After Philosophy: Introduction

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After Philosophy Introduction

• Ron Chrisley
• COGS/Informatics, University of Sussex
• Consciousness Studies Programme
• University of Skövde

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The Crisis In PhilosophyThe pre and post
collide in Kant
Plato
Descartes
Locke
Berkeley
Mill
Hume
Hegel
IMMANUEL KANT Critique of Pure Reason
Marx
Darwin
Nietzsche
Frege???
Freud
Heidegger Wittgenstein
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Dispute 1 Reason

• PRE
• Necessity
• Universality
• A priori
• Certainty
• Invariance
• Unity
• Totality
• Self-evident given
• Unconditional

• POST
• Contingency,Convention
• Plurality, Relativism
• Empirical
• Fallibility
• Historical/cultural variability
• Heterogeneity
• Fragmentary
• Interpreted signs
• Rejection of absolute

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Dispute 2 The Subject

• POST

PRE

• Sovereign
• Rational
• Atomistic
• Autonomous
• Dis-
• Dis-
• Self-transparent
• Conceptual
• Conscious
• Mind vs. Body

• Non-authoritative
• Irrational
• Holistic
• Historical, cultural
• Engaged
• Embodied
• Self-ignorant
• Non-, pre-
• Un-, Sub-
• Mind/body

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Dispute 3 Knowledge

• POST

PRE

• Non-
• No sharp S/O divide
• Pre-interpreted
• Part of world
• Hermeneutic circle
• Un-articulable back/ground
• None or partial
• None or partial

• Representational
• Independent world
• Conceptualised given
• Independent subject
• Ding an sich
• Articulable
• Full grasp
• Full self-control

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Dispute 4 Method

• POST

PRE

• Rhetoric
• Figurative
• Mythos
• Narrative

• Logic
• Literal
• Logos
• Argument

• Post- claim is that you won't understand
  philosophy or its insights until you recognise
  the rhetorical strategies, etc., involved
• (But on the post view, can't we understand
  without understanding why we understand?)
• On some post- views, progress on the other
  disputes (e.g., the subject) can be made by
  applying literary analysis to philosophical
  texts.

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Post- Responses

• The end of philosophy (Rorty, Derrida)
• Philosophy continues, transformed into
• A theory of meaning (Davidson, Dummett)
• Social inquiry (Habermas)
• Hermeneutics (Gadamer, Ricoeur)
• Historiography (MacIntyre, Blumenberg)
• Not mentioned Philosophy continues, not
  transformed, but responding to the crisis
  nonetheless (not considered, since only looking
  at those who have made "the linguistic turn").

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Issues which divide the responses

• Truth and conceptual schemes
• The fate of the subject and the role of
  interpretation
• Politics of language
• Rhetoric and poetics of language
• The role of theory in philosophy

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Truth

• Putnam agrees that reason is always culture- and
  language- dependent
• But there is still an ideal of rationality which
  can be used to critique our own traditions
• Truth is then understood as what is accepted
  under such ideally rational conditions

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Conceptual schemes

• It might be that language and meaning are
  context-bound to cultures, forms of life
  language games
• But this need not imply incommensurabilty
  (Gadamer, MacIntyre, Habermas)
• In fact, incommensurability may be impossible
  (Davidson) The "post" view limits itself!

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The fate of the subject

• One view we need to re-cast our idea of the
  subject, so that it is seen as limited, situated,
  engaged, etc. (Ricoeur, Blumenberg, Gadamer)
• Another view There is nothing there to be
  better understood No subject, no true meaning
  (Foucault? Derrida?)