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Visions of Philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2009

David E. Cooper
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Extract

Characterizations of philosophy abound. It is ‘the queen of the sciences’, a grand and sweeping metaphysical endeavour; or, less regally, it is a sort of deep anthropology or ‘descriptive metaphysics’, uncovering the general presuppositions or conceptual schemes that lurk beneath our words and thoughts. A different set of images portray philosophy as a type of therapy, or as a spiritual exercise, a way of life to be followed, or even as a special branch of poetry or politics. Then there is a group of characterizations that include philosophy as linguistic analysis, as phenomenological description, as conceptual geography, or as genealogy in the sense proposed by Nietzsche and later taken up by Foucault.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 65 , October 2009 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2009

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References

1 Peter Strawson compared the ‘analysis’ engaged in by the ‘descriptive metaphysician’ with the enquiries of the theoretical linguist into the ‘deep structures’ of languages. See his Analysis and Metaphysics: An Introduction to Philosophy, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).

2 On Heideggerian ‘poetry’ and Marx's ‘politics’ as expressions of conceptions of philosophy, see Rorty, Richard, ‘Philosophy as science, as metaphor, and as politics’, in his Essays on Heidegger and Others, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, (London: Macmillan, 1969), §1.

4 Mulhall, Stephen, Inheritance and Originality: Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 36ff.Google Scholar

5 ‘Philosophical progress in language theory’, Metaphilosophy 1, 1970, 1.

6 See the selections from the Nyāya-Sutras and Nāgārjuna in Cooper, David E. and Fosb, Peter S. (eds.), Philosophy: The Classic Readings, (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009)Google Scholar.

7 Selected Philosophical Writings, trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 98.

8 World Philosophies: An Historical Introduction, 2nd ed., Oxford: Blackwell, 2003; The Measure of Things: Humanism, Humility and Mystery, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002).

9 See Hegel's Encyclopedia of Logic, §194, and Phenomenology of Spirit, §12 and §195.

10 See the Preface to Rorty's Consequences of Pragmatism, (Brighton: Harvester, 1982).

11 The Sickness Unto Death, in , H. and Hong, E. (eds.), The Essential Kierkegaard, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 363Google Scholar.

12 Metaphysical Horror, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988).

13 Science of Knowledge, trans. P. Heath and J. Lachs, (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1970), 9ff.

14 Being and Nothingness, trans. H. Barnes, (London: Methuen, 1957), 552.

15 On Marcus Aurelius, see the illuminating discussion in Hadot, Pierre, Philosophy as a Way of Life, trans. Chase, M., (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 190ff and 250ffGoogle Scholar.