It's an understandably slow week for blogs. I'm somewhat busy, so I'll not write too much. I didn't get as many books this Christmas as in previous ones. However my wife did pick up Mark Rowland's Externalism: Putting Mind and World Back Together Again. I've wanted that for some time. I've only glanced through it, reading the first few chapters. It has a chapter on Continental philosophy but focuses in on Sartre rather than Heidegger. At first I was a tad annoyed by this, but I think I've come around. Heidegger, as most of you know, has a rather convoluted vocabulary. And what is worse the vocabulary changes with time. You'd end up spending more than a chapter just explaining the basics of Heidegger's philosophy. While Sartre massively misreads Heidegger, at least his perspective is easier to present. I'm not a Sartre fan, but I can understand this.
Rowland argues, quite rightly in my opinion, that Husserl is basically a Cartesian and that the change with the Heideggarians is largely a move from Cartesian internalism to externalism. I've mentioned that here before many times, especially in connection to Timothy Williamson's Knowledge and Its Limits. (Here among others) What makes Rowland's book interesting is that by discussing the various kinds of externalism - especially Putnam's - I think he offers an interesting way of bridging the Analytic-Continental divide.
As many know, I think it is a silly divide. But I'll write on that a later time. I do think, however, that there are many analytic philosophers who are writing on topics discussed in Continental Philosophy who offer useful insights and arguments. (Putnam, Williamson, Rowland and others are obvious examples) I further think that Analytic philosophers could learn a lot from Continental thinkers. And there are a lot of parallels. Clearly there are many points of contact between Davidson and Quine and various Continental writers. Unfortunately far too many Continental writers think that philosopher consists of the three H's (Husserl, Hegel and Heidegger) and then philosophers who comment on them. There is admittedly the style issue. But Brian Leiter can write about Nietzsche despite Thus Spake Zarathustra, so I think analytic philosophers ought be able to write about Continental figures despite Derrida's demonstrative and experimental phase in the 70's and 80's. And analytic philosophers and cognitive scientists seem to be willing to engage with Sartre, despite all his plays and similar writings.
I got a bunch of great books for Christmas:
The Cambridge Companion to John Rawls
The Social Construction of What? by Ian Hacking
The Intentional Stance by Daniel Dennett
Natural Justice by Ken Binmore
Mind in Science by Richard Gregory
Construtction of Social Reality by John Searle
Synaptic Self by Joseph Ledoux
Society of Mind by Marvin Minsky
Through the Moral Maze by Robert Kane
Evolution of the Social Contract by Brian Skyrms
The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social Structure by Brian Skyrms
The Astonishing Hypothesis by Francis Crick
Wider Than the Sky by Gerald Edelman
A Universe of Consciousness by Gerald Edelman
Descartes' Error by Antonio Damasio
Rational Ritual by Michael Suk-Young Chwe
Needless to say, I'll be busy for a while to come.
I unfortunately am so far behind on my reading that I have a pile sufficiently large that I don't need more right now.
I've closed comments in order to avoid spam since I don't check this older blog as much anymore.
and Theology
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Blogged by Clark Goble