Robbins Library Notes

Good morning, readers!

Right now, I’m working on a guide to the portraits in the Bechtel Room, Emerson Hall 107.  It’s been fascinating to research the history of the twenty-two faculty portrayed in painting, photography, and sculpture in this room.

In doing so, I have uncovered several histories of philosophy about the Department.  Most cover from the founding of Harvard in 1636 through the 1930s. You may find these of interest:

*Campbell, J. (2006).  A Thoughtful Profession: The Early Years of the American Philosophical Association.  Chicago: Open Court Publishers.

*Kuklick, B. (1977).  The Rise of American Philosophy: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1860-1930.  New Haven: Yale University Press.

*Joralemon, D. R. (1980).  Too Many Philosophers.  American Heritage Magazine 31(6).  Retrieved 22 September 2009 from  http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1980/6/1980_6_16_print.shtml.

*Menand, L. (2000).  The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America.  New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.

*Palmer, G. H. & Perry, R. B. (1930).  Philosophy: 1870-1929.  In The Development of Harvard University Since the Inauguration of President Eliot, 1869-1929. S. E. Morison, Ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press: 3-32.

*Rand, B. (1929).  Philosophical Instruction in Harvard University from 1636-1906.  Boston: Harvard Graduates Magazine Association.

The history of the Department of Philosophy in the latter seven decades of the twentieth century and the early decades of the twenty-first century remains to be written.  Nonetheless, there are a few sources that give a broader context to this historical period, and which include references to the Department during this time.  These include:

*Brightman, E. S. (1947).  Philosophy in the United States 1939-1945.  The Philosophical Review 56 (4): 390-405.

*Floyd, J. & Shieh, S. (2001).  Future Pasts: The Analytic Tradition in Twentieth-Century Philosophy.  New York: Oxford University Press.

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

*Reisch, G. (2005).  How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science: To the Icy Slopes of Logic.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

*West, C. (1989). The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

I have reviewed McCumber and Reisch in an earlier post, if you are interested in learning more about those two books.

Are there other items to add to this list?  Please let me know in the comments box.

Good morning, readers!

Today, I am going to start a series of occasional posts on the history of philosophy at Harvard University.  I have been doing some research about this, and I would like to share the fruits of my labor with you.  Harvard has had (and still has) a large and influential role in American philosophy, so it’s interesting to learn more about this history.
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Given the prominence and history of Harvard in American education, it is unsurprising that several famous figures have passed through the Department of Philosophy over the years.

Three of the Department’s most famous visitors are Bertrand Russell, Rudolph Carnap, and Alfred Tarski. These three taught at Harvard during the 1940-1941 academic year: Russell and Carnap in the Department of Philosophy, and Tarski in the Department of Mathematics. [1]

Yet, we may number more than philosophers among those who have passed through the Department. There are poets among these ranks, most notably Wallace Stevens (1879 – 1955) and T. S. Eliot. (1888 – 1965). Stevens attended Harvard from 1894 to 1897 as a non-degree special student, and became close to George Santayana – in fact, one of his later poems is “To an Old Philosopher in Rome,” written in homage to his old mentor. [2] Stevens maintained a life-long interest in philosophy, as evidenced in his poetry and essays. [3]

On his part, Eliot attended Harvard from 1906 to 1910, taking his A.B. in the latter year. He spent the next several years studying philosophy and traveling in Europe, submitting a dissertation in philosophy to Harvard in 1916. However, he was not awarded a Ph.D., since he did not return to Cambridge for a dissertation defense. Philosophy would be part of the fabric of Eliot’s work for much of his life.

Finally, J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904 – 1967), the father of the atomic bomb, included philosophy among his studies during his undergraduate years at Harvard. Bird & Sherwin (2006) write that, as a concentrator in chemistry, he attended Whitehead’s 1924 course on the Principia Mathematica. [4]  They also include a letter of Oppenheimer’s to a friend, in which he notes that he spent a good deal of time studying in Robbins Library. [5]  Oppenheimer, a gifted polymath, retained an interest in philosophy, especially Asian philosophy, throughout his life.

Notes:

[1.] For those who are curious, the Harvard President’s Report for 1940-41 lists their respective courses, along with enrollment numbers: http://hul.harvard.edu/huarc/refshelf/AnnualReportsCites.htm#tarHarvardPresidents.

[2.] A copy of this poem can be found at http://englishhistory.net/keats/old-phil.html.

[3.]  See Stevens, W. (1997).  Wallace Stevens: Collected Poetry and Prose.  New York: Library of America.

[4.] Bird, K. & Sherwin, M.J. (2006).  American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.  New York: Vintage Books, 34-35.

[5.] Bird & Sherwin (2006), 35.

Good morning, readers!

Five items of interest today — the first, third, and fourth items are via Bookforum.com:

• Julian Baggini reports on Jonathan Israel’s attempts to get analytic philosophy to reconsider an historical and contextual approach to philosophy.
• Simon Critchley writes about happiness.
• Nathan Schneider looks at how scientists and theologians are coming together on questions about the multiverse problem.
• Along a similar vein, in terms of theoretical physics, Paul Steinhardt and Peter Galison discuss philosophy, physics, and truth.
• Microsoft is rebranding its search engine to “Bing,” and restructuring how its searches are performed.  If I’m reading this story correctly, the new Bing engine is the next attempt to topple Google’s dominance in the search engine market.

Next week’s post will be on Wednesday, since I will be out for commencement exercises next Thursday and Friday.  See you then!

Good morning, readers!

Those interested in the history of early analytic philosophy might want to read:

• Juliet Floyd, “Recent Themes in the History of Early Analytic Philosophy,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 47(2): 157-200, April 2009 — a Harvard PIN and ID are required to access this article.

Here is the abstract:

Abstract

A survey of the emergence of early analytic philosophy as a subfield of the history of philosophy. The importance of recent literature on Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein is stressed, as is the widening interest in understanding the nineteenth-century scientific and Kantian backgrounds. In contrast to recent histories of early analytic philosophy by P.M.S. Hacker and Scott Soames, the importance of historical and philosophical work on the significance of formalization is highlighted, as are the contributions made by those focusing on systematic treatments of individual philosophers, traditions, and periods in relation to contemporary issues (rule-following, neo-Fregeanism, contextualism, theory of meaning).

For those who may be interested, I have compiled a list of other histories of analytic philosophy, which you can find here.

Are there other resources which I should add to this list?

Good morning, readers!

Tomorrow, 18 April 2009, will be the date for the 17th Annual Harvard-MIT Graduate Philosophy Conference.  Here are the details, if you are interested in attending:

Dear All,

The organizers of the 17th Annual Harvard-MIT Graduate Philosophy Conference cordially invite you to join us at the conference, being held Saturday, April 18, 2009 in Emerson Hall at Harvard.

The papers to be presented are as follows:

“Are Conciliatory Views of Disagreement Self-Defeating?”
Jonathan Matheson
University of Rochester

“Generics, Semantic Blindness and Mosquitoes”
Rachel Sterken
University of St. Andrew/Oslo

“Double Vision and the Case for Separatism”
Boyd Millar
University of Toronto

“The New-New Problem of Induction”
Jacob Stegenga
University of California, San Diego

This year’s Keynote Address, “The Essential Contextual,” will be given by Professor Robert Stalnaker of MIT.

Further information concerning the conference, including the abstracts of the papers to be presented and the schedule, can be found at the following website:

http://web.mit.edu/gradphilconf/index.html

Breakfast, lunch, and snacks will be provided. We hope to see you all there!

Good morning, readers!

Here are the March 2009 Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews:

Moral & Political Philosophy

• Wendell Wallach, Colin Allen, Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong, Reviewed by Peter Danielson, University of British Columbia
• Louis M. Guenin, The Morality of Embryo Use, Reviewed by Alfonso Gómez-Lobo, Georgetown University/Catholic University of Chile
• Joseph Heath, Following the Rules: Practical Reasoning and Deontic Constraint, Reviewed by Joseph Mendola, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Ishtiyaque Haji, Incompatibilism’s Allure: Principal Arguments for Incompatibilism, Reviewed by Matt King, Carleton College
• Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.), Moral Psychology, Volume 1: The Evolution of Morality: Adaptations and Innateness, Reviewed by Jon Tresan, University of Florida
• Eric Gregory, Politics and the Order of Love: An Augustinian Ethic of Democratic Citizenship, Reviewed by John von Heyking, University of Lethbridge
• Eckhart Arnold, Explaining Altruism: A Simulation-Based Approach and its Limits, Reviewed by Kevin J.S. Zollman, Carnegie Mellon University
• John Deigh, Emotions, Values, and the Law, Reviewed by Bryce Huebner, Tufts University

Metaphysics

• Michael J. Almeida, The Metaphysics of Perfect Beings, Reviewed by Joshua Hoffman, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
• Francis A. Grabowski III, Plato, Metaphysics and the Forms, Reviewed by Andrew Mason, University of Edinburgh
• Robert Sokolowski, Phenomenology of the Human Person, Reviewed by Lilian Alweiss, Trinity College Dublin
• Kevin Timpe, Free Will: Sourcehood and Its Alternatives, Reviewed by C. P. Ragland, Saint Louis University

Epistemology

• Søren Overgaard, Wittgenstein and Other Minds: Rethinking Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity with Wittgenstein, Levinas, and Husserl, Reviewed by Bettina Bergo, Université de Montréal
• Shaun Gallagher, Brainstorming: Views and Interviews on the Mind, Reviewed by Mark Okrent, Bates College
• Georg Brun, Ulvi Doguoglu, Dominique Kuenzle (eds.), Epistemology and Emotions, Reviewed by Craig DeLancey, State University of New York at Oswego

Aesthetics

• Cynthia Willett, Irony in the Age of Empire: Comic Perspectives on Democracy and Freedom, Reviewed by Bernard G. Prusak, Villanova University
• Charles O. Nussbaum, The Musical Representation: Meaning, Ontology, and Emotion, Reviewed by Jenefer Robinson, University of Cincinnati
• Dan Flory, Philosophy, Black Film, Film Noir, Reviewed by Angela Curran, Carleton College

Philosophers & History of Philosophy

• Anthony Kenny, From Empedocles to Wittgenstein: Historical Essays in Philosophy, Reviewed by Owen Goldin, Marquette University
• W. J. Mander, The Philosophy of John Norris, Reviewed by Lawrence Nolan, Marquette University, and June Yang, Grossmont College
• Michel Foucault, Introduction à l’Anthropologie (published in one volume with Foucault’s translation of Emmanuel Kant’s Anthropologie d’un point de vue pragmatique), Reviewed by Béatrice Han-Pile, University of Essex
• Oliver Feltham, Alain Badiou: Live Theory, Reviewed by Todd May, Clemson University
• S. J. McGrath, Heidegger: A (Very) Critical Introduction, Reviewed by Charles Guignon, University of South Florida
• M. Jamie Ferreira, Kierkegaard, Reviewed by Edward F. Mooney, Syracuse University
• Jeremy Wanderer, Robert Brandom Reviewed by Christopher Gauker, University of Cincinnati
• Catherine Wilson, Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity, Reviewed by Margaret J. Osler, University of Calgary

Philosophy of Science

• Stephan Hartmann, Carl Hoefer, Luc Bovens (eds.), Nancy Cartwright’s Philosophy of Science, Reviewed by Mathias Frisch, University of Maryland, College Park
• Bas C. van Fraassen, Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective, Reviewed by Gabriele Contessa, Carleton University

Philosophy of Literature

• Peter Lamarque, The Philosophy of Literature, Reviewed by Robert J. Yanal, Wayne State University

Asian Philosophy

• Karyn L. Lai, An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy, Reviewed by Manyul Im, Fairfield University
• Mengzi, Bryan W. Van Norden (trans.), Mengzi: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries, Reviewed by Hui-chieh Loy, National University of Singapore
• Lin Ma, Heidegger on East-West Dialogue: Anticipating the Event, Reviewed by Eric Sean Nelson, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Philosophy of Religion

• Paul K. Moser (ed.), Jesus and Philosophy: New Essays, Reviewed by Michael Rea, University of Notre Dame
• Richard Swinburne, Was Jesus God?, Reviewed by Phillip Wiebe, Trinity Western University

Good morning, readers!

Last week, we received the latest issue of the European Journal of Philosophy — European Journal of Philosophy 16(3) December 2008 — which has a symposium on Joseph Raz, among other things.

Here is the Table of Contents:

Symposium on Joseph Raz

• Respecting Value, Mark Eli Kalderon
• The Myth of Practical Consistency, Niko Kolodny
  
• Rationalism about Obligation, David Owens

Article

• Rules, Regression and the ‘Background’: Dreyfus, Heidegger and McDowell, Denis McManus

Review Articles

• Nihilism and the Affirmation of Life: A Review of and Dialogue with Bernard Reginster, Ken Gemes
• Ricoeur on Recognition, Robert R. Williams

Reviews

• Recognition and Power: Axel Honneth and the Tradition of Critical Social Theory, edited by Bert van den Brink and David Owen, Robin Celikates
• Post-Analytic Tractatus, edited by Barry Stocker, Oskari Kuusela

Also arrived last week — the latest issue of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy – Canadian Journal of Philosophy 38(2) June 2008 — here is its Table of Contents:

• Two Models of Equality and Responsibility, Michael Blake, and Mathias Risse
• Material Constitution and the Many-Many Problem, Robert A. Wilson
• Husserl on Sensation, Perception, and Interpretation, Walter Hopp
• Leibniz’s Theory of Universal Expression Explicated, Ari Maunu
• Informative Identities in the Begriffsschrift and ‘On Sense and Reference’, Imogen Dickie
• Analysis, Schmanalysis, Stephen Petersen

Both issues are currently online.  As always, you’ll need your Harvard ID and PIN to access these articles.

Enjoy!

Good morning, readers!

Here are the September reviews from Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

Are any of these items which we should add to the Robbins collection?

Aesthetics

• Kendall L. Walton, Marvelous Images: On Values and the Arts, Reviewed by Scott Walden, Nassau Community College
• David Davies, Aesthetics and Literature, Reviewed by Eileen John, University of Warwick

Epistemology

• Jens Harbecke, Mental Causation: Investigating the Mind’s Powers in a Natural World, Reviewed by David Robb, Davidson College

History of Philosophy

• Paul Guyer, Knowledge, Reason, and Taste: Kant’s Response to Hume, Reviewed by Richard N. Manning, University of South Florida
• Delbert Reed. The Origins of Analytic Philosophy: Kant and Frege, Reviewed by Jeremy Heis, University of California, Irvine
• François Cusset, French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States, Reviewed by Ethan Kleinberg, Wesleyan University

Individual Philosophers

• Richard Creath, Michael Friedman (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Carnap, Reviewed by Gregory Lavers, Concordia University, Montreal
• Novalis, David Wood (ed., tr.), Notes for a Romantic Encyclopaedia: Das Allgemeine Brouillon, Reviewed by Jane Kneller, Colorado State University
• Emmanuel Bermon, La Signification et l’enseignement: Texte latin, traduction française et commentaire du De Magistro de saint Augustin, Reviewed by Roland J. Teske, S.J., Marquette University
• Marina McCoy, Plato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and Sophists, Reviewed by Eugene Garver, Saint John’s University
• Oskari Kuusela, The Struggle Against Dogmatism: Wittgenstein and the Concept of Philosophy, Reviewed by Marie McGinn, University of York
• Dorothea Olkowski, Gail Weiss (eds.), Feminist Interpretations of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Reviewed by Gayle Salamon, Princeton University

Metaphysics

• Fred Wilson, Body, Mind and Self in Hume’s Critical Realism, Reviewed by Wade Robison, Rochester Institute of Technology
• Owen Flanagan, The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World, Reviewed by Peter B. M. Vranas, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Moral & Political Philosophy

• John Kleinig, Ethics and Criminal Justice: An Introduction, Reviewed by Douglas Husak, Rutgers University
• Claudia Card, Armen T. Marsoobian (eds.), Genocide’s Aftermath: Responsibility and Repair, Reviewed by John K. Roth, Claremont McKenna College
• Tobias Hoffmann (ed.), Weakness of Will from Plato to the Present, Reviewed by Byron Williston, Wilfrid Laurier University
• Jean Hampton, The Intrinsic Worth of Persons: Contractarianism in Moral and Political Philosophy, Reviewed by Matt Matravers, University of York
• A. W. Price, Contextuality in Practical Reason, Reviewed by Tim Henning, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena

Philosophy of Mathematics

• Michael Roubach, Being and Number in Heidegger’s Thought, Reviewed by Stephan Käufer, Franklin & Marshall College

Philosophy of Physics

• Robert DiSalle, Understanding Space-Time: The Philosophical Development of Physics from Newton to Einstein, Reviewed by Carl Hoefer, ICREA/Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Good morning, readers, and welcome back after the Labor Day holiday weekend!

A short administrative update: I will be in tomorrow, as my plans have changed.

Now, for our main attraction: here are the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews from August 2008.  Should any of these be added to the Robbins collection?

Epistemology

• Jeffrey Blustein, The Moral Demands of Memory, Reviewed by Sue Campbell, Dalhousie University
• Yujin Nagasawa, God and Phenomenal Consciousness: A Novel Approach to Knowledge Arguments, Reviewed by Uwe Meixner, University of Regensburg
• Sanford C. Goldberg (ed.), Internalism and Externalism in Semantics and Epistemology, Reviewed by Hanseung Kim, University of Seoul
• Simone Gozzano, Francesco Orilia (eds.), Tropes, Universals and the Philosophy of Mind: Essays at the Boundary of Ontology and Philosophical Psychology, Reviewed by Keith Campbell, University of Sydney

History of Philosophy

• Christian Lotz, From Affectivity to Subjectivity: Husserl’s Phenomenology Revisited, Reviewed by A. D. Smith, University of Warwick
• Samantha Frost, Lessons from a Materialist Thinker: Hobbesian Reflections on Ethics and Politics, Reviewed by Stewart Duncan, University of Florida
• Johann Georg Hamann, Writings on Philosophy and Language, Reviewed by Ted Kinnaman, George Mason University
• Douglas Hedley, Sarah Hutton (eds.), Platonism at the Origins of Modernity: Studies on Platonism and Early Modern Philosophy, Reviewed by Eric Schliesser, Leiden University
• William F. Bristow, Hegel and the Transformation of Philosophical Critique, Reviewed by Paul Franks, University of Toronto
• Allen Speight, The Philosophy of Hegel, Reviewed by Mark Alznauer, Sweet Briar College
• James Hankins (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy, Reviewed by E. Jennifer Ashworth, University of Waterloo
• Keith Green, Bertrand Russell, Language and Linguistic Theory, Reviewed by Bernard Linsky, University of Alberta
• Santiago Zabala, The Hermeneutic Nature of Analytic Philosophy: A Study of Ernst Tugendhat, Reviewed by Robert Sokolowski, The Catholic University of America
• Francis J. Ambrosio, Dante and Derrida: Face to Face, Reviewed by Donald G. Marshall, Pepperdine University

Philosophy of Law

• Douglas Husak, Overcriminalization: The Limits of the Criminal Law, Reviewed by John Gardner, University College, Oxford
• Douglas E. Edlin (ed.), Common Law Theory, Reviewed by W.J. Waluchow, McMaster University

Philosophy of Science

• Steve Fuller, Science v. Religion? Intelligent Design and the Problem of Evolution, Reviewed by Sahotra Sarkar, University of Texas at Austin
• Michael Ruse, Charles Darwin, Reviewed by Bruce Weber, California State University, Fullerton/Bennington College

Philosophy of Religion

• Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, Reviewed by Michael L. Morgan, Indiana University

Metaphysics

• Peter van Inwagen, Dean Zimmerman (eds.), Persons: Human and Divine, Reviewed by William R. Carter, North Carolina State University
• Laird Addis, Ontology and Explanation: Collected Papers, Reviewed by Katalin Farkas, Central European University, Budapest

Historiography

• Jonathan Gorman, Historical Judgement: The Limits of Historiographical Choice, Reviewed by Paul A. Roth, University of California, Santa Cruz

Moral & Political Philosophy

• Robert B. Talisse, A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy, Reviewed by David Hildebrand, University of Colorado Denver
• Larry May, Aggression and Crimes Against Peace, Reviewed by Douglas Lackey, Baruch College/Graduate Center, CUNY

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.