Analytic philosophy

[Robert Peter Burns <rburns@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I was reasonably happy with Justin Schwartz's response to McInerny on the
meaning of "empiricism", especially as I said basically the same thing to
our aussie friend a couple of months back off-list.  The Cook's Tour of
analytic philosophy was useful too.  But I noticed that one name that
didn't make it into the list of major names (Quine, Davidson, Dummett,
Sellars, Putnam, etc) was that of Saul Kripke.  This is a serious
omission, though I think I know why Justin managed to forget him.  Another
significant omission was Strawson.  Another was John McDowell.  Another
was Thomas Nagel.  Seems there is a pattern here.  Tolerant, broad,
anti-reductionist naturalism or anti-scientism doesn't get much of a
look-in.  (Davidson and Putnam, of course, are hard to categorize here
'cos you never know what they are going to say next). Justin was fairer in
an earlier post when he said that analytic philosophy as such is not tied
to any substantive position in philosophy.  There are defenders of
everything from Platonism on down writing in the analytic mode.  I'm a bit
of an Aristotelian myself.

Peter
rburns@xxxxxxxxxxx
PS--Justin, does believing in God automatically disqualify one
from being a good philosopher <see your remark re Penrose the
physicist>?  Doesn't this rule out most of the 'great' Western
philosophers, not to mention Dummett and van Fraassen?


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