Transcript Philosophy Today - University of California, Davis

Philosophy Today
Philosophy 1
Spring, 2002
G. J. Mattey
The Great Divide
• Most contemporary philosophers follow one of
two approaches
– “Continental” philosophy
– “Analytic” philosophy
• Continental philosophy is more influential on the
European continent
• Analytic philosophy is predominant in the major
research universities in the English-speaking
world
Analytic Philosophy
• Analytic philosophy developed from attempts in
the early 20th century to make our concepts precise
• The model of this procedure was science
• Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970) was a leading
positivist, who held that what is not analytic or
scientifically verifiable is meaningless
• Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) eventually held
that analyses do not yield precise results and held
that philosophy is merely therapeutic
Analytic Philosophy Today
• Emphasis in contemporary analytic philosophy is
on language and meaning, and meaning is
understood as a relation between language and
objective reality
• Thus, understanding the structure of language is
what reveals the structure of reality
• We now have powerful symbolic tools to aid us
• Saul Kripke (1940- ) led a revival of metaphysics
by making hyper-scientific concepts precise
Continental Philosophy
• Immanuel Kant’s “Copernican revolution” made
the human point of view primary
• This revolution was carried on German
philosophers in the 19th century, culminating in
Nietzsche
• In the early 20th century, Edmund Husserl
invented “phenomenology”
• This was developed by Martin Heidegger and
Sartre into “existentialism”
Continental Philosophy Today
• Work in phenomenology and existentialism
continues to be done
• The main thrust in continental philosophy
today follows Nietzsche
– Michel Foucault (1926-1984) understood
knowledge as practice, and practice as based on
relations of power
– Jacques Derrida (1930- ) promotes
“deconstruction” and opposes “logocentrism”
Academic Culture Clash
• Analytic philosophers accuse continental
philosophers of sloppy, or even
meaningless, thinking
• Continental philosophers accuse analytic
philosophers of petty narrowness and
detachment from real human concerns
Roots of the Clash
• The clash between contemporary continental and
analytic philosophers is foreshadowed in the clash
between the Sophists and Socrates
• The Sophists emphasized the use of language as a
tool to further human interest, but not as revealing
an objective reality
• Socrates demanded an account of the real form
which provides the meaning of the use of concepts
Formal Philosophy
• Symbolic logic allows the formulation of
philosophical statements and arguments in a
rigorous, unambiguous format
– Leibniz was the first philosopher to try this
– Russell’s 1905 “On Denoting” showed its great
potential
• Probability calculus is a formalization of
principles of inductive reasoning
– Decision theory is based on probability calculus
What Analytic Philosophers Do
• Conceptual analysis is done in the style of the
Euthyphro
– E.g., knowledge is justified true belief that is not
accidental
• Philosophical theories are constructed in the style
of Utilitarianism or Grounding of the Metaphysics
of Morals
• Much activity is directed at the question of the
possibility of analysis and theorizing
Reflective Equilibrium
• Mill posed the problem of the analysis of ethical
judgments
– We need to know what right and wrong are before we
can judge an act right or wrong
– But scientific method requires that we know particulars
first
• Nelson Goodman proposed a solution
– Begin with our beliefs about particulars
– Determine how well they conform to general beliefs
– Reflectively adjust the two kinds of beliefs until they
reach a state of equilibrium
Issues in Metaphysics
• Most current issues in analytic metaphysics
are the same as the classical issues
– Are universals and numbers real, or are
concrete particulars the only reality?
– Is causality only constant conjunction or a real
relation?
– Can things be other than what they actually are,
or are they determined to be what they are?
Supervenience
• Many philosophers are attracted to the view
that the human mind is a material entity
• But there are problems in explaining mental
activity as identical to brain states, etc.
• A proposed solution is that mental activity
supervenes on physical states of the body
– Two brain states of the same type cannot differ
with respect to the associated mental activity
Issues in Epistemology
• How should knowledge be analyzed?
• Should we approach knowledge inside-out
(Descartes, Hume, Russell) or outside-in, so
that human knowledge is a natural
development to be studied scientifically?
• How do we make sense of the persuasive
power of philosophical skepticism?
Contextualism
• We seem to assume that we have knowledge
ordinarily but take back that assumption when
thinking of skeptical arguments
• This can be explained by claiming that we have
knowledge in the ordinary context but lose it in
the skeptical context
• This is similar to Hume’s view that we have belief
in the ordinary context and lose our confidence
when thinking of skeptical arguments
Issues in Ethics
• Ethical investigations tend to be centered on
one of three levels
– Meta-ethics concerns questions about the nature
of moral values and how they can be known
– Ethical theories include utilitarianism,
Kantianism, and Aristotelian-style virtue ethics
– Moral problems (e.g. abortion) are discussed in
their own right or in relation to theories
The Difference Principle
• John Rawls has proposed a conception of justice
as fairness
– In the case of distributive justice, justice is fair
distribution of the goods of society
• But what is fair?
– We should conceive of ourselves as in a position of
ignorance regarding our position in society
– In such a position, it would be reasonable for each of us
to require that if a distribution is unequal, it must help
the least advantaged
Progress?
• Has analytic philosophy made any progress?
• Philosophical problems, analyses and theories are
subject to much more sophisticated and detailed
treatment
• They tend, however, to be examined piecemeal,
and not as part of a broader theoretical context
• Philosophers seem as far from agreement on more
basic issues as they ever have been, even with all
the new tools at their disposal