The Anal-lytic Philosopher
Preface
These vignettes emerged out of a larger project on transcendental philosophy, one that traces the development of certain strains of thought from Descartes to Merleau-Ponty. They began as a reaction to some vague impressions about analytic philosophy, a relatively punctuated tradition to the present author, but one which he started to read again because, ostensibly, some of the themes being taken up in his current work had already been addressed by representatives of there. It seemed reasonable, then, to turn to these analytic philosophers for clarification and help.
Since it just won’t do to prejudice the reader by advancing content in a preface, let it only be said these vignettes represent both a development of those vague impressions and an expansion of them into legitimate topics in their own right; that they should be read, therefore, as both literary and philosophical, as though in the final analysis such a distinction exists. As such, the vignettes are creative: they develop a more or less a single impression (hence the pervading metaphor) in the creation of a point of view, a position from which to view the ideas exposited both on their own and as supporting points along the way. For this reason, they are best read in the order in which they were written, as the points are developed somewhat sequentially, relying on one another, even as this development (hopefully!) gives the guiding metaphor a more vibrant life.
Taken as a whole they represent the final position more or less declared in the final chapter of the work.
As a final note, it should be admitted that the efforts here flout and even disregard the established norms and decorum of professional argument. This author finds those norms mostly pointless; no first-rate philosopher, as far as he can tell, has ever established their creative work using them. In any case, without any pretensions to greatness here, these vignettes tread their own water as far as style goes, adopting as they do a blending of conversational familiarity with (again, hopefully!) conceptual clarity and argumentative rigor. It’s just that “argumentative” here is understood in the sense of ‘implications of meaning developed in a coherent way’ instead of ‘implicit meanings exploited in a contest for position’ — precisely the style this author finds so repulsive.
Hence the opening Dewey quote that should be seen as the foil for the whole approach. The one from Foreigner should be seen as expressing the ironic reciprocity therein.
But enough said. As far as the rest goes, enjoy!
Table of Contents
Preface
3. Quine on the Roots of Reference
5. Putnam Faces Down Objective Realism
6. Richard Rorty is no Pragmatist
7. Philosophy and the Fun-house Mirror of Nature
8. The Myth of Sellars’ Myth of the Given
9. E-piss-temological Behaviorism
10. Philosophy and the Un-scientific Image of Man
11. Cling-ons in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
12. Playing with Power — Severe Testing as an Anal-lytic Strategy
13. Severely Lacking Power — the Trivialities and Absurdities of Severity Testing
14. Empiricism without Philosophy or Mind
15. Gavagai — Good-god-agai, not again
16. The Dump
17. Davidson on Conceptual Schemes
19. Uh, it’s really dumb to sacrifice answerability to the world.
