In Defence of Anachronism

2021 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-177
Author(s):  
Martin Pickavé
Keyword(s):  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Short Contribution ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
History Of

In this short contribution I argue that the history of philosophy has much to gain from an engagement with the questions and conceptual tools of contemporary (analytic) philosophy. In particular I argue against the view that the historian of philosophy’s engagement with contemporary philosophy necessarily leads to anachronism. Whatever the risks of failure, they seem to be outweighed by the potential for insight. Advocates of a “purely” historical approach to the history of philosophy defend their approach by pointing to the idea that the history of philosophy can and should be studied on its own terms and independently of our current philosophical interests. I try to show that this is an illusion.

Diskussion/Discussion. Kommentare zu R. Rorty: Zur Lage der Gegenwartsphilosophie in den USA (Analyse & Kritik 1/81)

1982 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Bennet
Keyword(s):  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Narrow Sense ◽  
Analytic Work ◽  
History Of ◽  
Reasonable Sense

AbstractRorty’s profound and challenging critique of contemporary philosophy is in several ways somewhat unfair. Analytic philosophy can contribute towards ‘wisdom’ in a reasonable sense of the term, though not in Rorty’s narrow sense; and his contrast between ‘sophist’ and ‘sage’, with the latter understood in Plato’s way, is also too constricting. Also, some contemporary ‘analytic’ work in the ‘history of philosophy’, so called, is not invalidated by Rorty’s strictures - especially his implied accusation that we shan’t be interested in the intellectual past if we can’t look down on it.

scholarly journals LIETUVOS FILOSOFINIŲ DISCIPLINŲ APŽVALGOS IR JŲ NARATYVINĖS STRATEGIJOS

Problemos ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 80 ◽  
pp. 75-93
Author(s):  
Aldis Gedutis
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
Philosophical Texts

Straipsnio tikslas – taikant filosofinio žinojimo sociologijos prieigą ištirti strategijas, kurias Lietuvos filosofai naudoja apžvelgdami savo disciplinų tapsmo ir raidos istorijas. Straipsnyje nagrinėjamos keturios apžvalgos, skirtos Lietuvos filosofų įdirbiui šiose srityse: Lietuvos filosofijos istorijos tyrinėjimai (1993), filosofinė antikotyra (1995), fenomenologija (2008), analitinė kalbos ir mokslo filosofija (2010). Pagrindiniai klausimai: kaip aprašoma ir pateikiama konkrečios filosofinės krypties raida? Kokį vaidmenį apžvalgoje atlieka nuorodos į išorinį kontekstą? Kokia istorija dominuoja apžvalgoje – vidinė ar išorinė? Kuriems filosofams ir jų tekstams skiriama daugiausia dėmesio? Kokia apžvalgose pateikiamų tekstų dinamika?Pagrindiniai žodžiai: Lietuvos filosofija, filosofinio žinojimo sociologija, filosofijos istorija, vidinė ir išorinė istorija.The Reviews of Lithuanian Philosophical Disciplines and Their Narrative StrategiesAldis Gedutis SummaryThe article applies the approach of sociology of philosophical knowledge in order to analyze the strategies Lithuanian philosophers use reviewing development of their disciplines. Four reviews on different fields of Lithuanian philosophy are analyzed: History of Lithuanian Philosophy (1993), Philosophical Studies of Antiquity (1995), Phenomenology (2008), Analytic Philosophy of Language and Science (2010). The major questions are to be answered: How development of certain philosophical field is described and presented? What role the references to external and extra-philosophical context play? What historical approach is predominant – internal or external? What philosophers and texts are presented as most influential? What is dynamics of the philosophical texts presented in reviews?Keywords: Lithuanian philosophy, sociology of philosophical knowledge, history of philosophy, internal and external history.

Locke on Personal Identity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galen Strawson ◽  
Galen Strawson
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Fundamental Point ◽  
Legal Term ◽  
Word Consciousness ◽  
History Of

John Locke's theory of personal identity underlies all modern discussion of the nature of persons and selves—yet it is widely thought to be wrong. This book argues that in fact it is Locke's critics who are wrong, and that the famous objections to his theory are invalid. Indeed, far from refuting Locke, they illustrate his fundamental point. The book argues that the root error is to take Locke's use of the word “person” as merely a term for a standard persisting thing, like “human being.” In actuality, Locke uses “person” primarily as a forensic or legal term geared specifically to questions about praise and blame, punishment and reward. This point is familiar to some philosophers, but its full consequences have not been worked out, partly because of a further error about what Locke means by the word “consciousness.” When Locke claims that your personal identity is a matter of the actions that you are conscious of, he means the actions that you experience as your own in some fundamental and immediate manner. Clearly and vigorously argued, this is an important contribution both to the history of philosophy and to the contemporary philosophy of personal identity.

Conclusion: The Return Address

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregg Lambert
Keyword(s):  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Return Address

This final and concluding statement addresses the role error in determining the different “regimes of truth” in the history of philosophy, proposing that much of contemporary philosophy is reacting to the same species of error identified with a previous tradition of post-Cartesianism and a Kantian subject of Critique.

scholarly journals “Zurück zu Kant”

DoisPontos ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Ariel González Porta
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Historical Root ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 19Th Century

A filosofia alemã do século XIX posterior a Hegel está bastante estudada em três direções. A primeira, que surge da luta entre hegelianos de esquerda e direita, acaba por conduzir ao materialismo e ao marxismo; a segunda, que se expressa na vertente irracionalista e anti-sistemática, passa por Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard e Nietzsche; a terceira é constituída pelo neo-kantismo e suas derivações, cuja versão oficial teria suas raízes fincadas pelo famoso discurso inaugural de Zeller e pelo livro de Otto Liebmann, que deram o impulso ao movimento “Zurück zu Kant”. Em tal visão de conjunto, o grande ausente é um movimento contínuo, ainda quando irregular e multifacetado, que terminará conduzindo à filosofia contemporânea. Este movimento tem em Trendelenburg uma figura chave. É com suas “Investigações Lógicas” que se inicia a reformulação das relações entre filosofia e ciência e, neste sentido, o verdadeiro retorno a Kant. O fato de sua obra principal ter exatamente o mesmo nome que a coleção de ensaios temáticos de Frege, a obra de ruptura de Husserl e as dissertações de doutorado de Cohen, Dilthey e Brentano significa algo mais que curiosas coincidências. “Zurück zu Kant” (Adolf Trendelenburg the overcoming of idealism and the roots of contemporary philosophy) Abstract Considering history of philosophy as a whole, the two main traditions of thought from the 20th century (analytic and phenomenological-hermeneutic) can be regarded as being variants of one same fundamental turn. This systematic relation is connected to a common historical root. To highlight it implies to review the ideas that are deeply in the basis of the historiography of the German thought in the 19th century. Beyond names, problems and theses that may appear to have at first sight no relationship whatsoever, we can notice a continuous unitary development that has not yet received all the attention it deserves. In this movement, Adolf Trendelenburg stands out, once the beginners of both the abovementioned traditions and of neokantianism (Frege, Brentano, Dilthey and Cohen) received a decisive impulse from his reflections.

Extended Knowledge and Confucian Tradition

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric L. Hutton
Keyword(s):  
Lessons Learned ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Current Work ◽  
Confucian Tradition ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Western Tradition ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

Although studies in the history of philosophy look backward to the past, developments in contemporary philosophy can often contribute to such studies by teaching us how to analyze particular issues more carefully, and sometimes the lessons learned from reconsidering past thinkers in such a light can in turn contribute to current work in philosophy by highlighting problems or approaches that might otherwise go unnoticed. This phenomenon is not limited to the Western tradition alone: scholars of Asian thought may benefit from the conceptual tools offered by contemporary Western philosophers, and contemporary Western philosophers may find value in insights from the Asian tradition. This chapter hopes to provide support for this last claim by means of a concrete example involving contemporary theories of extended knowledge and an ancient Chinese Confucian thinker, Xunzi.

Vlastos, Gregory (1907–91)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel W. Graham
Keyword(s):  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
History Of

A leading figure in the study of ancient Greek philosophy, Vlastos was a pioneer in the application to ancient philosophers of the techniques of analytic philosophy. Concentrating on figures of early Greek philosophy, he made major contributions to the understanding of the Presocratics, Socrates and Plato. He saw the Presocratics as applying ethical concepts to nature which ultimately rendered nature intelligible. He distinguished between the early dialogues of Plato, which represent the philosophy of Plato’s master Socrates – a philosophy the early Plato shared – and the middle dialogues in which Plato develops a transcendental metaphysics and rationalist epistemology to ground Socratic ethical concepts. Vlastos’s work played a major role in bringing the history of philosophy into the mainstream of philosophical research.

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