Excerpts & Link
*In my view, a lot of
original work in contemporary philosophy happens where people are
self-consciously going beyond the various artificial borders that make dialogue
hard. Unfortunately, dogmatism is as widespread among philosophers as their
respect for free thought, speech, and originality. But dogmatism and ignorance
(however widespread) are still not virtues to be cultivated by philosophers.
*And I also agree that
philosophy cannot be reduced to a bunch of unrelated arguments. Any philosophy
– whether identified as analytic or continental – that has made an impact
indeed is built around a view, or an overall vision. This holds of Deleuze and
Butler as much as of Brandom or Chalmers.
*I am interested in
revisiting the conceptual links between fiction and imagination and their
connection to the human mind insofar as it is embedded in social contexts.
*What I like about the
realist turn in continental circles is that in the work of figures associated
with Speculative Realism we get arguments embedded in large-scale philosophical
visions rather than the kind of fluffy exegesis and endless litanies that critics
of continental philosophy identify with the practice as such.
If you read both
contemporary so-called ‘analytical’ metaphysics and the debates in Speculative
Realism, it soon turns out that both debates converge in manifold ways. Yet,
Speculative Realism in my view is more advanced due to its historical context
which involves a much more original understanding of the history of metaphysics
and its various shortcomings. Both debates are haunted by various kinds of
criticisms of metaphysics (Carnap and Quine on the one hand, Kant in between
and Heidegger and Derrida on the other hand, say, and Wittgenstein making a
comeback to) and all participants offer various grounds to resist the critique
of metaphysics.
Generally, I do not
believe that there has ever really been a substantial rift between analytic and
continental philosophy, but rather different moments of a complicated debate
among philosophers, traditions and so on.
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