On Late Analytic Philosophy: or the age of David Lewis

In the last 25 to 30 years historical attention has been directed toward analytic philosophy: some analytic philosophers have begun reflecting on the philosophical tradition they belong to, while many other scholars have been working on what is by now become a well-established discipline known as “history of analytic philosophy”. Yet this historiographical perspective mainly focuses on early analytic philosophy (Frege, Russell, Moore, the early Wittgenstein…), or on middle analytic philosophy (Carnap, Ryle, the later Wittgenstein, Quine…), whereas – by contrast – proper historical investigations of late analytic philosophy are still greatly needed. By “late” we mean analytic philosophy approximately in the last 40 years, which is a long enough period to deserve a separate investigation. Furthermore, we surmise that the development of this philosophical tradition in such a time span has some distinctive features, which could be profitably studied from different perspectives: philosophical, metaphilosophical, historical, sociological… In fact, such a multifaceted approach is in a sense required by the huge and increasing volume of philosophical production (due to processes of professionalization and specialization), which can hardly be dealt with satisfactorily if one takes the narrow point of view of a single discipline. For instance, it is arguably difficult to focus on prominent figures and main arguments of late analytic philosophy as a historian of philosophy would do for an earlier period, just because it is not obviously settled who the main figures are supposed to be. For this reason this call is addressed not only to philosophers and historians of philosophy, but also – hopefully – to scholars coming from other disciplines such as sociology of knowledge, institutional history of science, social epistemology, etc.--CFP History of Late Analytic Philosophy (monographical issue of "Philosophical Inquiries").

I love the idea of late analytic philosophy. If you are mischievous -- and why not, this is a blog after all-- you may think this is a fine way to describe a philosophy that failed to be timely: it missed (the Hegelian) Dusk, and so missed its appointed hour with destiny.

Kidding aside, I wish the cfp well and I am eager to read their volume. By “late” the authors of the cfp mean "analytic philosophy approximately in the last 40 years. 2016-40= 1976 [corrected]. That's the age of David Lewis. (Perhaps at the start of this forty year time-slice it may have been thought the age of Kripke.) By this I mean that Lewis's work both defines the parameters of a lot of analytical research, it has inscribed a form of cost-benefit analysis on adjudicating relative strength of positions, and is the great exemplar of how to do philosophy: modular, technical, crisply written, open to metaphysics, with simultaneous willingness to be commonsensical and outlandish, etc. This is not to say that that his work is hegemonic in all respects and all sub-fields of analytic philosophy, and that everybody would agree with me. But note  two facts: first, I am neither a partisan nor student of Lewis (recall the first paragraph of this review); that is, my claim is not self-serving in that I am trying to advance  my own research agenda. Second, the claim is backed up by citation data. 

Sure, others ("sociology of knowledge, institutional history of science, social epistemology,") may tell me a story that points in a different direction: say, the rise of applied ethics (which increasing journal space, social impact, citation increases, etc.) or the growing influence of grant agencies (public and private) on the direction of research, or, as the cfp suggests, just the increasing volume of philosophical production (bleh: the very idea of philosophical production fills me with revulsion). But even so, and here comes the philosophically and historiographically contentious claim, until a future philosopher or philosophical movement/network gives a philosophical reason to rewrite our times in light of their understanding of the direction of philosophical telos, I stick to my guns.

That is to say, I reject some non-trivial premises in the cfp. First, the idea that a historian of philosophy takes the past as given or as "settled who the main figures are supposed to be." No, that's maybe true in our teaching, but not our practice as historians of philosophy. We're constantly sifting the past trying to figure out who and what problems, argumentative moves, etc. matters to either a better understanding of the past or that are useful for understanding the philosophical present or for shaping the future (historians disagree over this). For example, during early analytical there was a consensus that Spinoza, while inspirational, really did not matter much to philosophy--Leibniz was the key historical figure (middle analytical philosophy added Kant back to the story).  During late analytical philosophy, Spinoza was rediscovered for historical and philosophical purposes. (Similar stories can be told about the changing status of Berkeley, Locke, Newton, etc.) Late analytical philosophers are also rediscovering the greatness of earlier women, including, I hasten to add, the women in early analytic (the female Polish logicians, Stebbing, etc.).  After all, somebody did the settling. And this settling is done, in part, by the historians of philosophy.

Second, just like anthropological tools can be turned to 'western' societies, economic tools applied to the family, and formal methods can be applied to philosophy, so can historical methods be applied to contemporary philosophy. (Hint: I have been doing that during half a decade of blogging.) Again, this is not to deny that others methods are potentially instructive. But, in fact, throughout history lots of history was written by eye witness spectators, sometimes interested spectators-participants (Thucydides, Xenophon, etc.).

Third, the history of early analytic is with a few notable exceptions not properly historical by this I mean that the historians who do tend to buy the narratives they have inherited from their teachers or the tradition about who matters and why. (Some other time I will name names and pick fights.) They are, in fact, products of the tradition they are supposed to be describing. Ramsey, for example, is treated as a philosopher and mathematician, but not as economists. W.E. Johnson does not figure in these histories (unless it is written by a decision theorist or somebody who has read A. Prior on determinables), etc. Just recently, we have started to recover a sense of the debates with non-analytical philosophers of the period.  I know of almost no work that looks critically at the practice of journal capture or department capture in the development of analytical philosophy; or the use of formal methods to bully technically less adept philosophers into silence, etc.

Finally, forty years of production -- "which is a long enough period to deserve a separate investigation" -- is an odd way to settle on a subject-matter.

    Long enough of what? One may ask.

    Answer: for more philosophical production, it seems.

If production becomes our end, Heidegger wins. That is to say, without a philosophical or political (or sociological, etc.) ground for desert, it is by no means obvious when a period is "long enough." I am reminded by the saying (perhaps incorrectly attributed) to Zhou Enlai:

The impact of the French Revolution? “Too early to say.”

The impact of the French Revolution? “Too early to say.” - See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/06/it-is-too-soon-to-tell-the-real-story.html#sthash.BIICP11E.dpuf

 

 

Comments

[Stewart D]

A question about an example –

“during early analytical there was a consensus that Spinoza, while inspirational, really did not matter much to philosophy--Leibniz was the key historical figure”

That seems to fit Russell, but was it a consensus? I’m struck (perhaps too strongly) by the fact that Spinoza is one of the figures discussed in Broad’s Five Types of Ethical Theory. (Though Broad lectured and wrote on Leibniz too, and with both Broad and Russell teaching requirements are playing a role in the background.)

Playing around on JStor, looking for 20th century items in Mind with ‘Leibniz’ in the title, I seem to find only 8. After a review of Russell’s book, and a 1903 survey article by Russell, the later pieces are one article in 1942, and five book reviews from 1974 onwards. There is more Spinoza stuff – 23 items, 12 by 1940 – albeit with a question of whether it’s really analytic, in the early 20th century sense.

[Matt]

(Supposedly the correct story with the Zhou Enlai quote, which I'm told, but cannot at all confirm, is clear from the context, is that he's responding to a question about the 1968 French student uprisings. Sad, in a way, if true, because less fun, but also, nice because it's less likely to confirm our stereotypes about what a Chinese person/thinker would say.)

As for the period under discussion here, it's fun to think about how it could have been thought to be the period of Kripke, or Lewis, or Rorty, or Putnam. (Maybe I'm leaving someone out) but seems, as you say, to have been the period of Lewis, at least in the "core" M&E fields. But, maybe yet that will turn out to be too fast. Consider, as I'm sure you have, Hume's assessment of the achievements of Locke.

[Schliesser, Eric]

31 items on Leibniz and Spinoza may be too little to mean more than statistical noise. But a few notes, we know that under Ryle's editorialship history of philosophy was marginalized in Mind (until the recent change in editorship). I learned from a working paper by Joel Katzav and Krist Vaessens that under Moore in the mid twenties non-analytical work disappeared from Mind; in effect, that meant that the British Idealists -- who were engaged with Spinoza -- were banished (amongst others).
I don't tend to treat Broad as an (early) analytical philosopher, in part, because he Ernest Nagel ignores him in his important series of classificatory articles in 1936 (JPHIL), and, in part, because Broad is self-consciously not wedded to a school. I think Broad and Prior (and maybe Ramsey) raise interesting issues of classification --they have been picked up by analytical philosophers, but it is not entirely obvious they should be categorized as such. (And they also happen to be super interesting.)
So, I am going to stick to my guns, but I also note that 'key historical figure' may mean very little for any of them.

[Schliesser, Eric]

Matt, on Hume/Locke. Yes, later philosophy may discover that the earlier classification cannot be sustained.
On Lewis, do not forget his non-trivial impact on value theory (first by way of Convention, then later more indirectly by way of his metaphysics).

[Matt]

Where do you see Lewis's influence on value theory, Eric? I'm certainly not denying it, but it doesn't seem that significant in the stuff I read. I'd be interested in direction. (This may just reflect my tastes, I'll admit.)