Abstract

Pogosto se govori o »krizi« na humanističnih oddelkih ameriških univerz. Vendar imajo ljudje, ki to govorijo, v mislih prekomerno politično korektnost, ki jo še lahko zasledimo na ameriških oddelkih za književnost. Oddelki za filozofijo v Združenih državah so imeli svojo zadnjo krizo v štiridesetih in petdesetih – v obdobju, ko je analitična filozofija dovršila svoj prevzem. Od takrat se ni zgodil noben dramatičen generacijski preobrat, razen nenadnega vznika feministične filozofije kot novega področja specilizacije v sedemdesetih letih. Posledice radikalizma so sicer imele velik vpliv na matrice številnih drugih disciplin na univerzi, toda ameriško filozofijo so pustile večinoma nedotaknjeno. Veliko analitičnih filozofov je bilo politično aktivnih, toda zaradi te aktivnosti niso spreminjali svoje profesionalne samopodobe ali svojih bralnih navad.There is often said to be a “crisis” in the humanities departments of American universities. But people who say this usually have in mind the excessive political correctness which is still sometimes found in US departments of literature. American philosophy departments had their last crisis back in the 1940’s and 1950’s—the period during which analytic philosophy accomplished its takeover. There has been no dramatic generational shift since then, except for the sudden emergence, in the 70’s, of feminist philosophy as a new area of specialization. Whereas the aftermath of the radicalism of the 60’s had a profound impact on several disciplinary matrices elsewhere in the university, it left American philosophy largely unaffected. Many analytic philosophers were politically active, but this activity usually did not lead them to change either their professional self-images or their reading habits.