Social and political concepts are indispensable yet historically and culturally variable in a way that poses a challenge: how can we reconcile confident commitment to them with awareness of their contingency? In this article, we argue that available responses to this problem—Foundationalism, Ironism, and Right Wittgensteinianism—are unsatisfactory. Instead, we draw on the work of Bernard Williams to tease out and develop a Left Wittgensteinian response. In present-day pluralistic and historically self-conscious societies, mere confidence in our concepts is not enough. For (...) modern individuals who are ineluctably aware of conceptual change, engaged concept-use requires reasonable confidence, and in the absence of rational foundations, the possibility of reasonable confidence is tied to the possibility of critically discriminating between conceptual practices worth endorsing and those worth rejecting. We show that Left Wittgensteinianism offers such a basis for critical discrimination through point-based explanations of conceptual practices which relate them to the needs of concept-users. We end by considering how Left Wittgensteinianism guides our understanding of how conceptual practices can be revised in the face of new needs. (shrink)

In 1911, Bergson visited Britain for a number of lectures which led to his increasing popularity. Russell personally encountered Bergson during his lecture at University College London on the 28th of October, and on the 30th of October Bergson attended one of Russell’s lectures. Russell went on to write a number of critical articles on Bergson, contributing to the hundreds of publications on Bergson which ensued following these lectures. Russell’s critical writings have been seen as part of a history of (...) controversies between so-called ‘Continental’ and ‘Analytic’ philosophers in the twentieth century. Yet Russell’s engagement with Bergson’s thought comes as a response to a particular British form of Bergsonism and is involved with the wider phenomenon of the British import of Bergsonism (by figures connected in different ways to Russell, such as Hulme, Wildon Carr or Eliot). Though this may challenge the view of Russell and Bergson as enacting an early version of the ‘Analytic’-‘Continental’ divide, there are however some particular characterisations of Bergson by Russell which contribute to the subsequent formation of the ‘rotten scene’ (Glendinning 2006: 69) of the divide in the second half of the twentieth century. (shrink)

In recent years, philosophers have used expressions of Wittgenstein’s (e.g. “language-games,” “form of life,” and “family resemblance”) in attempts to conceive of the discipline of philosophy in a broad, open, and perhaps global way. These Wittgenstein-inspired approaches indicate an awareness of the importance of cultural and historical diversity for approaching philosophical questions. While some philosophers have taken inspiration from Wittgenstein in embracing contextualism in philosophical hermeneutics, Wittgenstein himself was more instrumental than contextual in his treatment of other philosophers; his focus (...) in his writings was on his own philosophical problems. Does this mean that Wittgensteinian philosophy is a poor resource after all for comparative, cross-cultural, or globally-engaged philosophy (i.e. if it is properly Wittgensteinian)? In this article, I examine the relevance of Wittgenstein to contextually-sensitive philosophy through studies of his conceptions of history and culture, his interest in Spengler’s philosophy of history, and recent scholarship by Hans-Johann Glock and Hans Sluga on the place of contextualism in Wittgenstein’s analysis of philosophical problems. Ultimately, this article advances the view that there are strong resources in Wittgenstein’s philosophy for those seeking a more globally-engaged approach to the field. (shrink)

Why did such highly abstract ideas as truth, knowledge, or justice become so important to us? What was the point of coming to think in these terms? This book presents a philosophical method designed to answer such questions: the method of pragmatic genealogy. Pragmatic genealogies are partly fictional, partly historical narratives exploring what might have driven us to develop certain ideas in order to discover what these do for us. The book uncovers an under-appreciated tradition of pragmatic genealogy which cuts (...) across the analytic-continental divide, running from the state-of-nature stories of David Hume and the early genealogies of Friedrich Nietzsche to recent work in analytic philosophy by Edward Craig, Bernard Williams, and Miranda Fricker. However, these genealogies combine fictionalizing and historicizing in ways that even philosophers sympathetic to the use of state-of-nature fictions or real history have found puzzling. To make sense of why both fictionalizing and historicizing are called for, the book offers a systematic account of pragmatic genealogies as dynamic models serving to reverse-engineer the points of ideas in relation not only to near-universal human needs, but also to socio-historically situated needs. This allows the method to offer us explanation without reduction and to help us understand what led our ideas to shed the traces of their practical origins. Far from being normatively inert, moreover, pragmatic genealogy can affect the space of reasons, guiding attempts to improve our conceptual repertoire by helping us determine whether and when our ideas are worth having. (shrink)

Despite the growth in research in philosophy of religion over the past several decades, recent years have seen a number of critical studies of this subfield in an effort to redirect the methods and topics of inquiry. This article argues that in addition to problems of religious parochialism described by critics such as Wesley Wildman, the subfield is facing a problem of relevance. In responding to this problem, it suggests that philosophers of religion should do three things: first, be critically (...) self-aware about their aims of inquiry; second, investigate concepts used by other philosophers, scientists, and religious studies scholars to identify and dispel confusion about religions; and third, following the model of applied ethics, work to clarify concepts and advance arguments of contemporary practical urgency. (shrink)

This article argues for four interrelated claims: Metaphilosophy is not one sub-discipline of philosophy, nor is it restricted to questions of methodology. Rather, metaphilosophical inquiry encompasses the general background conditions of philosophical practice. These background conditions are of various sorts, not only those routinely considered “philosophical” but also those considered biographical, historical, and sociological. Accordingly, we should be wary of the customary distinction between what is proper and merely contingent to philosophy. “What is philosophy?” is best understood as a practical (...) question concerning how members of different philosophical sub-communities identify what is pertinent to their respective activities and self-conceptions. Given –, understanding what philosophy is requires us to take more seriously the social-institutional dimension of contemporary philosophical practice. (shrink)

Que la philosophie ancienne ait bénéficié de certains raffinements méthodologiques dus à la philosophie analytique n’est guère mis en question, même par ceux qui ne s’en réclament pas. À la grande époque de la philosophie analytique, certains de ses meilleurs représentants étaient encore fort versés en histoire de la philosophie et appliquaient leurs compétences analytiques à ce qu’ils considéraient comme des problèmes centraux chez les auteurs anciens. Cet article suggère à travers deux exemples que, s’agissant de Platon, cette attention n’a (...) pas eu seulement des effets revigorants, mais également déformants. Dans le premier cas, la méthode diérétique si chérie de Platon a été marginalisée par d’éminents philosophes analytiques qui l’ont considérée comme triviale et inintéressante. Dans le second cas, le problème de l’« auto‑prédication » des Idées, qui est celui de savoir si les Idées sont des entités qui possèdent les propriétés qu’elles représentent, a été considéré d’une importance décisive pour la théorie platonicienne des Idées. À cause de ses conséquences supposément désastreuses, mentionnées une unique fois dans le Parménide, on a pensé que Platon avait renoncé à cette théorie sous sa forme classique. Au cours des dernières années, l’importance de la méthode diérétique a été réévaluée et celle du problème de l’auto-prédication réduite à de plus justes proportions. Cela ne diminue pas la valeur des contributions des philosophes analytiques à l’étude de Platon, mais signifie seulement qu’elles doivent n’être acceptées qu’avec précaution. (shrink)

This paper discusses Stanley Cavell's approach to the Investigations,focusing upon his essay – `Notes and Afterthoughts on the Opening ofWittgenstein's Investigations'. First, the paper investigates the waysin which Cavell makes central the figure and `voice' of the child to hisreading of the opening of the Investigations. Second, it argues thatCavell's Notes provides a basis for a Wittgensteinian pedagogics,for not only does it hold up the figure of the child as central to the Investigations but it does so in a philosophical (...) style that, thoughdistinctively Cavell's own, comes closest to the spirit of philosophizing inWittgenstein's sense. Third, the paper concludes by discussing the complexvocal and figural structure of the Investigations which serves tohighlight different aspects of the figure of the child and the child's `voice'. (shrink)

There is no such thing as , conceived as a special discipline with its own distinctive subject matter or peculiar method. But there is an analytic task for philosophy that distinguishes it from other reflective pursuits, a global or synoptic commission: to establish whether the final outputs of other disciplines and common sense can be fused into a single periscopic vision of the Universe. And there is the hard-won insight that thought and language aren't transparent but stand in need of (...) analysis an insight that threatens to be lost once philosophers appeal to intuitions. (shrink)

In recent years Duncan Kennedy has turned to the question, what is Contemporary Legal Thought? For the most part, his answers have focused on the modes of legal argument he believes are indigenous to Contemporary Legal Thought in the United States, and possibly, at a transnational or global level as well. In this article, I bracket the question of content and ask instead, if we are interested in exploring the category of a legal ‘contemporary’, how do we do so? What (...) historiographic methods are well-suited to the task of constituting ‘Contemporary Legal Thought’? My focus here is entirely on legal structuralism, the historical method I associate with Kennedy’s work beginning in the 1970s. By the mid-1980s, legal structuralism was under assault and quickly fading from the repertoire of available styles of doing history on the left. By the turn of the century, legal structuralism appeared to have vanished. I think that this was regrettable and unnecessary, and in this article I argue for a return to structuralist historiography. I do not pretend, however, that this return entails a second coming of the totalizing, originary center. Rather, I encourage thinking about legal structuralism in the way that I understand Roland Barthes, Hayden White, and to a large extent Duncan Kennedy himself to have thought about it: as a style. And as a style, legal structuralism is worth reawakening, a style back in style once more. (shrink)

In recent years Duncan Kennedy has turned to the question, what is Contemporary Legal Thought? For the most part, his answers have focused on the modes of legal argument he believes are indigenous to Contemporary Legal Thought in the United States, and possibly, at a transnational or global level as well. In this article, I bracket the question of content and ask instead, if we are interested in exploring the category of a legal ‘contemporary’, how do we do so? What (...) historiographic methods are well-suited to the task of constituting ‘Contemporary Legal Thought’? My focus here is entirely on legal structuralism, the historical method I associate with Kennedy’s work beginning in the 1970s. By the mid-1980s, legal structuralism was under assault and quickly fading from the repertoire of available styles of doing history on the left. By the turn of the century, legal structuralism appeared to have vanished. I think that this was regrettable and unnecessary, and in this article I argue for a return to structuralist historiography. I do not pretend, however, that this return entails a second coming of the totalizing, originary center. Rather, I encourage thinking about legal structuralism in the way that I understand Roland Barthes, Hayden White, and to a large extent Duncan Kennedy himself to have thought about it: as a style. And as a style, legal structuralism is worth reawakening, a style back in style once more. (shrink)

The present paper aims at highlighting some of the main characteristics of a descriptive contextual approach to philosophy. Descriptive, in the sense that it centers not on the question of what philosophy should be, but on what philosophy is, has been, or may be. And contextual, in the sense that it treats philosophy as human praxis situated in and interacting with certain social and historical settings. In order to develop such an account, we engage closely with Kuhn’s paradigm-centered contextual approach (...) to science and examine, following Rorty, how it could be regarded in connection to philosophy. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of two concrete cases to which such an approach may be applied, the division between analytic and continental philosophy at the level of philosophical traditions, and the case of Wittgenstein’s life and thought at the level of individual philosophers. (shrink)