Robbins Library Notes

Good morning, readers!

Over the summer, I’ve been reading some fascinating histories of philosophy in the 20th century.  Two of them address American philosophy during the Cold War, and the third looks at philosophy at a pivotal moment in the first part of the century, before the notorious split between analytic and Continental philosophy.

What emerges from these three books is the degree of influence that the political and historical context in which philosophy is lived and practiced can have. While it’s too simplistic to claim that understanding philosophy can be reduced to merely studying its historical, social, and cultural contexts, I would argue that it’s important to see that philosophy does not exist in a vacuum, and that historical, social, and cultural forces can have a great influence on philosophy, though these need to be interpreted and assessed with care.*

This holds true, I will claim, for American philosophy, especially during the 20th century.  After reading the first two histories, it’s frightening to see how figures like, e.g., Rudolph Carnap, were kept under surveillance for their supposed political activities, or threatened in subtle and not-so-subtle ways to get in line.  It’s scary to read how lives and careers could be ruined or altered by people settling personal scores or demanding ideological conformity under the cloak of national security.  And it’s also sad to consider what might have been, had philosophy not been forced into (and chosen to remain) in a defensive position for so many decades such that it limited the scope of its inquiries and interests.

Without further ado, here are the books, along with a brief review of each:

Time in the Ditch: American Philosophy and the McCarthy Era, John McCumber (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2001)

McCumber’s book explores how the McCarthy era had a devastating effect on American philosophy during the late 1940s and 1950s, and beyond.  McCumber analyzes how philosophy and philosophers were targeted by the FBI, HUAC, and others during the Cold War, and how this had a chilling and limiting effect on how philosophy was studied and practiced.  McCumber offers evidence to show that the defensive position and apolitical stance that American philosophy was forced to take has never been abandoned, and that these have limited and driven the discipline to focus on a narrow range of topics and questions, to the exclusion of others.

It’s a fascinating, if not frightening, read, especially in contemporary times when conservative forces are again trying to silence dissent and questioning by claiming these to be “unpatriotic” and “treasonous.”  In these interesting times, and in light of McCumber’s (and Reisch’s — see below) claims, the quote from Santayana that I posted last week rings true.

However, if there is one failing with the book, it’s that I find that McCumber has an ax to grind, especially towards the end of the book, when he discusses how Continental philosophy and philosophers have been excluded from the American philosophical discourse.  While he does have a point, at times I found that McCumber quickly became strident in his criticism, and found this to be off-putting.

How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science: To the Icy Slopes of Logic, George A. Reisch (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005)

Similar to McCumber’s book, but from more of an analytic perspective, Reisch’s book also examines how the Cold War, and the shift in political climate from the progressive 1930s to the conservative 1950s wrought a number of changes on the practice and understanding of American philosophy (and especially philosophy of science).

This is an decent book, overall, especially if you are looking to get a good grounding in the basis of some of context around and concepts of philosophy of science during the early and middle parts of the 20th century.

Nonetheless, I do have a complaint about the book.  I’m bothered by the fact that relatively little attention is given to the conservative critics of philosophy of science, in comparison with the left-wing critics.  Mortimer Adler and Robert Maynard Hutchins get a few dismissive paragraphs and mentions throughout the book, but no chapter in their own right — unlike the left-wing critics, who get two chapters of their own.  And there were certainly more critics of philosophy of science than just these two men.

Furthermore, there was (and is still) a battle over where philosophy belongs: is it merely a part of science?  Or is it part of the humanities?  What sort of questions should philosophy address?  Should it be apolitical, or be used in the service of political agendas?  Do the empirical sciences supplant the social sciences and humanities, or do the latter have their own contributions to make and value to add?  These and other questions remain relevant, and were given serious consideration by people like Adler and Hutchins, and perhaps deserve more attention than they are given in this book.

I’m also a bit uncomfortable with Reisch’s attempt at engaging Continental philosophy at the end of the book, wherein he attempts a Foucauldian-style power analysis.  In short, he makes the claim that the American academy during the Cold War and beyond, was akin to a concentration camp.  The conservative power structure, in an attempt to silence and render impotent their progressive adversaries, shunted the latter off into the irrelevance of the ivory tower, where they would have little to no effect.  While the claim is intriguing, prima facie, I’m not sure that it stands on deeper inspection.  For one thing, the analogy strikes me as being inapt — being a tenured intellectual in an academic setting is nothing like the dehumanizing brutality of the camps.  For another, it strikes me as being somewhat offensive, for the same reasons.  Finally, in light of my own reading of several of Foucault’s works, I’m not sure that this analysis is something with which Foucault would himself agree, though I may be wrong on this account.

In spite of these criticisms, don’t discount the book entirely on these grounds.  It’s still worth reading, if you keep these flaws in mind.

A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger, Michael Friedman (Chicago: Open Court, 2000)

Of the three histories that I read over the summer, this one was by far the best.  Friedman discusses the 1929 Davos Conference, at which Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger debated, and Rudolph Carnap attended.  In examining the thought projects of these three men, Friedman provides a clear and lucid outline, not only of Heidegger’s, Carnap’s and Cassirer’s thought, but also of Kantian epistemology, neo-Kantianism, and phenomenology. Moreover, Friedman shows how these three interact and critique each other, and where they will ultimately split, because of political and historical circumstances, into the two-fold division of 20th century Western philosophy.  Finally, Friedman shows the importance and continuing relevance of Cassirer, who is often overlooked in the history of 20th century thought, other than as an historian of thought.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and have recommended it to several others who are working in this field and on these topics.

Do any readers have opinions on these books? Are there other histories that I should look at and review, e.g., Glock’s What is Analytic Philosophy?

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*Peter Gordon offers some relevant discussion on historical context and the history of ideas in Gordon, P.E. (2004).  Continental Divide: Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger at Davos, 1929 — An Allegory of Intellectual History. Modern Intellectual History (1)2, 219-248.  (You’ll need a Harvard PIN and ID to access this article.) This article is especially relevant in light of the third book that I review, Thomas Friedman’s A Parting of the Ways.