After Philosophy : Introduction

1. After Philosophy: Introduction Ron Chrisley COGS/Informatics, University of Sussex Consciousness Studies Programme University of Skövde

2. The Crisis In Philosophy:The pre and post collide in Kant Plato Descartes Locke Berkeley Mill Hegel Hume IMMANUEL KANT: Critique of Pure Reason Marx Darwin Nietzsche Frege??? Freud Heidegger & Wittgenstein

3. 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

4. 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

5. Dispute 3: Knowledge POST: PRE: • Representational • Independent world • Conceptualised given • Independent subject • Ding an sich • Articulable • Full grasp • Full self-control • Non- • No sharp S/O divide • Pre-interpreted • Part of world • Hermeneutic circle • Un-articulable back/ground • None or partial • None or partial

6. Dispute 4: Method POST: PRE: • Logic • Literal • Logos • Argument • Rhetoric • Figurative • Mythos • Narrative • 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.

7. Post- Responses 1 • 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"). 2 2 3 3

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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!

11. 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?)