{"id":6710,"date":"2016-01-21T14:44:01","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T14:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/01\/21\/susan-haack-on-the-fragmentation-of-philosophy-and-the-road-to-reintegration\/"},"modified":"2016-01-21T14:44:01","modified_gmt":"2016-01-21T14:44:01","slug":"susan-haack-on-the-fragmentation-of-philosophy-and-the-road-to-reintegration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/01\/21\/susan-haack-on-the-fragmentation-of-philosophy-and-the-road-to-reintegration\/","title":{"rendered":"Susan Haack on the Fragmentation of Philosophy and the Road to Reintegration"},"content":{"rendered":"

An easy-to-read power point presentation<\/a> with plenty of pictures. <\/span><\/p>\n

Haack rightly laments hyperprofessionalization and overspecialization in philosophy  as well as the detachment of philosophy from its own history.  Compare my Kripke's Misrepresentation of Meinong<\/a>.  Fragmentation leads to hermeticism and ahistoricism.  True enough.  But then she claims that the cause of fragmentation is academic opportunism.  This is not quite right since it ignores a legitimate motive for professionalization and specialization, namely, the realization that a necessary but insufficient condition for progress in philosophy is very careful and rigorous work on well-defined issues, with all the preliminary spadework that that requires. <\/span><\/p>\n

The main problem with what she proposes is that it is naive.  She  thinks that interdisciplinary work will lead to progress in philosophy.  That won't happen.  All that will happen is a proliferation of wild and woolly syntheses and "fusions" at odds with one another.<\/span><\/p>\n

And we should not forget that Haack's metaphilosophical proposals are themselves just more philosophy,  just more fodder for controversy.  Her colleagues won't (most of them) say, "You're right Professor Haack, let's get going on some interdisciplinary projects."  They will ague with her as I am doing now, and some of them with arguments different from mine.<\/span><\/p>\n

Serious work in philosophy as in other disciplines must be technical:  careful, precise, rigorous, respectful of logical niceties and subtle distinctions.  It is not done well in isolation but with the help and criticism of epistemic peers.  This is what leads to professionalization and the institutionalization of philosophy which are obviously good up to a point and a necessary but not sufficient condition for philosophical progress.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the incredible proliferation of journals, conferences, philosophy departments along with the intense efforts of the best and the brightest have failed to place philosophy on the "sure path of science" to borrow Kant's phrase.  Intellectual honesty demands that we admit that no real progress has been made in philosophy hitherto and that is an excellent induction that none will be made in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the bind we are in.  I don't see how an interdisciplinary turn could help.<\/span><\/p>\n

Other Haack posts: <\/span><\/p>\n

Genuine Inquiry and Two Forms of Pseudo-Inquiry<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Philosophy Profession in Thrall of Dreadful Rankings<\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n

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An easy-to-read power point presentation with plenty of pictures.  Haack rightly laments hyperprofessionalization and overspecialization in philosophy  as well as the detachment of philosophy from its own history.  Compare my Kripke's Misrepresentation of Meinong.  Fragmentation leads to hermeticism and ahistoricism.  True enough.  But then she claims that the cause of fragmentation is academic opportunism.  This … Continue reading “Susan Haack on the Fragmentation of Philosophy and the Road to Reintegration”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-metaphilosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}