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>From: zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.tech,alt.postmodern,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Heidegger
Message-ID: <1991Dec5.183822.6196@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 5 Dec 91 23:38:19 GMT
References: <198612@tiger.oxy.edu>
Organization: Dept. of Math, Harvard Univ.
Lines: 181
Nntp-Posting-Host: zariski.harvard.edu

In article <198612@tiger.oxy.edu> 
rooney@oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney) writes:

>In article <1991Nov30.111458.6007@husc3.harvard.edu>,
>zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

JMC: [John McCarthy]
>>>1. The difference between analytic philosophy and "continental"
>>>philosophy is worldwide.  There are analytic philosophers in
>>>continental Europe also.

MZ:
>>Correction: there are logicians and semioticians.
>>
>>Aside from Paul Ricoeur, a borderline case, whom would you classify
>>as a Continental analytic philosopher?

MSR:
>      Currently?  How about Francois Recanti (_Les enonces performatifs_),
>or Francis Jacques (_Dialogiques_)?  Or if they are mere "semioticians",
>then perhaps Denis Zaslawsky, whose _Analyse de l'etre_ is subtitled
>"an essay in analytical philosophy"?  Still not satisfied?  Try the most
>outspoken of French analytic philosophers, Jacques Bourveresse (and a
>Wittgensteinian at that).  And these are among the French, the least
>analytically inclined of the "Continentals".  The Germans are quite
>familiar with the analytic approach:  Karl-Otto Apel springs to mind, and
>if I was more familiar with German I'm sure I could name more.	Deutsch
>philosophy has really come to think of Heidegger as something of an
>aberration of the thirties (along with much else), and with the decline
>of Marxism's influence, even the tradition of the Frankfurt school has
>been neglected or put in the hands of more traditional `social sciences'
>(e.g., Claus Offe's works).  Habermas isn't just complaining about
>political "conservatives".

I should have said `major analytic philosopher'.

MSR:
>      As for Ricoeur, I'd hardly label him even a borderline case,
>unless you broaden analytic to include Husserl or anyone who isn't
>a poststructuralist (which would include most French philosophers).

What's wrong with Husserl?  He was, after all, trained as a mathematician,
and paid close attention to the criticism of Frege.

JMC:
>>>2. Progress in philosophy is actually being made, i.e. some things
>>>are understood now that weren't understood until recently.  This
>>>progress is being made entirely with the analytic methodology.
>>>"Continental" philosophy has no real standard of argument.
>>>Heidegger is incoherent in any language.

MSR:
>      "Progress" being defined as...?  (In the sense of understanding
>things now that weren't `understood' before, I rather think that both
>Heidegger and Derrida, just to cite the two foremost subjects of anti-
>Continental pillory, have contributed significantly to understanding
>the nature of "philosophical progress" itself (e.g., Derrida's "White
>Mythology")

Not that his observations were terribly original, either: Protagoras had
him beat by 2 1/2 millenia.

MZ:
>>"There is no doctrine put forward which cannot cite in its defence some
>>explicit statement of one of this group of thinkers [i.e. philosophers from
>>Descartes to Hume], or of one of the two founders of all Western thought,
>>Plato and Aristotle." (A.N.Whitehead)
>>
>>Heidegger with his fondness for Heraclitus the Dark may be a conspicuous
>>exception to the above;

MSR:
>      Doubtful; Heidegger was, at least for a while in the 20s and 30s,
>was intensely interested in Aristotle, who...

Augustine says that man was perfectly whole before the Fall; alas, even if
you take the old hypocrite at his word, this has little bearing on his
present state.

MZ:
>>on the other hand, the father of analytical
>>philosophy is surely none other than Aristotle.

MSR:
>      For someone who might be a genuine exception to Whitehead's
>epigraph, try Michel Serres (who, of course, Whitehead [and others]
>would never recognize as a philosopher).

Not being in the habit of issuing certificates of authenticity, I'll limit
myself to observing that "La Communication" contains numerour references to
the above.

MZ:
>> While it is true that
>>progress in philosophy is actually being made, in the sense that some
>>things are understood now that weren't understood until recently, it is
>>also true that the new, improved, mathematical (remember Spinoza) arguments
>>still have to rely on good old philosophical intuition, appeals to which
>>are to be found in the writings of analytic philosophers as diverse as
>>Church, Quine, Putnam, Kripke, and Dummett.

MSR:
>      A good point.

Michael, you flatterer, are you trying to provoke me?

MZ:
>>Worse, a renegade like Rorty
>>can appropriate the analytic methodology in order to argue on behalf of
>>nihilistic Heideggerian obscurantism (not to be confused with obscurity).

MSR:
>      A cheap shot.

However, it's not meant as a cheap shot against the obscurantists, odious
as they are, but rather as a cheap shot against McCarthyist analytic
philosophy cheerleading.

MZ:
>>The Great Questions are still with us; most are quite unlikely to be
>>resolved with any standard of reasoning whatsoever.

MSR:
>      Indeed, the very concept of a "standard of reasoning" may become
>as questionable as The Great Questions.

Not if mathematics and the sciences are allowed to retain any degree of
credibility.  Do you seriously believe that the posterity will be as kind
to Derrida and Heidegger as to G\"odel and Einstein?  Skeptical arguments
come and go, but a theorem is forever.

JMC:
>>>3. My opinion is that AI will cause big changes in analytic
>>>philosophy.  Contemplating how to make programs that acquire
>>>information and reason with it will straighten out epistemology
>>>and philosophy of mind.  I expect it will be another 30 years
>>>before all analytic philosophy graduate students know a reasonable
>>>amount about AI.

MCR:
>      At which point it will merely be the analytic philosophy of
>artificial intelligence, or "cognitive science" or whatever...
>Bertrand Russell would be proud.

`whatever' is right on target...

MZ:
>>All of AI presupposes a particular choice of epistemology and philosophy of
>>mind; consequently, it is as likely to "straighten out" these disciplines,
>>as Baron Munchausen -- to pull himself up by his hair.

MSR:
>      Mikhail, if I didn't know you to be the rationalist relic that
>you are, I'd almost think from this (very apt) statement that you were
>edging into the Rortyean relativism you so despise.

Of course in classifying me as a "rationalist relic", you are implicitly
assuming the very idea of philosophical eschatology you so earnestly strive
to overturn.  Consistency is indeed the hallmark of a small mind...

>Cordially,
>
>M.S. Rooney
>
>"Il n'est de pur mythe que l'idee d'une science pure de tout mythe."

"There's no business like show business."

More profound, and more pithy.

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: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :
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