Brian Leiter has an interesting (but I think wrongheaded) discussion of analytic philosophy on his blog. I think he confuses a particular program or conception of analytic philosophy with analytic philosophy itself. I’m an analytic philosopher. This means that, unlike certain other philosophers, I care about clarifying (rather than obscuring) concepts, arguments, and methods. Philosophy is a second-order discipline, a discipline about disciplines (as well as practices, professions, and institutions). Philosophy is not science. Nor is it continuous with science. It occupies a different logical order from science. Analytic philosophers, to use John Locke’s quaint terms, are Under-Labourers, not Master Builders.
I, for one, am not committed to the idea that there are necessary and sufficient conditions for every concept. Some concepts succumb to this type of treatment; some don’t. The analytic philosopher examines the concept in question to see how it behaves. He or she comes to the task with no preconceptions or assumptions about what will be discovered. For Leiter to say (or imply) that analytic philosophy is “defunct” is to mischaracterize the field and, I am afraid, marginalize those of us who consider ourselves analytic philosophers but do not buy into particular (defunct?) research programs.
For those who wish to understand analytic philosophy, read the following essay by one of its ablest practitioners: Alan R. White, “Conceptual Analysis,” chap. 5 in The Owl of Minerva: Philosophers on Philosophy, ed. Charles J. Bontempo and S. Jack Odell (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1975), 103-17. Some of the material in this essay appears in Alan R. White, Grounds of Liability: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985).
Cold, wet weather has pushed its way into Fort Worth, bringing relief from the unseasonable heat. It makes running more pleasant, or at least less onerous. While running a few minutes ago (just 3.1 miles today), I noticed dozens of vehicles going toward and away from Handley Middle School. This occurs twice a day: morning and afternoon. Why are kids not walking to and from school? One mile is nothing. A middle-school child could cover a mile in twenty minutes, easily. Even two miles is not too far for an eight- to twelve-year-old child, backpack or no.
Every week we see another report about the skyrocketing rate of obesity in this country. The rate of obesity among children is supposedly higher than among people generally. Do parents care about the health of their children? What better way to exercise their children than to require them to walk to and from school? There are sidewalks throughout the neighborhoods. I’ve heard of no abductions or accidents in the ten years I’ve lived in Fort Worth. Parents need to stop pampering their children. A little rain, cold, or heat never hurt a child. Walking home alone or in the company of other students teaches a child responsibility and discipline. Even if there were no health benefits to walking, which of course there are, it would be a good idea. Among other benefits, it would reduce vehicular traffic, and therefore smog.
Does anyone know why parents are so indulgent? Is it that they themselves are lazy, and can’t imagine walking more than a few feet? (I think here of people who wait ten minutes or more for a parking spot in a shopping center to avoid having to walk an extra fifty feet.) This will mark me as an old fogey, but in my day, we thought nothing of walking five miles to town (and five back) to play a Little League or Pony League baseball game. There’s also this thing called a bicycle. I have no idea why kids don’t ride bikes to school. Okay, that’s my rant for the day. As you were.