Analytic-Continental Divide

History of/is Philosophy Series

And this is a universal law: a living thing can be healthy, strong, and fruitful only when bounded by a horizon; if it is incapable of drawing a horizon around itself, and at the same time too self-centred to enclose its own view within that of another, it will pine away slowly or hasten to its timely end. Cheerfulness, the good conscience, the joyful deed, confidence in the future – all of them depend, in the case of the individual as of a nation, on the existence of a line dividing the bright and discernible from the unilluminable and dark; on one’s being just as able to forget at the right time as to remember at the right time; on the possession of a powerful instinct for sensing when it is necessary to feel historically and when unhistorically. This, precisely, is the proposition the reader is invited to meditate upon: the unhistorical and the historical are necessary in equal measure for the health of an individual, of a people and of a culture.” (emphasis in original)

Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life”

This semester I will take up Nietzsche’s call to the reader and meditate upon his proposition. In particular, I will explore the possibility that philosophy itself is something to be taken up in a way that is, as Nietzsche put it, “healthy, strong, and fruitful.” If we do this as Nietzsche suggests, moreover, then doing philosophy in this way entails having a feel for the unhistorical and the historical in philosophy, and for when one or the other are necessary or to be avoided. But what precisely is one discerning when they have this feel for the unhistorical and historical in philosophy? In Nietzsche’s essay the cattle grazing before us serve as an introduction to the unhistorical, for the cattle forget what happens immediately after it happens, like the main character in the film Memento. In the case of the cattle, they are incapable of creating new memories, and hence of being historical, and immediately forget what just happened. Leonard, the protagonist from Memento who suffers from anterograde amnesia is also, like the cattle, unable to form new memories or recall what just happened. For Nietzsche these would be examples of the unhistorical, but as he points out, and as is rather obvious for us I would think, being excessively or entirely unhistorical would not serve humans well for we need to find a way to balance the unhistorical with the historical, our capacity to forget and move on (like a goldfish as Ted Lasso would advise) with our capacity to remember and learn from the past.

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By Jeffrey Bell, ago

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