The American Philosopher: Conversations with Quine, Davidson, Putnam, Nozick, Danto, Rorty, Cavell, MacIntyre, Kuhn

by Giovanna Borradori, Rosanna Crocitto (Translator)

In this lively look at current debates in American philosophy, leading philosophers talk candidly about the changing character of their discipline. In the spirit of Emerson's The American Scholar , this book explores the identity of the American philosopher. Through informal conversations, the participants discuss the rise of post-analytic philosophy in America and its relations to European thought and to the American pragmatist tradition. They comment on their own intellectual development as well as each others' work, charting the course of American philosophy over the past few decades.

Giovanna Borradori, in her substantial introduction, explains the history of the analytic movement in America and the home-grown reaction against it. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American philosophy was a socially engaged interdisciplinary enterprise. In transcendentalism and pragmatism, then the dominant currents in American thought, philosophy was connected to history, psychology, and public issues. But in the 1930s, the imported European movement of logical positivism redefined philosophical discourse in terms of mathematical logic and theory of language. Under the influence of this analytic view, American philosophy became a professionalized discipline, divorced from public debate and intellectual history and antagonistic to the other, more humanistic tradition of continental thought.

The American Philosopher explores the opposition between analytic and continental thought and shows how recent American work has begun to bridge the gap between the two traditions. Through a reexamination of pragmatism, and through an attempt to understand philosophy in a more hermeneutical way, the participants narrow the distance between America's distinctly scientific philosophy and Europe's more literary approach.

Moving beyond classical analytic philosophy, the participants confront each other on a number of topics. The logico-linguistic orientations of Quine and Davidson come up against the more discursive, interdisciplinary agendas of Rorty, Putnam, and Cavell. Nozick's theory of pluralist anarchism goes face-to-face with the aesthetic neo-foundationalism of Danto. And Kuhn's hypothesis of paradigm shifts is measured against MacIntyre's ethics of "virtues."

Borradori's conversations offer an unconventional portrait of the way philosophers think about their work; scholars and students will not be its only beneficiaries, so will everyone who wonders about the current state of American philosophy.

Genres: Philosophy

177 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Owlseyes · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I believe that the only strictly American line [of thought] is pragmatism"
Donald Davidson

What's so distinctive about "American philosophy"? Mind you, many of those interviewed in the book have European roots, both from training and/or family.

Nine dialogues which Borradori assembled in her "cahiers de voyage" while travelling across America to meet with them: some of the most remarkable philosophers of 20th century America.

Yes, how many were left out?

The author had found incomprehension between the two sides of the Atlantic, and different orientations. Whereas the French take reference in Structuralism and the Heideggerian ontological difference, and the Italians elaborated upon Heidegger and Nietzsche, the Americans traditional ground for thought is analytical philosophy. Within the American philosophy, especially for those interviewed, Borradori found 3 authors (Putnam, Davidson and Quine) with a distinct logical-linguistic orientation, while the others have more interdisciplinary and discursive lines of thought.

Her trips in America demanded a new cartography of the American philosophical culture.

According to Borradori, the analytical movement became hostile to the European/continental thought, especially towards any form of "historical-literary" erudition.

And yet, about those excluded, she takes care mentioning some: Nelson Goodman, Saul Kripka, Barry Stroud, Bas Van Fraassen, Jerry Fodor, Joseph Margolis, Richard J. Bernstein, Robert Feyerabend, Ian Hacking, John Rawls; but also, Noam Chomsky and John Searle.


Notes on Willard Quine

Trained in part in Europe (namely in Austria and the Vienna circle) Quine would say [German] Carnap was his only and true "maître a penser". His internship had started in 1933 in Vienna. After 1932 he couldn't avoid reading the papers. In 1938 he was in Portugal and couldn’t stand it anymore: the depravity of Nazism. Quine wondered why the USA didn’t join the war earlier. He enlisted the Navy for 3 years (he read not a single line on Logic or Philosophy throughout).

"Language is a social art. In acquiring it we have to depend entirely on intersubjectively available cues as to what to say and when."

In 1951 he produced a paper called “The 2 dogmas of empiricism” which is regarded as an attack on empiricism. By 1960 he published his famous work “Word and Object”. He had read John Watson (the behaviorist psychologist) and had associated with B.F. Skinner, a psychologist too. This friendship was important for the development of his theory on Language learning. Quine was pro philosophical holism. He saw himself as a “mechanophobe” and a “Logic navigator”.

Notes on Donald Davidson

Davidson had a thesis on Filebo, by Plato. He tried a deconstruction of the “analytical language”. Like Quine, Davidson enlisted the Navy. He trained under [British] Alfred North Whitehead.

"There are three basic problems: how a mind can know the world of nature, how it is possible for one mind to know another, and how it is possible to know the contents of our own minds without resort to observation or evidence. It is a mistake, I shall urge, to suppose that these questions can be collapsed into two, or taken into isolation"
in "Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective"

Davidson dealt with the notion of linguistic “intersubjectivity”. Most importantly, beyond the knowledge of the world and self, Davidson highlighted the importance of the knowledge of “what’s inside others minds”. Unlike Quine, he doesn’t believe in the unity of science; and, to him, Psychoanalysis is not science.

Notes on Hilary Putnam

Born in Chicago in 1926, Putnam acknowledged that he let himself get involved in political engagement (over the Vietnam war, in the 1960’s). He meant participating in the “Students for a Democratic Society”. A member of a Maoist group.

“My alma mater was the University of Pennsylvania. The first teacher who really influenced me there was a pragmatist. His is an interesting story. His name was C. West Churchman”
(interview).

Later in life he assured he was neither a Marxist, nor a Maoist. He’d approach moral objectivity rather than Epistemology. His best German philosopher was Habermas: “a global thinker”.

Notes on Robert Nozick

Born in Brooklyn, to a Jewish-Russian family, Nozick had a broad range of interests, namely about the Orient and especially about Indian Philosophy.
He was a libertarian, and his major book "Anarchy, State and Utopia" (1974)" was somehow appropriated by the New Right as it versed on inalienable (natural) rights and envisioned a minor role for the state. Unlike Fourier's anarchy (communitarianism), Nozick aligned more with the Bakunin's and Thoreau's individual anarchism. That book was a bit of a counter point to the book of John Rawls "The Theory of Justice" (legitimizing the welfare state position)

"Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do. How much room do individual rights leave for the state?"

Nozick never wanted to become an analytical philosopher. His master had been [German] Carl Hempel. His other book, "The examined Life", took him one year to write down, while in Rome. It approached issues in a non-coercive way, so to speak. Some called him an "intellectual explorer". Adam and Dyson's "50 major political thinkers" include Nozick.

[Marco · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good overview of some of the most important American philosophers, approaching questions such as the mythical Analytic-Continental Divide and the absence of a single, well-defined American philosophical tradition.

The interviews follow a clear pattern, but vary in quality: Borradori is at her best when talking to authors who are more open to alien philosophical traditions, especially Nozick, but some interviews are underwhelming, especially the chapter on Quine. Still, this book is a worthy read for those who want to understand the differences and points of convergence between the American and Continental approaches to philosophy.

The Brazilian Portuguese translation is, at its best, full of writing tics that one might associate with Arthur C. Clarke's definition of an intellectual. At its worse, it is quite bad, mangling terms of the trade. Avoid the Brazilian edition, if possible.

[Kamakana · Rating 3 out of 5]

130811: exactly as the title says. already an historical document: my copy is 94. gives me new focus on who to read, in america- thoreau, emerson, dewey, rorty. in european- foucault, nietzsche...

[Jere · Rating 5 out of 5]

a very good read for anyone interested in the figure of the american philosopher the nature of the analytic-continental split.