosophy do possess an indispensable power, it is only within the context of a particular genre of historical inquiry that such arguments can support the type of claim to truth and rationality which philosophers characteristically aspire to justify” Maclntyre (1984), p. 265.
“It is essential to an adequate understanding of certain problems, questions, and issues, that one understand them genetically… and this fact about philosophy, that it is inherently historical, is a manifestation of a more general truth about human life and society” Taylor (1984), p. 17.
One would have to distinguish between analytic historians of philosophy as we have defined them and intellectual historians whose work is useful to analytic philosophy. For example, from the point of view of analytic philosophy itself, Jonathan Bennett and Barry Stroud are analytic historians of philosophy, whereas Jerome Schneewind, Margaret Wilson, and Ed Curley are intellectual historians whose work is useful to analytic philosophy. A separate set of criticisms would have to be developed against “intellectual historians” who work within the broader analytic umbrella.
Some sense of the tension within the analytic community between “genuine” analytic historians of philosophy and “mere” historians of ideas can be gleaned from Margaret Wilson’s comments (1992): “At least in the present intellectual climate, a parallel position of pluralistic tolerance is appropriate with respect to approaches to historical writing. People with their own philosophical ax to grind shouldn’t necessarily (depending on their gifts and results), be treated deprecatingly by dedicated historical scholars. And others content to be viewed as historical scholars -especially if they are good at this line of work - shouldn’t have to answer to others (for instance, members of departmental hiring committees) for lack of `philosophical motivation’ ” (p. 209).
Wilson (1992) was asked by the editors of Philosophical Review to reflect upon “how contemporary philosophers view their history” (p. 195). Even so, she found it necessary to devote half her article to a specific issue, the status of sensible qualities in order to show there could be convergence between philosophers “primarily concerned with developing and defending positions of their own” and “historical interpretation” (p. 194). This choice of topics reflects several things. First, it is an attempt to do the history of philosophy in an analytic way and to avoid “merely” doing exegesis; second, it is a problem that pre-dates the Copernican Revolution and is discussed independent of how Hume and Kant would have responded (i.e., it is anti-Copernican); third, it is an example of “the” crucial epistemological problem of analytic philosophy, i.e., how and to what extent do our ideas reflect an external physical structure; finally it is problem that is metaphysically defined by reference to scientific realism, e.g., “Once the scientific realist preconceptions of the era are given their full due… the basic conception of what these philosophers [Descartes, Locke, Berkeley] and their contemporaries were trying to accomplish undergoes transformation” (p. 230).
J. Mackie (1976), pp. 2,4. For a similar view, see Passmore (1967). According to Mure (1958), p. 249, Gilbert Ryle is responsible for coining the phrase `philosophical paleontology’. Note the comment by Price (1940) “My remarks are addressed to those who write about him [Hume] as philosophers, not as mere historians of philosophical literature” (p. 3).
For an expression of this distinction see R.C. Sleigh (1990). Sleigh distinguishes between `philosophical history’ [what we are calling analytic exploratory history of philosophy] and `exegetical history’ [what we are calling history of ideas]. He identifies Bennett as master of the former (p. 3), and Sleigh identifies himself as a modest practitioner of the latter (p. 6). Sleigh also maintains that philosophical history is a help to exegetical history in the latter’s attempt to get at an accurate understanding of the most basic assumptions of a philosopher. That is, a rational reconstruction needs the Bennett approach. What Sleigh does not say is that exegetical history is a help to or a necessary ingredient in philosophical history or in the practice of philosophy. Neither Sleigh nor Margaret Wilson tries to make a case for the indispensability of exegetical history.
“Writing this sentence, I find myself prey to an appropriate fear that (some) experts in Hume and Berkeley will not approve of some particular thing that I say about these philosophers here. I have made no careful study of them for the purpose of this paper. Rather a crude and fairly conventional account of the `rough outlines’ of their views is used for purposes of comparison with Wittgenstein” Kripke (1982), p. 67, n.56. Consider also David Lewis’s remark (1986), p. viii: “... this book on possible worlds... contains no discussion of the views of Leibniz…. When I read what serious historians of philosophy have to say, I am persuaded that it is no easy matter to know what his views were. It would be nice to have the right sort of talent and training to join in the work of exegesis, but it is very clear to me that I do not. Anything I might say about Leibniz would be amateurish, undeserving of others’ attention, and better left unsaid.”
“He [Ree] seems to be raising a question about one’s responsibility to account for earlier interpretations. Well, I acknowledge no such responsibility….” Bennett (1988), 65–66.
Positivists were ignorant in the first two senses. Current analytic philosophers who have taken the `Kantian Turn’ and engage in exploration are generally but not universally quite ignorant of architectonic.
J-C. Smith (1990), p. xxi. Smith quotes Robert D’Amico, Historicism and Knowledge (New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1989), p. 55: “A research program is not simply there in the history of science as a documented fact, but is more like a Weberian ideal type. It is the idea of the program or tradition that tells us what to look for in history.”
See Wilson (1992), p. 202: “... even the most dedicated and distinguished historical scholars may well be influenced by distorting `preconceptions’ and personal agendas…”
The recognition that (a) we cannot deduce future applications but must rely upon a kind of intuition and (b) we cannot conceptualize this act of intuition have led some to argue or to suggest that the process is simply a power struggle (e.g., Foucault). What is missed in the latter claim is that such a claim amounts to an exploration of the pre-conceptual. Hence, the claim amounts to a denial of (b). If there is a denial of (b) then there must be some way of choosing among rival explorations. If, as we have maintained, there is no way to make such a choice without appeal to another explication then the denial of (b) either reflects misunderstanding, failure to carry the point far enough, or the disingenuous attempt to impose an elimination disguised as an exploration or as an explication.
Wilson (1992) denies that the history of philosophy is integral to philosophy itself (p. 195), and she denies that a strong case for this suggestion has yet been made (p. 207). In this section of the chapter we provide a case. Saying that no “strong” case has been made, as opposed to saying that “no” case has been made, relieves Wilson of the responsibility of rebutting any previous case.
The term `history’ is ambiguous. It can mean, among other things, a series of events or it can mean the recording of those events or it can mean the interpretation of those events. We are using the term `history’ here to mean the interpretation of those events. For a further elucidation see Danto (1985).
Despite his recognition of the inherently historical nature of all thought, Margolis remains an analytic philosopher by insisting on the need for a grounding of explication in a further explanation (exploration). This can be seen in Margolis’ (1993) objections to Gadamer: “He [Gadamer] offers no responsible theory [italics mine of interpretation or of the norms of practical life… the `classical’ is… simply announced. One suspects it is meant to serve as an assurance that a radical hermeneutics will not (however inadvertently) legitimate the barbarisms of a recent past. But it is seriously announced” (pp. 107–108). Our presentation of explication is meant to serve as an account but not as a theory.
“To understand someone’s thought you must get it into your own terms, terms that you understand. The only alternative is to parrot his words” Bennett (1988), 67.
Plato’s notion that our practice imperfectly copies the “Good”, the Judeo-Christian notion that God cannot be fully conceptualized, Heidegger’s notion of retrieval, and Wittgenstein’s assertion that we can never circumscribe a concept are all alternative ways of making this point. The assertion of a pre-conceptual domain is treated, by analytic philosophers, as a form of mysticism.
The social origin of inquiry and subsequent social test is absolutely essential for Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. For Aristotle the truth about human beings does not consist in reference to timeless structures. Ethical or political inquiry, the kind of inquiry appropriate to human beings, is different from metaphysics in its objects and standards (Nicomachean Ethics, 1.3). The truth about human beings is an essential part of the truth as a whole. Put another way, self-consciousness is essential to wisdom. To understand the relevance of timeless structures to human beings in general and to the philosopher in particular is therefore to understand something other than timeless structure. And, in fact, to do this Aristotle employs explication in a masterly fashion. He repeatedly orients his inquiries (in the Ethics and Politics) with an explication of the endoxa, opinions that deserve consideration because they are held in common by the few or the wise or gentlemen or those in high repute or the many. His metaphysical works also find their paths of inquiry by the same method. Aristotle is committed to the thesis that the establishment of norms begins with a consideration of common beliefs and measures itself against those beliefs.
The classical American pragmatic tradition (Peirce, James, Royce, and Dewey) embraces Hegel but without the absolutism. By rescuing Hegel from absolutism, the pragmatic tradition distances itself from analytic philosophy. The outstanding contemporary example of this pragmatism is Nicholas Rescher: see his (1977), pp. 78–80, and (1992), pp. 180–81, 23940.
Explicators do not deny that we can use physical science to “understand” the world and to “understand” the human body. But “understand” has to be understood relative to a larger and more fundamental framework which can only be explicated. We can treat parts of our body as if they are mechanisms as long as we do not forget that “we” are not mechanisms and that it is the “we” who are employing the model of a mechanism.
We can apply this distinction to analytic philosophers and distinguish between what they say on particular occasions and what they are doing on those occasions. This would not be an hypothesis about hidden structure but an observation on a practice. Analytic philosophers, we have learned from experience, are apt to be quite indignant about such observations, especially if they are critical. Nevertheless, part of the reason for the indignation is that such observations invoke a larger contextual reference which analytic philosophers cannot in principle accept.
Critics of analytic philosophy can charge that the very notion of “analysis” encourages the belief in isolable problems, and this has a pernicious effect on social and political life.
Wittgenstein (1980), pp. 18–19. Compare Wittgenstein’s conception of his activity with David Pears’(1987) account of Wittgenstein as a lonely genius of exploration: “Open any of Wittgenstein’s books and you will realize immediately that you are entering a new world…. You will not feel that...the ideas merely repeat one of the familiar patterns of western thought.” (V. I, p. 3). Consider also Wilson’s (1992) remarks on Wittgenstein: “... Descartes and Wittgenstein, evince little or no direct concern with defining their positions in relation to the long history of philosophical thought; and the depth of their implicit historical knowledge is at best controversial” (p. 208).
Rosenthal (1989), p. 155.
For a different argument of this same conclusion see Danto (1985): “... descriptions relevant to science will differ from those of importance to history…. Narrative history… cannot become more `scientific’ without losing its defining human importance...” (p. xii); “... the philosophy of history, as an effort to perceive the narration of events in the light of knowledge of the philosopher of history’s own future, is an incoherent enterprise” (p. 360).
The issue of identity is also present in another form. Whereas analytic historians of philosophy look for universal structures because of analytic philosophy’s commitment to realism, explicators look for identity in some sort of temporal continuity (using Hume’s notion of identity; hence, this is one reason why Hume is not an analytic philosopher). The notion of temporal continuity is precisely what makes an account a historical one.
“… Hegel’s philosophy was inspired by ulterior motives, namely, by his interest in the restoration of the Prussian government of Frederick William III, and that it cannot therefore be taken seriously...” Popper (1950), p. 228.
For a defense of this view see Powers (1986).
According to Wilson (1992), Gilbert Harman has asserted that with respect to major figures in the history of philosophy “their problems are not our problems; there are no perennial problems of philosophy” (p. 193).
“… analytic philosophy has been, and remains, largely unselfconscious and almost entirely ahistorical” Bell (1990), p. vi. A remarkable controversy has arisen of late because of Dummett’s (1993) claim that analytic philosophy is not Anglo-American in origin but continental and that Russell is not a key figure in its definition. See Monk (1996).
Wood (1959), p. 274. Scriven (1977) maintained that the history requirement in the philosophy curriculum is an obstacle to philosophical development.
Rosenthal (1989), pp. 154–55.
There are some excellent historical accounts of major figures within the analytic conversation, among which I mention Peter Hylton on Russell(1990a), Janik and Toulmin (1973) on Wittgenstein, McDonough on Wittgenstein (1986), Hacker (1996) on Wittgenstein, and Sluga (1980) on Frege (although both Sluga and I would deny that Frege is `analytic’). But these works are not written by analytic philosophers who attempt to establish authoritative readings of the original philosophers for future analytic purposes. To see this distinction clearly I would suggest contrasting Hylton’s book on Russell with, say, Sainsbury’s (1979) book.
Ibid., p. 3. “His [Frege’s] considerations about truth as an object are dismissed as mere scholasticism…. His rejection of logicism after the discovery of Russell’s paradoxes is considered an overreaction; his objections to Cantorian sets are explained as the result of personal hostility… where [Frege’s views] cannot be made to fit [current discussion] they are either ignored or explained away in psychological terms” Ibid., p. 6.
“The analytic tradition has not so far drawn the most radical consequences out of Wittgenstein’s thought. Instead… it has pinched a multitude of insights out of Wittgenstein’s philosophy without acknowledging that this philosophy undermines the view of the relation of logic, mathematics, and language that has prevailed in analytic philosophy since Frege. For Wittgenstein logic and mathematics are outgrowths of language and cannot be used to reveal the essence of language…. The essence of language shows itself only if we attend to the concrete uses of language… the abstract theory of meaning must give way in all but the most trivial cases to the examination of actual historical discourse” Sluga (1980), 186.
I am indebted to Richard McDonough for calling this to my attention.
In Bell (1990) the beginnings of analytic philosophy are identified with “the publication of Frege’ s Grundlagen, or his Uber Sinn and Bedeutung’…” (p.vi). Not surprisingly, the only contributor to the anthology who subscribes to this view is Dummett, according to whom, Frege is “the grandfather of analytical philosophy” (p. 102). Tyler Burge, on the other hand, while maintaining that Frege’s conception of sense fathered all the major approaches to meaning that have preoccupied philosophers in the twentieth century, nevertheless, argues that all subsequent analytic philosophers with Russell (and continuing through Dummett, see p. 52 and 55 n.4) have obfuscated or misinterpreted Frege’s doctrines. According to Burge, then, Frege is someone who ought to be taken seriously but who has been consistently misunderstood and therefore it is the misunderstanding of Frege that is an origin of analytic philosophy. Finally, in the same volume, Peter Hylton argues (Chapter Seven), quite convincingly, that Russell’s logicism is a completely different program from Frege’s. Hence in the same volume we find three conflicting views: (1) Frege is the origin of analytic philosophy, (2) the misunderstanding of Frege is the origin, and (3) Frege is not the origin. While we, and Sluga, would support Hylton’s reading, it is nevertheless the case that in the only book which even tries to give an historical account there is no agreement on whether Frege should even be seen as an analytic philosopher.
C.W.K. Mundle (1979) is directed at ordinary language philosophy, but one statement made within it is applicable to the rhetoric used by analytic philosophers to defend themselves. “To assail the movement or its supposed doctrines as a whole was therefore to be accused of tilting at windmills which existed - if at all - only in the imagination of the critic; while to pitch directly into the statements of individual authors was not uncommonly to be told that the views in question were untypical, or outdated, or had been misconstrued, or at any rate were not shared by anybody else - so that very little overall damage could be done in this way.” Peter Heath in the Foreword, pp. 1–2. Just such a position is expressed by Margaret Wilson: “When they [the critics of analytic history of philosophy] do get down to specific cases, they tend to focus on writings - not necessarily recent - which offer particularly doctrinaire statements concerning the relation of philosophy and history….” (op.cit., p. 200). Contrary to Wilson, we have cited recent examples; moreover, until Wilson defines `analytic’, something she eschews doing, she is not in a position to distinguish between what is and what is not doctrinaire or representative. However, Wilson does cite Bennett as a doctrinaire example. In response to Wilson we note that R.C. Sleigh, claims that Bennett is a master (op.cit., p. 6); moreover, in the very same issue of Philosophical Review in which Wilson’s article appears, there is an article by Philip Kitcher in which Kitcher praises Bennett’s work, along with Russell and Strawson, as “rightly influential studies that assimilate historical figures to post-Fregean philosophical practice….” (op.cit., p. 55, n.8).
For a sampling of this revolutionary rhetoric see: (1) The Positivist Manifesto; (2) Moritz Schlick (1930); Dummett’s (1967) article on Frege where Frege is called “the first modern philosopher;” (4) “Philosophy has only just very recently struggled out of its early stage into maturity,” Dummett (1978), 457. See also Ayer, et al. (1956).
Rorty (1967), p. 33. Rorty has, of course, subsequently changed his mind about analytic philosophy.
To an outsider, the analytic obsession with the question of who is and who is not a philosopher and the subsequent identification of its own past with those it deems to be “professional” philosophers [see for example, Passmore (1985), p. viii and Perry (1986)], is symptomatic of a rootless technological culture with nihilistic tendencies.
Margaret Wilson (1992) is a case in point. To begin with, she identifies herself as an “analytic” historian and as “trained in [an] analytically oriented graduate philosophy” program (p. 191). She also claims that criticisms directed against analytic historians gives rise to “resentment” (p. 195) because they are oversimplified. All this leads one to expect some alternative account that would show why the criticisms are oversimplified. Instead what we are told is that the meaning of the expression “analytic philosophy” is contested and remains in doubt (p. 197).
See McDonough (1995a), (1995b), and (1995c).
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Capaldi, N. (1998). Analytic Philosophy and The History of Philosophy. In: The Enlightenment Project in the Analytic Conversation. Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3300-7_12
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