« Metamorphosis | Main | Blackboard Tiles »
March 06, 2008
The Philosophy of Philosophy
Amazon unexpectedly coughed up an official copy of Williamson's new book today. We had a reading group on it here at Wash U, so I've read a version of it already, but this made me smile:
In this case study, our interest in giving a clear and critically reflective answer to a simple, non-technical, non-metalinguistic, non-metaconceptual question forced us to adjudicate between complex, technical, metalinguistic and metaconceptual theories. This phenomenon seems to have been overlooked by those who complain about the "arid" technical minuteness of much of philosophy in the analytic tradition. A question may be easy to ask, but hard to answer. Even if it is posed in dramatic and accessible terms, the reflections needed to select rationally between rival answers may be less dramatic and accessible. Such contrasts are commonplace in other disciplines; it would have been amazing if they had not occurred in philosophy. Impatience with the long haul of technical reflection is form of shallowness, often thinly disguised by histrionic advocacy of depth. Serious philosophy is always likely to bore those with short attention spans.
I think I might have to read that out in my philosophy of language class today.
Posted by logican at March 6, 2008 12:40 PM
Trackback Pings
The trackback address for this entry is:
http://www.logicandlanguage.net/trakbak.cgi/187