Hi Derek,

Well, we can leave the ‘100 analytic philosophers’ alone then, although I did not want to prompt you to name names. Equally we ought to leave the cynicism comment, I was more gesturing at my own tendency to cynicism about philosophy generally – its not a full blown cynicism, it is marked with hope. But I do think that the conditions under which philosophy is conducted these days is a recipe for mediocrity. A friend of mine mentioned at a seminar where he was the guest speaker that these days all the big players in philosophy departments around the world just want to hire themselves again. What he meant was that they do not want anyone who departs from the way they think and the way they do philosophy on board – so if they could only just clone themselves… I think that the comment has something to it, insofar as it does it is one ingredient in the recipe for mediocrity. Of course none of that would mean that you wont be successful in obtaining research grants and research money. But the problem there is that there seems to be a greater emphasis on obtaining such funds than on the results. One further comment about these matters, a colleague recently said to me about life in contemporary universities (particularly referring to philosophy departments), that if anyone was happy in what they were doing that they are very good a hiding it. This is due, in my opinion, to departmental politics and live in the contemporary institution. In any case its cynicism tinged with optimism here, all of which is augmented by a general enthusiasm for philosophy.

In regard to the faith that analytic philosophers show that they are on the right track. There are two things to say here. Firstly it was a movement born of grand claims – they were going to solve all substantive problems in philosophy or show them to be pseudo problems. But if you think about the early years in post-Kantian philosophy figures like Schelling and Hegel felt something similar in regard to what they were doing and there was a similar faith. It is interesting to think that part of the birth of analytic philosophy was the rejection of idealism (but for the most part what they had in view was British idealism Russell did not really have such a good grasp of the Germans). But many philosophers and philosophical movements have this sort of self-confidence. I, like you, often puzzle about it – particularly now that we are 100 years on and, on a realistic evaluation one would have to say that all substantive problems of philosophy remain, only slightly modified or reconfigured (but history reconfigures everything). As for the pseudo problems, they all remain also. So, yes, a movement that starts with grand claims and proceeds with self-confidence – that is not uncommon. But you are right that there is a certain lack of reflection and this might relate to the second point. So, secondly, I think that one of the things that might contribute to the idea that one is on the right track is relates to the conditions of the production of knowledge in contemporary institutional life and particularly the things that are taken as a gauge of success. So long as the metrics are all blazing, you have success. Think about the rankings of academic journals. On what basis are they ranked? Who ranks them? Think about the successful research applications. On what basis are they ranked? Who ranks them? If you turn your attention to these things and really think critically rather than engaging in self-justifications and rationalizations of the process then the couple of questions I asked above quickly start to expand.

The issue about self-consciousness and consciousness is an interesting one. Its something one notices when one comes to analytic philosophy from continental philosophy. One of the things that is just not reflected on is the fact that the concept consciousness is used differently in analytic and continental philosophy. The thing is that every intellectual discourse has: a set of foundational presuppositions that generally remain unquestioned but which orient the questions it asks; a method through which it engages its problems and questions; and a preferred conceptual framework through which it articulates its responses to questions. In order to understand why analytic philosophy is unmoved by your comment you have to really think through the way these three features lead you to speak past each other and most importantly why someone who has not reflected on the on the difference between analytic and continental philosophy on these three points might just think you are pushing an irrelevant point. Further if a person presumes that their orientation on these issues is the only valid orientation for philosophy (for all philosophers for all time) then its easy to scoff (I will return to that below).

What I think the above points to are the meta-philosophical questions and I think it does so in this way. We have two philosophical discourses both of which seem to be different in terms of: their fundamental presuppositions and orientative questions; the methods they employ and; their use of concepts. At the most simplistic level one could just suggest that the differences here map onto the differences between the sciences and the humanities. As such if you reflect on the knowledge produced by one side in terms of the orientations of the other you are highly likely to undervalue it, dismiss it, speak about it in condescending tones…  The only way forward is to find a neutral point from which to both relate the two discourses and evaluate them, a point that does not already presume that one side has all the answers (this is not necessarily a God’s eye perspective it could just be a more fulsome view, a meta-discursive view of philosophy – which of course would have to be historically informed). The beginnings of obtaining such a view, rather than acquiescing in dismissals, condescension, conceit… would be to gain a better understanding of the presuppositions/ questions, methods and conceptual frames that underwrite any particular philosophical discourse. Further, and I think that this is vital, one has to have some take on an end, some reason for philosophizing – raising the issue of a telos for the whole endeavor.

I think that both sides do have such an orientative end and both relate to the issue of human emancipation in different ways. I think that analytic philosophy might, crudely speaking, be understood on quasi-Baconian terms as seeking emancipation through the growth of knowledge about nature – and is thus descriptive, it seeks to change the world by producing better descriptions of it, so the description is primary. I think in Continental philosophy the orientation is on the critique of culture. This includes philosophical autocriticism and certainly includes a critique of modern science, for both philosophy and science are part of culture. Of course it includes a whole lot more besides. But when you put it like this then I think the possibility opens up of gaining some meta-discursive orientation on both practices of philosophy and so to a philosophical way of relating the two modes of philosophy. From that perspective we might be able to make sure that there is more equity in the way the two discourses are dealt with.

One of the things that I find infuriating, from both sides, is the scoffing at the other. Yes, analytic philosophy is deeply linked to science and yes from the outside it can seem as if it is more deeply linked to science than it is to philosophy. Yes, Continental philosophy does tend toward the literary and from the outside it can seem that it is more deeply linked to other areas of the humanities than it is with philosophy. But scoffing is the recourse of those who do not want to think and thinking is our work.

Philip