analytic philosophy

Analytic Philosophy’s Chess Paradigm

Analytic Philosophy has thus a double function: it provides quiet green pastures for intellectual analysis, wherein its practitioners can find refuge from a troubled world and cultivate their intellectual games with chess-like indifference to its course; and it is also a keen, shining sword helping to dispel irrational beliefs and to make evident the structure of ideas

Ernest Nagel, “Impressions and Appraisals of Analytic Philosophy in Europe” (1936)

I pass, finally, to the remaining Part of the Ethics, which concerns the means, or way, leading to Freedom. Here, then, I shall treat of the power of reason, showing what it can do against the affects, and what Freedom of Mind, or blessedness, is. From this we shall see how much more the wise man can do than the ignorant. But it does not pertain to this investigation to show how the intellect must be perfected, or in what way the Body must be cared for, so that it can perform its function properly. The former is the concern of Logic, and the latter of Medicine

Spinoza, Ethics 5 Preface
Fischer vs. Spassky in Reykjavik (1972)

Following in the spirit of Nagel’s “impressions” of analytic philosophy, let me begin with an impression I have long had about analytic philosophy—put simply, the hierarchical ladder of success for analytic philosophers seems to favor those who are good puzzle solvers, or more precisely those who were or are mathematical and/or chess prodigies who have turned their sights to doing philosophy instead. As an impression I am making no solid claims to the accuracy of my observation, but I decided to write this blog post after having recently read (admittedly late to it) Liam Kofi Bright’s blog post where he claims analytic philosophy is a degenerating research programme. This also brought to mind a number of blog posts from the NewAPPS days with Eric Schliesser (here, here, and here). With these caveats, I’ll throw out a few comments as to why I agree that analytic philosophy was destined to degenerate from the start, and precisely because it sought, as Nagel approvingly observed, “find refuge from a troubled world and cultivate their intellectual games with chess-like indifference to its course…”

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By Jeffrey Bell, ago

Four Problems

In my forthcoming book, An Inquiry into Analytic-Continental Metaphysics: Truth, Relevance, and Reality, I begin with four classic problems in metaphysics. The book unfolds from here, drawing from analytic and continental philosophers along the way, as I develop a metaphysics of problems, inspired by the work of Gilles Deleuze, to address these classic problems in metaphysics. I post the four problems here as a point for possible discussion, and as a basis for blog posts to come.

§1 Problem of the New

What is new, truly new? If we say that some event or phenomenon, A, is truly new, then by what criterion do we make this claim? The most immediate answer appears to be that what is new is unlike anything that preceded it, or there are no phenomena or events prior to A that include or harbor A, for if they did then A would not be truly new but would be simply the explication of what was already implicitly present. The problem of the new may therefore not even be a problem. One could echo the sentiments expressed in the book of Ecclesiastes and resign oneself to the view that ‘what has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun’ (Ecclesiates 1:9 New International Version). If one does accept that there can be something that is truly novel, a reality irreducible to what has preceded it, then we have other problems that come along when one accepts this.

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By Jeffrey Bell, ago

Deleuze on Learning and Skill

When it comes to learning, Deleuze argues that “it is so difficult to say how someone learns.” (DR 23). More dramatically, Deleuze adds, there “is something amorous – but also something fatal – about all education.” (DR 23). In learning to drive a stick shift car, for example, it is not sufficient simply to be told by the instructor to “do as I do,” or to follow the rule as they have stated and/or exemplified it in their actions. Learning is not a matter of following a rule or of doing what someone else does; to the contrary, what one encounters in learning to drive a stick shift car is the task of connecting various elements – namely, the hand, foot, clutch, accelerator, slope of the road, etc.—and of connecting them systematically so that the foot releases from the clutch right when the accelerator is being pressed, etc. Similarly in learning to swim it is a matter of establishing connections between the various parts and motions of one’s body with the resistance, currents, and buoyancy of the water. As Deleuze puts it, “To learn to swim is to conjugate the distinctive points of our bodies with the singular points of the Objective Idea in order to form a problematic field.” (DR 165)

In clarifying what Deleuze means by conjugating the distinctive points “in order to form a problematic field” will offer, I argue, what I take to be a helpful perspective from which to understand Merleau-Ponty’s example of the expert organist as well as Jason Stanley’s recent work on skill.

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By Jeffrey Bell, ago