分析哲学与欧陆哲学大众对哲学的常见误解？
作者：Brain Leiter
摘自《The Future for Philosophy》，Brian Leiter编
Philosophy: Reality and Popular Myths
If real philosophy, then, as portrayed in the essays in this volume, is less familiar to readers and scholars outside the field, the explanation is, in part, that a handful of philosophers who have, in recent years, reached a wide audience outside the discipline have generally done a poor job representing the actual state of affairs. Richard Rorty is both the best-known and worst offender on this score-his depictions of philosophy are widely regarded by philosophers as shameless fabrications"-but even more sober-minded philosophers like the late Bernard Williams have played a role in giving non-philosophers a skewed perception of what philosophers are doing.
Other myths about philosophy have been put in to circulation by the media, which often take their cues about philosophy, regrettably, from non-philosophers.
The net result has been that the educated reader these days is likely to have been exposed to all the following (not even consistent!) myths about philosophy:
(1) Postmodernism-that is, far-reaching skepticism about the objectivity of morality, truth, knowledge, and science-is now triumphant in philosophy.
(2) We have reached the "end of philosophy"-the consequence of quietismthanks to the pervasive influence of figures like Wittgenstein and Heidegger, and their contemporary interpreters like Rorty.
(3) Those remaining benighted "professors" of philosophy-the remaining few who have evaded postmodernism and Wittgenstein-are now so hopelessly "technical" and "professionalized" that their work is inaccessible and irrelevant to ordinary people; they thus betray the philosophical tradition which spoke to the immediate concerns of all reflective, educated people.
These three myths, as the reader may now recognize, manage to stand reality on its head. Postmodernism is non-existent in all the leading philosophy departments throughout the English-speaking world, where it is regarded, with justice,101 as sophomoric skeptical posturing. (It is surely a scandal that postmodernism is so often presented in the popular media as a dominant force in the academy, when it is almost completely irrelevant not only to philosophy, but also to economics, physics, classics, mathematics, cognitive psychology, most of sociology, physical anthropology, linguistics, biology, most of political science [rational choice theory, comparative politics, etc.], law, medicine-in other words, the vast majority of university disciplines!)"'. The quietistic influence of Wittgenstein and Heidegger has been pervasive only among those with little knowledge of philosophy; among philosophers, as noted, quietism has been a decidedly minority posture. The non-quietistic philosophers-the naturalists and otherwise-take up precisely the kinds of questions that have occupied the major historical figures, in many cases back to antiquity: the objectivity of moral judgement, the nature of reality, the relationship between mind and body, the character of the just society and the good life, and so on. It is true, to be sure, that philosophy is now a "profession" just like psychology, linguistics, sociology, physics, and mathematics-and it is also true that the discipline is often technical and unintelligible to the lay person. But only a complete ignorance of the history of philosophy could lead anyone to think that this supports a special complaint about contemporary philosophy: Leibniz, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger, among many other "greats", are also technical and obscure to the lay person.Yet no one, other than teenagers and anti-intellectuals, consider this an objection to their philosophy. As Timothy Williamson trenchantly puts it in his essay: "Impatience with the long haul of technical reflection is a form of shallowness, often thinly disguised by histrionic advocacy of depth. Serious philosophy is always likely to bore those with short attention-spans."
摘自《The Future for Philosophy》，Brian Leiter编
Philosophy: Reality and Popular Myths
If real philosophy, then, as portrayed in the essays in this volume, is less familiar to readers and scholars outside the field, the explanation is, in part, that a handful of philosophers who have, in recent years, reached a wide audience outside the discipline have generally done a poor job representing the actual state of affairs. Richard Rorty is both the best-known and worst offender on this score-his depictions of philosophy are widely regarded by philosophers as shameless fabrications"-but even more sober-minded philosophers like the late Bernard Williams have played a role in giving non-philosophers a skewed perception of what philosophers are doing.
Other myths about philosophy have been put in to circulation by the media, which often take their cues about philosophy, regrettably, from non-philosophers.
The net result has been that the educated reader these days is likely to have been exposed to all the following (not even consistent!) myths about philosophy:
(1) Postmodernism-that is, far-reaching skepticism about the objectivity of morality, truth, knowledge, and science-is now triumphant in philosophy.
(2) We have reached the "end of philosophy"-the consequence of quietismthanks to the pervasive influence of figures like Wittgenstein and Heidegger, and their contemporary interpreters like Rorty.
(3) Those remaining benighted "professors" of philosophy-the remaining few who have evaded postmodernism and Wittgenstein-are now so hopelessly "technical" and "professionalized" that their work is inaccessible and irrelevant to ordinary people; they thus betray the philosophical tradition which spoke to the immediate concerns of all reflective, educated people.
These three myths, as the reader may now recognize, manage to stand reality on its head. Postmodernism is non-existent in all the leading philosophy departments throughout the English-speaking world, where it is regarded, with justice,101 as sophomoric skeptical posturing. (It is surely a scandal that postmodernism is so often presented in the popular media as a dominant force in the academy, when it is almost completely irrelevant not only to philosophy, but also to economics, physics, classics, mathematics, cognitive psychology, most of sociology, physical anthropology, linguistics, biology, most of political science [rational choice theory, comparative politics, etc.], law, medicine-in other words, the vast majority of university disciplines!)"'. The quietistic influence of Wittgenstein and Heidegger has been pervasive only among those with little knowledge of philosophy; among philosophers, as noted, quietism has been a decidedly minority posture. The non-quietistic philosophers-the naturalists and otherwise-take up precisely the kinds of questions that have occupied the major historical figures, in many cases back to antiquity: the objectivity of moral judgement, the nature of reality, the relationship between mind and body, the character of the just society and the good life, and so on. It is true, to be sure, that philosophy is now a "profession" just like psychology, linguistics, sociology, physics, and mathematics-and it is also true that the discipline is often technical and unintelligible to the lay person. But only a complete ignorance of the history of philosophy could lead anyone to think that this supports a special complaint about contemporary philosophy: Leibniz, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger, among many other "greats", are also technical and obscure to the lay person.Yet no one, other than teenagers and anti-intellectuals, consider this an objection to their philosophy. As Timothy Williamson trenchantly puts it in his essay: "Impatience with the long haul of technical reflection is a form of shallowness, often thinly disguised by histrionic advocacy of depth. Serious philosophy is always likely to bore those with short attention-spans."
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